The lady here at the hostel hates me. Maybe it is because I am older then the other guests. Maybe she thinks I'm ugly. How do I know?-because she asked me to go to the Odessa railway station to buy a ticket for tomorrow's journey to Kiev. She even wrote a little note in Ukrainian for me to give to the person at the ticket window.
I would say the ticket windows are like a zoo-but a zoo seems sort of orderly-the animals wait in their cages for food. At the train station, there are two halls of 4 windows each. Each window had approximate 7-12 people waiting on line and seemed to take forever. Seems like people we're constantly trying to cut the lines, etc. Additionally, if one person was in line ahead of me and inching closer to the ticket window, three of his friends would come out of nowhere and join the line.
I finally made it to the ticket window. I wanted the 23:30 Friday night train to Kiev-the lady just moaned and nodded-it turns out the train for the FOLLOWING DAY was sold out. I asked about other trains. She didn't speak any English so she had no idea what I was saying. She directed me to an information booth.
I found the information booth. I learned there was a 5:47 am train to Kiev Sat morning. A little early but I would be in Kiev by 1:00 pm-so not too bad. I went back to the ticket window. Same thing-people trying to cut in line, friends joining people in front. When I was 2nd in line, A woman, with two small kids, and two friends with her asked if she could get in front of me (I think-she didn't speak English so I am assuming so-I use my non-familiarity with Ukrainian to my advantage!). When it was my turn-she then proceeded to shove her money in front of me to the ticket agent. I just handed the agent the peace of paper the person at the hostel gave me (I figured I would see once more if there was any more room on the night train). Once again there wasn't-but I was able to get a seat on the 5:47. I felt sort of guilty not letting the lady with kids get in front of me, but (A) I knew I had to move on through the country-since I am leaving in a week-and I wanted to ensure I left Odessa soon to go to Kiev and possibly Lviv, and (B) That lady and her kids was annoying.
