The road between Kiev and Odessa is one of the better in Ukraine, but it still had its potholes, people selling stuff and cattle grazing along the way. There were also a fair amount of police cars waiting around the bends to hook in unsuspecting drivers, but this time I managed to stay clear (I only drove like a madman when the coast was clear or when I was tailing another car, figuring they'd take him first and then not have the capacity to deal with me (this actually worked once!).
The landscape for most of the trip was pretty dull, although as we started to approach Odessa it became slightly more varied. My Ukrainian friends were pointing and talking about the lovely "hills". I just gave a cool shrug and said "in Norway, this would be considered a plain". We drove around a bit before finally finding a place to park, and went into a local restaurant to get lunch. The place was called "Kompot", and that, indeed, was their specialty - as food and as drinks (with and without alcohol). It wasn't bad, though a bit rich if you had too much.
Alla and Natasha:
As usual the food was slow, but good and cheap. After lunch I drove the girls out to a small town just outside Odessa, where they would be spending their holidays. Then I went back to try and find my hotel, the Komsomolskaya. I had booked the room online, at what I thought was a fair price for the room described, which was of course not at all what I was getting. It was ugly, mouldy, stuffy and horrible and the bathroom... a friggin nightmare. The toilet wasn't working properly (I'll spare you the details), and the old guy they sent up to fix it didn't really repair it as much as gave it a slight life extension. The shower was simply a rubber hose attached to a regular tap and the drain was partly blocked. The whole place was just filthy and yucky.
Naturally, there was no sympathy and no help to be found down at the reception desk. I was told that I could get an upgrade the next morning, but that absolutely every room was taken for now, so I just had to deal with it. I resigned to the fact that nothing would move the stonehearted, stonefaced employee behind the desk, and arranged for the upgrade - for which I had to pay an additional $60. I should mention here that the hotel has one thing going for it - all the girls I saw working in the reception area during my two days there were all stunningly pretty. But mark my words; they are heartless. Heartless, I tell you!
