Today the weather was still cold and windy. Watching the news on the tv on the ship we saw that the weather has gotten cold in Europe as well as here.
We had several hours on our own before the ship sailed at 3pm. One of the things that sold us on this cruise was the overnight in Odessa as well as in Istanbul.
Since we are docked so close to the city we can walk up the Potemkin stairs and be in the heart of downtown Odessa.
We walked up the famous Potemkin steps to the city center on a quest for souvenirs. We went to an arcade (small covered shopping area) where we found a souvenir store that was open and that took Visa card.
We bought two music boxes and some other stuff and we charged them on the visa. In the store we met a local guide who took us to the local handmade chocolate store and helped us buy chocolates. This store was fabulous- they had chocolates made into different shapes as well as types of chocolate. They had some chairs to sit and enjoy hot liquid chocolate too!
Currency exchange is a real problem. If our friend the guide did not use his special card with the cashier we could have not used our Euros to purchase the two boxes of chocolates. Since we had change coming from our purchase the cashier could not give us Euros nor Hryvnias so we took our change in the form of chocolates!
The guide then showed us the way to the Athens Mall which was built by a Greek Odessan.
We gave him a keychain as a friendship gift.
We toured the mall which was 3 levels and very modern- but no one spoke English.
We had lunch on the ship and I decided to go to the cafe in the terminal ( which was very close to the ship) to try and use the Internet. After trying to find out how much a coffee was I discovered I needed to convert $3.00 into Hryvnias as the cafe could not accept dollars or Euros and I had left my Visa card on the ship.
The waiters allowed me to have coffee and use the wifi on my IPad and to pay them after the currency exchange office opened at 2pm. When I went there I discovered I needed my passport to change $. Fortunately ahead of me in line was a guest I met yesterday on the tour who was changing money and he changed my money along with his. We went to the cafe, paid the bill with a fifty and I gave him (the guest) the change (had 24 Hryvnias & the bill for the coffee was 19).
I wonder how tourists are going to fare in Socha site of the winter olympics with trying to buy food and souvenirs since one cannot use those currencies in the Ukraine. One must either go to an exchange booth or use a credit card.
When I saw my friend change $80 to the Ukrainian currency it took at least 10 mins since the clerk had to fill our forms with six copies and examine his passport.
I knew that we will have problems with currency in Sevastopol and Yalta if we want to buy souvenirs there. I did try and buy Hryvnias at home at the bank and currency exchange office but they could not get them.
Headed back to ship since it departs at 3pm.
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