First day in Odessa

The day started with my finding Chris and retrieving my groundcloth, which I had loaned him for the evening to sleep on the somewhat hard rocks (I found it pleasant enough). Lucy, Sasha, Sarah and I made it out to the tram, and headed for a small cafeteria to have some pre-prepared breakfast. This was a nice change from cooking my own food and eating from petrol stations, and I very nicely enjoyed a few glasses of fruit juice, and a cup of steamed milk (I thought I was going to have a Mocha, but surprise! It was pleasant enough). We met Reese and three Lithuanians at the cafeteria, and had a pleasant group breakfast. Just as we were leaving, a much larger group of folks appeared; Reese and I greeted people, and headed for the park.
Once back at the park, we hung out for hours, meeting people (again), exchanging ideas, and planning for the day. At some point, introductory Russian lessons began, and we quickly formed a circle around a Russian girl giving lessons. I wrote most down in my notebook, with English, transliteration, and Cyrillic of the basic necessary phrases. These proved to be extremely useful in my later quest of decoding Cyrillic. We organized a flash mob (somewhat of a failure), a tour around the city was graciously provided free by a local tour guide in both English and Russian (I did not attend, but instead spent the time chatting with friends and playing with some Swedish guy's firestaff), and mostly I spent the day hanging out meeting other hitch-hikers. At some point a small group of Russian travelers appeared, and I met Anatoly, my Russian friend! Though he did not speak much English, we got along quite well, and shared beers, vodka, food and stories (with the help of one of his friends whom was translating). He stated, and I agreed, on the following statement:
“World says F*ck Russia. World says F*ck USA. Therefore we brothers!”
Truer statements have not been made.
After some time, I met Igor, a somewhat local Ukrainian whom has spent the past six years training in some Ukrainian military martial art (kadykalishnov?). He proceeded to demonstrate techniques to me for an hour or so, and was quite adamant that Alpha, the Ukrainian special forces, were the best in the world. Compared to what I have heard from Ryan, whom is currently in SEAL school, we don't have anything to fear from the Ukrainians; I kept my mouth shut. After a while, a representative from Elbe, the Ukrainian hitch-hiking club, made a small speech. Unfortunately, Igor kept interrupting and trying to get me to drink some beer, ending with my telling him that I REALLY needed to hear this talk, and if he would please find me afterwards. After the talk, in which we were all invited to attend one of the gatherings (I would love to go to one, eventually), Igor found me again and, along with one of his friends, proceeded to attempt to teach me local Ukrainian curses, while shouting as loud as they could every English curse they knew. I grew bored of this, and soon wandered away, finding a group assembling and discussing various experiences of hitch-hiking and free travel.
At some point, people agreed to head to the beach, and so we did. I lead the first group, simply by pointing out that all anyone needed was Momentum, so I simply started to walk. Quickly others followed, and soon I realized that I did not have any idea where I was going. Fortunately, I was with Robin, Valentina, and Tau, and with friends, you can never be truly lost. So we walked, and walked, and walked...Eventually finding our destination. I sat on the road with my blinky red light for a while, writing some poetry in my journal and directing other folks to head down to the beach from where I was sitting. Just before I headed down myself, a local Ukrainian came up to chat with me. Unfortunately, I do not speak a word (well, at the time anyway) of Ukrainian, and quickly he realized this. Abandoning his attempt at conversation, he left with the following words of wisdom: “Life is good.” With this sentiment in mind, I walked down to the beach to join friends.
Quickly, I dropped my pack and met up with Cliff, a Taiwanese guy whom had moved to Canada when he was 13. We headed off to the 24h supermarket, Cliff to pick up food, myself to prepare for a party which was not really going to happen. A bottle of Moldovian wine (great for the price), a carton of local white wine (for the winos, myself included), some Red Bull (just in case, and for tomorrow morning. I hate the stuff, but it might be necessary and beat coffee for the time being), and some snacks. We returned to the beach, where I met Patryk, along with my Russian friends (including Anatoly, whom was unfortunately too drunk to stand up). We passed around a guitar and took turns telling stories (I did not partake in playing the guitar) until people were too tired and slowly drifted off to sleep. I shared the bottle of wine until it was gone, and when most were getting ready to go to sleep, I went in search of others. Soon enough, I found a member of Elbe, whom unfortunately did not speak much English. I would pull over translators as I saw them pass (Marten helped quite a bit, until he went to sleep), until a young Ukrainian girl came over to translate in perfect English, as long as kept feeding her some of the wine (the Elbe member and I both had liter cartons of wine, so this conversation lasted a while). In the end, I gave the poor freezing girl my jacket, and eventually my sleeping bag, at which point she passed out. I moved on once again, found myself in a group of Russians whom spoke NO English whatsoever, and still spent some time laughing, singing, drinking wine, and attempting conversation.
Patryk came up to me suddenly, stating that I MUST be able to help. Misha had somehow lost his sleeping bag (it turns out someone had given it away), and was looking for somewhere to sleep. I had already given my sleeping bag to someone, and so I dug out my thermals and gave them to Misha. Though not a great way to sleep, they would help. He climbed into a tent (which apparently had a couple already in it..oops!), and crashed. I returned to my friends, whom were all knocking off for the night. One of the Russians, cuddled up next to me, probably to absorb the heat which I am infamous for. Soon, wearing only shorts, and wrapped in my tarp, I lay down, cuddling with this Russian whom was speaking to me in a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, and not understanding a single word I said. At points, she would gesture to someone, either the big Russian guy meditating on a rock, or someone stumbling past, and then at random points she would look and me and say the only English word she seemed to know: Speak. And so I did, in the waning moonlight (it was nearly 3AM I assume), drawing on my amazing poetic powers and spouting our random on-the-spot poetry, which unfortunately I am completely unable to reproduce. It was something of a combination of the lack of communication, our misunderstandings, the beauty of the moment, and whatever else I could find which rhymed well. She eventually went back to her tent (which I discovered the next morning contained her boyfriend), and I crashed out to the rising sun. Wrapped only in my tarp, clad in shorts, and with a heavy wind blowing, I went to sleep, dreaming of hitch-hiking all over the world...