July 11

We docked in Odessa Ukraine around 8:00am and were met by Tom Ruud, my friend &attorney from Rockford, IL and his fiancee Olichka (Ola) who is from central Ukraine.  We walked to the flat they had rented for a week and caught up on happenings since we last saw Tom 2 years ago.  It was the first time we had met Ola.  We celebrated with a Ukrainian champagne, cheese & fruit and then walked around the beautiful city.  The first place we went was the Potemkin Steps and climbed the few hundred steps to the top.  There were young people carrying peacocks, hawks & monkeys offering to let us have our picture taken with them (for a fee of course.)  The Opera house is a spectacular edifice but, unfortunately, we were unable to tour the interior.  We stopped at a Madrassa Winery outlet to taste some interesting Ukrainian wine & port.  As we were walking to Tom & Ola's favorite restaurant  it began to rain and we had to stand under an awning for about 1/2 hour before we could dash to a bar to wait it out.  Rain was coming horizontal for awhile and branches were ripped off trees.  There was some severe flooding around town including a street a block away from us where water was up to the windows of cars.  Once it let up enough to go outside we went to the restaurant for a Ukrainian lunch.  We began with something like pot stickers (the name is beyond me and spelled in Cyrillic) and we had chicken, mushroom & potato versions.  The cabbage salad was unique & delicious.  We also sampled some vodka made at the restaurant.  The main courses were pork chops stuffed with cheese & tomato with a flavorful spicing and pork ribs in a chili sauce.  Everything was delicious.  We had a long leisurely lunch and made it back to the port just in time for final boarding at 4:30.  In spite of the rain, it was a delightful visit and it was nice to have a leisurely day.  We had dinner with Giovanni, the ship's Chief Engineer and another couple we didn't know before and had a great meal and conversation.