The Final Count Down

It's our last full day at the Olympics. We're shorty off to see another full day of curling. Tomorrow we head for Germany again before we hop across the pond home. We will be cheering on Team USA as loud as we can in the sea of Russian patriotism. 

Friday Night Lights

Our Friday night is starting to wind down. We're in the third period of the Finland - Norway hockey game. It's a bit one sided  but I won't say which way incase there are some secret Nordic hockey fans back home. 

We did run into some shifty but familiar characters today. 

This is the second Olympic park the four of us have visited but only the first Olympics. It's always a blast hanging out with the Gamoba's and nice to see friends so far from home. 

Our Friday was once again full of adventure and Olympic fun times. We picked up tickets to an extra curling draw so we watched all three draws. We also got access to the NBC lounge and had some delicious food for lunch before meeting up with Matt and Jen. That's where we saw Poots. 

Tomorrow we're off to more curling and two new events, Short Track and regular Speed Skating. We've packed in so much stuff it seems like we've been here much longer than 5 days but in the best way possible. 

Soon we will start the familiar mile walk back to our bus. Until tomorrow, good night from Sochi. 

Also, still no gulag. Woot!

We call him "Poots"

We were 20 feet from Putin today. 

I was super surprised at the lack of super security, though I'm sure there were elite KGB agents hidden all around us  

I was wondering if we'd see Putin while we were here. I never thought I'd be so close to him though. 

From Russia, With Love

Happy Valentines Day from Sochi everyone. 

Have a great day!

One suspended look?

One jersey I am not a big fan of is the Norway "One Suspender" jersey as we have dubbed it.  Their fancy pants don't bother me too much - though we can't decipher the design this morning...  But the one Suspender look throws me off every time.

They are playing Canada right now.  I don't like their grey jersey look that much - too washed out looking compared to their much sharper red or white jerseys.

Sweden looking sharp again in blue!  Hopefully they can beat China!  (Update-they did win!)

Proctor & Gamble & Awesome

We've been super fortunate on this trip to be able to rest, relax and recharge at the Proctor & Gamble house. 

A huge thanks to the Team Shuster families for getting us access to the house and being so kind and warm. Their generosity has helped take our first Olympic experience from good to great. 

The house itself has a very log cabin kind of feel but in an obviously temporary way (I doubt any of these hospitality houses will be here much after the games have been concluded). It does not feel cheap though. 

It feels very warm inside, with all the exposed wood. They have couches where people gather to watch games from 1pm to 11pm. 

They serve food all day long too as well as having snacks out on the table for people to graze. And of course they have a bar with a modest by adequate selection of drinks (though water, juice and soda as much as you can drink). 

Upon entering, there is a kiosk where you can pick up the pin of the day as well as be greeted by a few bears. 

We have thoroughly enjoyed our time here. I'm sure it's an even better gift to the parents of the athletes.  We're just so glad to be considered friends with such nice people. 

Thanks again to Team Shuster and the families. Thanks also to Proctor & Gamble for building a small piece of familiar so far away from home. 

USA all the way! We'll be back tomorrow. 

The Olympic Park

It's another gorgeous morning here in Sochi. We got a bit of a late start today. I think we still had a wee bit o jet lag last night. We had a blast watching the pairs figure skating final but we were both almost falling asleep all the way through. We're definitely packing the days full of activities, usually up and out by 8am and not getting back to our hotel until almost midnight. So much fun. 

Currently, we're siting right near the Olympic torch, listening to the sound crew do a very loud sound check and planning out the afternoon, waiting to go to Restaurant. 

The Olympic Park is very large, probably about 20% too big. I think that's mostly what's contributing to the sometimes "empty" feeling. It's not that there aren't people here its that this place is huge (and mostly everyone gets here after noon). Today is the first day that we've arrived well after 10, closer to 11, and our bus was over packed this morning. 

All of these buildings are huge (except the curling center).

This is the Skating Palace where we saw figure skating last night. It's almost as big as The Staples Center, and it's not the biggest building here. It's my favorite exterior and decently designed inside as well. 

Fisht Stadium is huge. I don't think we'll get to go inside. It looks impressive from what we've seen outside though. 

The Bolshoy is probably the biggest building here and is where the hockey finals will be decided. We're trying to get tickets to a game here but with so many curling draws our schedule is pretty full. 

We're going here (Adler Arena) on Saturday and we're very excited. I never thought about how big a speed skating venue would be but "big" is the answer. It looks really great on the outside, I hope the seats are better than The Ice Cube seats (have I mentioned how terrible and uncomfortable they are?).  

The park also has wandering minstrels and theatre acts at various places and times. Sometimes they play to no one, other times there is a decent crowd. 

Each country has a house in the park as well. We've been to the "House of Switzerland" the NBC USA house and we tried to go into the Canada house but we were somewhat rudely asked to leave. We are not friends or family of Canada, apparently. That's ok, I've got enough maple syrup back home. 

Then there is the amusement park, attached to the Olympic park. Our little guide book says its open but it really looks deserted or, more likely, unfinished.   Either way, we're not adventurous enough to get on a Russian roller coaster. 

There are lots of other buildings too. VW, Audi and Samsung all have places. Microsoft too, when went by this morning they were doing some kind if yoga dance thing. Oh, and then there's the Coca Cola experience. 

Coke is by far the most prevalent US company her both inside and outside the park. 

To give you guys a sense of how big the park is, here is a map. We enter each day at the top right and walk all the way to the bottom left. It's supposed to be 1.6 Km from the entrance to the curling venue but I think that's too short. It's a brisk 20 minute walk and I do mean brisk. At a regular walking pace it's better than 30 minutes. We are for sure getting our exercise. We must be walking 6 or 7 miles a day. Maybe that's why we are so exhausted at the end of each day. 

The music choices in the park are also interesting. If your a fan of Ke$ha then you'd fit in fine. Though you better speak some Russian because both her and Timberlake are half English half Russisn. Marion 5 and Nicki Minaj are also in rotation but in full English. There are a few other artists, Linkin Park I think, but Ke$ha is by far the most played. Go USA pop culture?

Marissa has the hiccups so I think we should go get a beer and rest before we watch more curling. 

Go USA!