Tour History
Odessa December 1 — 10, 2005
Once again it was time for another trip to Odessa. I was looking forward to this trip because the second city was to be Nikolaev and that was one of my favorites. I left my home at 10am the morning of Nov. 30th being sure to double check my luggage before I left. I arrived at New York’s JFK airport at 2pm. I was one of the first there but the others followed shortly behind. As usual, I stayed near the entrance of the airport, trying to find the other men on the tour, before checking my luggage and walking past security to the departure gate. By now most of the men had found me, or vise versa, and there was nothing left to do but answer questions and wait. The flight, scheduled for 6:30pm was on time and we were on our way. We must have caught a tail wind because before I knew it we were in Vienna and working our way towards the flight which would take us into Odessa.
We arrived in Odessa early and as usual one person’s luggage was lost. This seemed to be a common occurrence, averaging once per tour, and was always quickly resolved, so it was no cause for alarm. The Anastasia staff helped the individual fill out the necessary papers then we took a short bus ride to the Hotel. Once again we were staying at the Hotel Odessa which is the nicest hotel the city had to offer. After checking in and giving the men a little time to settle in their rooms we met for the orientation where we spent an hour explaining what to expect over the next 9 days. Afterwards, we went to the Steak house for the optional dinner and answered more questions and relaxed after a long day’s journey.
The next two day’s were filled with socials only a few blocks from the Hotel. As expected, there were easily over 300 ladies at each but to my surprise there were a lot of ladies I had not seen before. This group of men wasted no time in accumulating phone numbers and contacts for the week ahead. It was great to see almost all the men with dinner dates by the end of the socials.
The following day, Sunday, there was a social scheduled in a new night club in the city of Nikolaev. Since I had not been to this club before, I didn’t know what to expect. We arrived there early, about 12:45 and already the place was packed and I do mean packed. Well over 500 ladies were already there and there was standing room only. It was obvious this was going to be a huge problem so the Anastasia staff began calling around to other local night clubs to see if they could better accommodate us. Luckily they were able to find a club only a few blocks away so the task of moving the party began. It went much smoother than I expected and everyone was happy this decision was made. A big Yaa Hoo for Margarita, Irina and Karina! The down side to this move was that even though we had gone to a larger club there were still over 200 ladies that weren’t able to get in since they were still coming as we were moving. I couldn’t help but feel bad for all the ladies that spent their morning preparing for this event much less the cost of them getting there only to be turned away. Needless to say the men were extremely happy with the odds and quite a few decided to stay the night in Nikolaev. That left a little room on the bus for the men wanting to bring a lady back to Odessa with them.
The week following the socials was filled with tours of the city, museums and a trip to the catacombs which a lot of men and ladies attended, dates, dinners and a lot of fun. Then, before you know it we were all gathering for the farewell dinner. Once again the time seemed to fly by but already 4 men had become engaged and more were thinking about it and almost everyone was talking about returning to Odessa in the near future.
The trip back to the states went smooth and since the airline put us up at a hotel right across the street from the airport in Vienna we had time to go into town and enjoy some of the sights.
This trip was by far the best I had ever been on and the group of men was no exception. I only hope that future tours will follow in this one’s footsteps. Thanks again Anastasia for a truly wonderful time and the many new friends I’ve made as a result of this trip.
Author: Todd Brunswick
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