Last night Miguello and I went downtown on a photosafari. Unlike major metropolitan cities, Tampa’s downtown is completely deserted by 7pm on weekdays and even on weekends unless there is a major event taking place at St. Petersburg Times Forum. So, being in downtown of Tampa “after hours” feels a bit weird - you’re in a what is supposed to be heavily populated/busy area, but there are no people around you. Trees, buildings, sidewalks look clean and well maintained, yet there are no signs of life anywhere.

So we walked around, snapped plenty of pictures and had a lot of fun. We will definitely do it again - there are plenty of interesting spots left yet to be photographed :) Out of almost 500 shots I snapped, I picked out about 30, and out of those I’m especially proud with may be two or three :-) But the entire gallery which I put together, actually turned out quite well. Have a look for yourself and let me know what you think!

Tampa Downtown Photosafari Gallery

Ever since I sold my condo which was right by the Flatwoods Park (I could literally hop a fence and be there, which I used to do all the time), I haven’t been riding much. For some reason it seems now like a lot of troubles getting a bike on a car rack, driving to the park, etc. I did go road biking few times this year, but haven’t managed to take my trek 4500 out much lately. So, a couple of days ago, all of a sudden I decided that I wanna go ride at Flatwoods and for the first time ever I took my D70 with me on the ride.

Unfortunately, it was kind of late when I left, so I didn’t get much time before dusk settled in. I snapped about a dozen of pictures and spent the rest of the time riding. What can I say… my back wasn’t up for it :) After about 40 mins it voiced its concerns regarding the length of the trip and then withing next 20mins, realizing that I’m not surrendering, it made my life really miserable :) But I did make it to the finish, clocking about an hour and thirty minutes for the entire ride (which is not much, considering all the stops for picture taking). Here is the gallery.

And here I am, back in Tampa. Return was relatively trouble-free - quick train ride from Odessa to Kiev followed by a 10 hour flight to JFK were more or less painless. Passing trough US Customs took less than 10 minutes (thanks to the green card). The weather at JFK, however, was a bit off - very foggy, which resulted in long delays on departures. We spent almost two hours sitting in the airplane, while taxing between runways from one queue to another, waiting for our turn to take off. Other than that - no complaints :)

Once again, I am very happy with Aerosvit - good service, smooth flight. I also liked JetBlue aircrafts - plenty of leg room in every row, just like the exit rows on Delta airplanes. As a matter of fact, I was a bit out of luck this time - I booked myself an exit row seat not realizing that first, I am actually not getting anymore leg room and second, that I am loosing seat recliner! So, I guess next time I’ll stay away from exit rows on JetBlue :-)

All vacations have to end eventually, as they say… Three weeks flew by as if they were three days. It feels that I just came here, and it’s time to go already - from the coast of the Black Sea, back to the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.

In these three weeks I feel that I accomplished a lot - I rested well, spent ample of time with my family, experienced Odessa and its surroundings and by the end, I felt almost like a local, like a native Odessit :) who lived here for many many years. It’s a beautiful city and as always I feel a bit sad that I have to leave. Did I mention that I also rested quite well ? ;-)

Last night I happened to catch a small orchestra playing popular tunes in the city gardens. Apparently they do it every Wednesday. While most of the people simply sat and enjoyed the wonderful open-air performance, some were not shy to dance, and kids were having a total blast :)

More pics here.

Long long time ago (I think sometime in the 80’s), a very good friend of our family gave me a very expensive (at the time) present - a “photo rifle” (as it was called back then). I think I was in high school when I got it and really, I wasn’t that much into photography. I played with it for a few months, found 300mm lens being quite inconvenient for taking landscape pictures (which was pretty much all I was doing with a camera back then) and put it away for many many years.

This time I dug it out of the “family closet” and took a closer look at the “wonder of Soviet engineering”. The camera was severely damaged (probably due to the multiple moves we made over the time), the lens itself was very dusty, and some of the metal parts of the “rifle” began to rust.

Overall the setup looks quite cool, I must admit :) However, considering this lens has no CPU, starts with aperture 4 (I think), and would require some sort of a converter to fit my D70, I decided that I don’t want this monster - it is a no match for my 70-200 f/2.8 VR anyways :-) So, I placed “for sale” ad on a local forum, got a couple of offers, and a week later sold it for $30. I’m glad it’ll serve somebody else, instead of collecting dust in our closet. The money went toward a new electric saw for my dad, who’s now building a family cabin with his own hands.

I got a little bit carried away taking pictures of sea gals “fishing”, and so I decided to dedicate them a separate album. These guys were literally pulling little fish out of the water or digging them out of the sand.

To my surpirse, lots of pictures turned out quite well and reuqired no post processing. I did have to crop most of them (200mm is definitely not enough for wildlife photography), but that was pretty much all I had to do. Enjoy!

Last two weekends we (the entire family :) managed to pull off a couple of out of town trips. Both times we went pretty much to the same place - a little town called Koblevo, about 40km north of Odessa. Because tourist season hasn’t begun around here (yet), most of the “remote beaches” are totally deserted, which is something you don’t get to experience anywhere in the city.

Doesn’t it look like Florida ? ;-) Fourty minutes drive was well worth it - not only we were almost alone on the entire mile-long stretch of the beach, but also coastal waters were a lot cleaner over there comparing to what you get to see within city limits. We wondered around, ate, went swimming, and pretty much enjoyed the surroundings. Last week’s trip pictures can be viewed here. During our first visit (actually, when we were on our way back home) we spotted a wild field of poppies which was an awesome photo opportunity for me :)

More pictures of the first trip is here.

“Culture shock” would be a good way to describe the way I felt my first day in Odessa. Every time I come here the city changes so much… And there is always soooo much going on around here. As we were driving home from the train station my brother proudly announced that he’s got us tickets to go see a Moscow jazz band (Trans Atlantic) playing with an American Jazz star - Eric Marienthal. I knew nothing about either one of them; however, it all sounded like fun anyways. Unfortunately, something came up at work and neither my brother nor my dad could make it to the concert that night, so my mom and I went by ourselves…

And what a concert it was! No words can express what we saw and heard… Eric, as well as the rest of the guys were simply incredible. My mom cried watching them play. After the concert I read few local blogs and everyone was simply stunned by their virtuosity and talent.

Luckly, I just happened to have my D70 with me (with the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR). I had to crank ISO all the way to 1000; however, built in noise reduction did a marvelous job as you can witness here.

That’s what it is :) Every year as I plan my vacation time, I try to factor in at least a couple of weeks with my family - my mom, dad and my brother. For the last five or six years they have been living in Odessa - a beautiful Ukranian city on the Black Sea. Usually, my trip to Ukraine also includes a stop over somewhere in Europe - I’ve always thought, since I’m flying all this way anyways, and since I have to connect somewhere in Europe anyhow, why not? That’s pretty much how I got to see France, Italy and England in the last 3 years :-)

However, this year I decided to try a non-stop route instead. Last summer as I was boarding my Air France flight from Borispol to Paris, I overheard Borispol-JFK flight boarding at the gate next to mine. To me it came as a surprise - for several years I’ve been under impression that there were no direct flights between the US and Kiev. And at that time I decided that next year I’m going to give it a try.

So, this time, as I was planning my trip, I asked around and turned out that there is this Ukranian airline called Aerosvit and apparently they offer non-stop service from JFK to Kiev. Moreover, on their web site, Aerosvit was giving out $100 discount to everyone who chooses JetBlue for connecting at JFK. And yes, it’s true - I booked both Aerosvit and JetBlue flights online, withing 1 hour from one another, emailed Aerosvit both confirmation numbers and 3 days later the $100 discount showed up on my credit card (just note, that the discount comes as a credit from Aerosvit, not from JetBlue. JetBlue’s customer service knows nothing about it).

This was my first trip on JetBlue as well. I was quite happy with the airline - the service was good, the aircraft was roomy (felt like they had a lot more leg room comparing to Delta or AA carriers), and their terminal at JFK was also relatively nice and clean.

Aerosvit is flying an old Boeing 737 (I think) - no personal TVs or anything like that, the two projectors that they had in our part of the cabin were also ancient - picture was constantly jumping and sound was terrible as well. Luckly I had my laptop with me and 5 episodes of 24 stored on the hard drive :) Onboard service was also good (alcohol was free :) and the fact that I didn’t have to connect in Paris really made the whole trip a breeze. I do have enough miles for a free Deta ticket to Ukraine now, but I can’t imaging going back to having to do a stop over… Unless I decide to pay Europe another visit.

My mom met me in Kiev and we both took an overnight train to Odessa. I like trains, but I think next time I’ll fly instead.