that was odessa

After a mere hour or so waiting to get off the boat and go through customs, we were finally in Odessa. We had a total of 7 hrivny (about a euro) and there didn't seen to be a bank machine that accepted foreign cards at the port, but we knew it wasn't too far into town, as i had cleverly downloaded the map of odessa on my GPS phone (about which more later) and decide to slip the sir off taxi and walk into town with a couple of our new friends from the ferry, keeping an eye out for internet and hotels along the way.
The plan pretty much worked, although we discovered that hotels are few and far between, but, with the help of a net cafe, we found one after only a few hours of wandering around in 40 degree heat with our packs on, and it was only slightly overpriced. And apparently still under construction. I think we were the first people to use our room, as there was still plastic on the shower fitting. And the window didn't have a handle to close it. And it lacked curtains. And there was a great big metal beam diagonally across the middle of the room, but i gather that was a permanent fixture.
After that, and another similar walk from one end of town and back again to find dinner (sometimes it can be hard to find the post of cheap local stuff we wanted!) we figured we had seen enough of Odessa and decided to leave the next morning for Moldova.
While going to collect our breakfast from the reception desk (it seems the dining hall was also under construction, so we got a packed breakfast of one warm juice popper, one warm UHT yogurt, a wafer biscuit, a chocolate bar and a teabag) we met a polish couple just checking in who had a Lonely Planet guide to Europe on a Shoestring. When we asked to look at it to find a hotel in moldova (we knew there had to be one), they kindly lent it to us. Perusing it over breakfast , i learnt about the existance of Transdniestr, and decided that, as it was right on our way, we should stop there. We also photographed all the relevant sections of the guide before we have it back, so we should be a little less in the dark for the rest of the trip!