The first indication of how interesting our evening would be was probably the pregnant drug addict on the bus. She got on, sort of twitching and acting strange, then pointed right in my face and said something very loudly in Russian. Volodya (the pastor guy I was sitting next to) translated for me. She had said, “Give me your water!” So I did and she drank the whole bottle.

We were on our way downtown where Volodya had a meeting at the church apartment. Afterwards he promised to take me around to an older part of town to take photos of the buildings. I had mentioned my attraction to old crumbly things before. Natasha (his wife) and Zoe were going to come also but turns out, everybody got sick! The complaints included neck and back aches, fever, nausea, constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, sore throat, coughing, kidney pain, and headaches. Like some sort of strange pandemic, no two people had the same symptoms! Luckily, Volodya and I felt fine so we left the sick to tend the sick and headed downtown.

The first strange thing that happened was the woman on the bus taking my water. Then we walked by two people screaming at each other. Right as we passed, the guy grabbed the girl’s purse and started dumping it out, throwing things in the air, ripping papers and then stomping everything into the ground. Needless to say, I began to question the safety of the neighborhood.

Next came a dogfight that erupted, of course, when we were directly between the territorial canines. I don’t know why they waited until we walked in between to notice each other. Don’t worry, I leaped forward several steps with Volodya walking calmly behind me and we both escaped unscathed. I might have been a tad bit jumpy.

A few minutes later, we saw a dead cat--which I morbidly took three pictures of. Then we walked by a coffin factory, with heaps of wood and of course, many “boxes for dead people” as Volodya explained to me. I also took pictures of this place. Might as well sign me up for the Adam’s Family.

As Volodya talked about the history of Odessa, I continued taking photos of the dilapidated buildings. He told me not to walk underneath the old balconies because he had seen in the news that some girls had been killed when their balcony broke off from the building, with them in it. I heeded his warning and avoided the under areas of balconies but also thought to myself, “Really though, the likelihood that a balcony will break just at the moment we happen to be walking under it, isn’t very high.” A few seconds later, we heard a violent crash behind us and there, on the sidewalk, lay a very large piece of the building we had just walked by. The extreme coincidence of this moment blows my mind. I don’t even know what else to say about it. We both sort of giggled nervously and walked a lot closer to the street but things like that, you just can’t prevent! Life is so fragile. One minute you’re walking down the street and the next you’re in the hospital or maybe taking a visit to the coffin factory!

When we got to the end of the street we decided to take a tram to a Ukrainian restaurant for dinner. We’ve only been riding buses, trains and taxis so I felt excited to try some new type of transportation. This enthusiasm waned quickly when Volodya told me a story while we waited. When he was in college, he was waiting at that very stop and saw an old woman’s legs get cut off when the tram ran her over. I’ve never been so horrified by any story anyone has ever told me. My stomach actually felt queasy.

The last part of our evening adventure turned out much better. We went to the Ukrainian restaurant and had ice cream for dinner. Both of us are very partial to sweets, so that was the most delicious dinner ever! Then we saw a few more sights, told funny stories and laughed hysterically. I got a feel for his sense of humor and told him a few stories about my childhood. His favorite story was one about my dog.

I lived in the country and my mom would drive to our bus stop to pick us up because it was a mile from our house. Our dog liked to come along and his favorite thing was to ride on the very front of the hood--wind in his face, ears flappin’, I’m sure you can picture it.

One day, on the way back from the bus, my dog saw a gopher, jumped off the front of the car and my mom ran him over! Everyone in the car started screaming and she slammed the brakes hard. Luckily, my dog only had a broken leg and just had to hop around with a cast for a while. Volodya thought this was the funniest thing he’d ever heard in his life. Both of us laughed until we could barely breathe.

We took a taxi home and passed a limousine with “Oregon” license plates. I was pretty much the happiest ever about that, though I have no idea how it got here. When I arrived home, poor Zo had an even higher fever and felt awful. I curled up on her bed next to her for a while and asked if she had taken Tylenol, needed water, etc but she didn’t need anything. So I went to bed. Currently, it’s 1pm the next day and she still hasn’t risen. I might go check if she’s still breathing…