мкдоналдс

McDonald's is just down the street from Tanya, who lives on the Lt. Shmidt Street (near Italian Boulevard), and near the train station, or "vox-all." We were meeting a friend's brother who was from England for the first time the day after we arrived. We decided on McDonald's because of the proximity and our familiarity of Mickey D's and being newly arrived from the french-fried West.

Peter (in yellow with Vlad) stuck out like a Westerner as much as we did. We walked away from McDonald's and went around the square in front of the train station where people were selling tacky souvenirs, piles of dried shrimp, cell-phone paraphernalia and such. Stray dogs were everywhere. I noticed one in particular, sleeping in the middle of the promenade, as oblivous to the people as they were to him. The strays -- dogs and cats -- are one of my strongest memories of Odessa. And amid all these unwanted animals, people sell puppies and kittens on the streets all over town. Apparently spaying and neutering is unheard of here.

We met up with Vera, a friend of Vlad's and a new acquaintance of Peter's. We walked down to the sea, through town, past Vlad's family home, which is now fenced off and locked down as it's worth a fortune now and the family long since left.

We took a gondola ride on the tree-tops down to the beach. We looked at the new construction everywhere. Lots of hotels and condos going up on the Black Sea coast.

We found a bar that was open and sat outside with beers watching the ocean and the passers-by. I noticed many of the middle-aged and older people in Odessa have very lovely skin, nice tans and decent physiques. They walk a lot and exercise. Their health regimines include things like saunas, vodka sweats and swimming in freezing water. They tend to talk a lot about getting the toxins out of the body, even the ones smoking unfiltered cigarettes and swigging vodka.

My Diet Coke habit was something that everyone commented on. Most believe Diet Coke to be poison. They say I'm polluting myself, and yet they're puffing cigs when they tell me this. I think there's been some kind of disinformation campaign about Coke there. Local drink makers perhaps. It's odd that so many people found it worthy of warning me.

I managed to clean out the entire Diet Coke supply in one week in the two convenience stores on Tanya's street. That's not saying that much; I think they probably take delivery on Coke once a month.

We promised to take Dasha, Tanya's granddaughter, to McDonald's while we were there. It never worked out, but we brought some home to her a couple of days before we left. Tanya had never eaten there and poo-pooed it as Western decadence, but when we took her, her eyes lit up like Christmas.

I got a бiг теистi (Big Tasty), like a cross between a Big Mac and Quarter-Pounder. There was also the мкчикен (McChicken) and my favorite Cyrillic menu item: the филе-о-фиш (Filet-o-Fish).

The stop at McDonald's did not prove as interesting as I thought it might. It was basically the same. The food was tailored to local culture, which I expected. And the place was packed to the gills every time we walked by. Maybe because it's next to a train station? But in itself, that American-culture outpost said nothing about Odessa or the U.S. It was just an oddity.