The OdessaFX Think Tank convened over a single cup of coffee to take a look at the world and make some predictions - focusing on Good News.

Honestly, Ukraine is not a place where you can reasonably expect to find a decent job the traditional way. Prospects, especially without being fluent in Ukrainian or Russian, are nominal at best. They exist, but they take a near monumental effort to uncover unless you already have some good connections. Even then, it is doubtful that you will find a job that will pay comparable to what you can make in the West. Having dashed your hopes, let me try to pick them up a bit.

Pronounced something like Sha-ur-ma, it is very similar to what we call a Burrito in the west. The first time I saw a shaurma, was during my first visit to Odessa and Ukraine. Walking down Derabosovskaya with my translator, I saw this guy holding and eating what looked to me like an authentic burrito. It looked good, it smelled good.

Right now…Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone is on. Actually, in the past two years, I’ve seen almost every Sylvester Stallone movie from the Rocky Series, his arm wrestling movie, the Rambo series, and a number of others I don’t recall offhand. Considering how little television I watch, Ukrainian television producers know when middle-aged foreigners will be watching television…or Sylvester Stallone is very popular…or acquiring rights to run Sylvester Stallone movies is very easy.

5. The top four things I miss most were easy to define, didn’t take much thought…but the fifth? Nothing really stands out…nothing screams to me, “Yoo-hoo! Over here…Remember Me? I’m the fifth thing you miss most…Living in Ukraine.” Let’s see…