Thanksgiving in
Pre-Departure
My Thanksgiving journey to Odessa began with my
arrival at the train ticket office (kassa) across the street from the train
station at 5:00 pm. to buy a ticket for the 5:30 train. Why did I wait till the last minute to buy
my ticket, you say? I didn’t. I tried to buy it on Sunday, but the kassa closes
at 3 p.m. on Sunday and I got there around 4 p.m. I followed the sign on the kassa back to the train station to buy
it from a special window inside. I
don’t know if the problem was that I wasn’t buying a same-day ticket or that I
did not have my passport with me (the university had taken it to prepare my
work permit), but she told me I had to come back tomorrow. I didn’t want to
take a chance on returning the next day without the passport and being
rejected, so I decided to wait until I could pick up my passport from Tamara,
the foreign teacher specialist. She said my passport would be ready on
Wednesday morning after 11 a.m.
Why didn’t I go to the station immediately after
picking up my passport on Wednesday? Because there was an audition/rehearsal at
the university at 11:00 and 1:00 that day for a poetry reading to be held
Friday, and four of my students were performing in it (three of whom were using
poems I had given them). I felt I
should be there to help my students in case they had any questions about the
meaning of the poems or how to pronounce words. I was in fact very glad I went to the rehearsal because they did
have questions and because it gave me a sneak preview of an event I would not
be able to witness in person.
The rehearsal ended at 1:30. That left me just enough
time to go home, whip up some pasta for two bites of lunch and a future dinner
on the train, grab my backpack, and go back to the university for a class from
2:30-4 that I had agreed to teach for another teacher. (Actually, I got there at 2:45, and I blame
it on being slowed down by the snow that was coming down and the layer of ice
underneath the snow). After class I had
hoped to get a taxi to the station, but the taxis kept driving by me without
stopping so I took the Metro instead.
I have to say that by the time I got out of the Metro
at the train station, I was feeling very nervous and wondering what I would do
if I could not get a ticket for the train.
Despite my nervousness, I couldn’t help but notice the beauty of the
moment. It was dusk and the lights from the cars on the road and from the
occasional streetlight were reflecting the snow, so that the snow seemed to be
glittering. It looked like pixie dust
or God’s special jar of silver glitter.
I got to the kassa and managed to get my ticket,
though I would have to sleep both ways in an upper berth. No problem. I was just happy to have a
bed. The downside was walking into my
kupe compartment and seeing 4 guys drinking beer. I thought (hoped) I had the
wrong compartment. But I didn’t. One guy was visiting from another
compartment. When he left my bunkmates
were eager to teach me slang words in Russian for toilet. I ended the conversation by pretending to
fall asleep.
Thanksgiving
Dinner
Originally, the plan was to try to cook a Thanksgiving
dinner at my colleague Kitty’s apartment.
I had brought stuffing mix, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie filling
(bought in America before I came here) for just this purpose. However, Kitty had happened to go to
Estrellita (the new Mexican restaurant) with some colleagues the week before,
and saw an advertisement for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for 95 gryvnias
(18 USD). She went ahead and bought a
ticket for each of us. The ticket said
dinner would be available from 7 p.m. on.
We didn’t want to go right away because we had had a good-sized lunch at
a Ukrainian restaurant--great borsch with garlic rolls called pampushki,
pilmeni soup, potato pancakes, and an alcoholic drink supposedly like root beer
but more sour. Also, I wanted to stop
at Hotel Londonskaya to buy a phone card to call my family. I ended up using the Utel phone card. It is very expensive; a 48 griven phone card
only gets about 8 minutes of call time.
But the calls were crystal clear so it was worth the cost.
We ended up at the restaurant at about 8:00 p.m. Inside the restaurant, there was a set of
tables on a raised platform. On one
side of the platform the tables were pushed together into one long table and
full of people. On the other side were
two booths separated by a space. Kitty
and I were seated at one of the booths.
At first we were the only ones in our section. Then a young couple was seated with us. Unfortunately, they did not speak very much
English—the chef (or maybe it was the waitress?) said they were Ukrainians who
were frequent patrons of the restaurant.
I knew only a smattering of Russian at that point. I tried to make what conversation I could in
Russian because I wanted to be open and friendly. But inside I was irritated.
This day was supposed to be my day as an American to celebrate my
holiday with my people. I had spent the
past two and a half months reaching out to Ukrainians. This was supposed to be my day off from
that. It didn’t help that the booth
next to us seemed to be full of friendly Americans whom I felt cut off
from. But I knew these thoughts were
selfish and rude and not in the spirit of the holiday and kept them to
myself.
Eventually though, we were able to push our two tables
together and meet the other parties at our now unified table. To Kitty’s left was Paul, a Peace Corps volunteer
in Odessa. He had spent some time in
the Washington area, and had worked in Georgetown. He even knew one of my favorite restaurants there (a French café
called Café La Ruche) and said he had worked right by there and went there a
lot. That was cool.
To Paul’s left was a Ukrainian whose name and role
completely escapes me. At the foot of the table was a man from South Dakota who
was doing business development in Odessa.
I told him I had been through South Dakota and thought it was a great
state. He was most impressed, though,
by the fact that I knew how to pronounce the state capital, Pierre, like a
local. (Most Americans would pronounce
it pee-AIR, but South Dakotans call it PEER.)
To Mr. South Dakota’s left was a 40-something man
(whose name also escapes me) from Florida who had been emailing a potential
Ukrainian bride and had come to meet her.
Unfortunately, when he arrived she told him her boyfriend was back in
town. Then she said she wanted to meet
with him on Saturday. It sounded like a
touchy situation. What concerned me
most about him though was that as the evening went on and he had more to drink,
he kept taking his American passport out, showing it to people, and then
putting it back in his back pocket. I
tried to warn him about crime in Odessa and how valuable an American passport
might be to someone here, but he wouldn’t listen. If he made it home to Florida with his passport still in his
possession it was a miracle.
The last party at the table was a man from Denmark with
his Ukrainian girlfriend. The
advertisement for the dinner said we would be eating Danish turkey, so I asked
him jokingly if he had brought the turkey with him from Denmark. He said actually he had—he was a supplier
for the restaurant. D’oh.
Kitty and I ordered a glass of red wine (not included
in the price) and chose our first course, a salad. I had the Caesar salad.
It had lettuce, something I hadn’t eaten in months.
The next course was a soup course. We had a choice of two soups—pumpkin soup,
or red and green pepper soup. Kitty
ordered the pumpkin and I ordered the pepper soup so we could each have a
taste. The pumpkin soup was a little
sweet but very, very good and creamy.
The pepper soup was half red and half lime green. It was also creamy,
tangy and delicious.
While waiting for the main course, Paul and a couple
of other guys decided to order a bottle of vodka. So we did three toasts followed by three rounds of shots.
Finally, a beautiful roasted turkey was wheeled
out. A few minutes later, the chef, an
American, came out and carved the turkey in front of us. Rather than getting individual plates of
food, our tables were presented with platters of carved turkey and large bowls
of au jus, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. (No sweet potatoes, but I hate sweet
potatoes so I didn’t miss them.) We
took helpings and passed the food around family style. Although I missed my family and wished I
could be with them, at that moment I felt like I was at home with a family, and
that was good enough for the time being.
After several helpings of food, it was time to pick a
dessert—pumpkin pie or apple pie. Of
course I picked pumpkin. It was
divine. But at the end of the meal I
thought I was going to pop. And I
thought I was never going to eat again.
In fact, the only thing I had for breakfast the next morning was Pepto
Bismol. Kitty complained that the
dinner was too long (we didn’t get out of there until after midnight) but I
thought it was just right.