Winter Olympics- Sochi Bound

Traveling and First few days in Sochi (February 4-5)-

Before I left I had a few things to do to prepare.  Packing of course was one of them.  But I felt that this Olympic trip needed a little bit of extra USA spirit.  I think the toes turned out pretty well.  I also went to leadership training, had my hair cut, squeezed in a massage, took my ski buddy out for some runs, watched the Super Bowl and then got around to packing.

Go USA!

The packing was the part that worried me the most.  How do I pack light enough to deal with the weight issues when I get to Moscow and still have enough for 20 days.  I had been warned that they only allow 35-40 lbs and that included my carry-on bag.  I am going to be gone for more than 2 weeks, so it seemed likely that I was going to be packing more than 35lbs of stuff.  Plus, I was elected to bring the bag of hats for the parents that foundation was gifting to them.  That bag alone was weighing in anywhere from 45-55+.  The airport scale decided it was 59lbs.  See the photo below.  Eventually I managed to cram all my clothes into one bag and all the rest of the gear I'd need for work in my carry-on.  From there I just hoped for the best.

This is what 59lbs of hats looks like

My luggage (minus carry-on)

Most of my coworkers left for Sochi the week or days ahead of me.  I was not sure if there would be anyone I knew on my flights over.  Normally, that doesn't bother me.  But this time I was traveling to Russia where I really cannot even guess what they are saying.  My friend Courtney was kind enough to offer me a ride to the airport.  It took both of us to carry the hats down the hall and lift them into her car.  Fortunately, when I got to the airport someone from the curbside check in was able to help me get the bags inside.  I tip well when you help me with 59lbs of hats.  It took awhile to get checked in due to my baggage issues.  Finally Delta figured out that I had prepaid for the 2nd checked bag and I only had to pay another $100 for it being overweight.  Finally it was just me and my carry-on, so I headed for security and our gate.  I had barely put my stuff down and was figuring out what I wanted to do while I waited when I heard my name called.  Across from me at the gate was one of my favorite athletes, Graham Watanabe, who is now retired from our team.  I met Graham when I interned during graduate school for the team foundation at the Bay Area Ski Ball.  I was so happy to see him sitting there.  Now I would not be flying all the way to Russia by myself.  We sat and chatted until it was time to go.  Of course since I was leaving Utah the snow arrived.  We had to wait for our plane to be de-iced before we could leave.  I have been on planes that went through that process but I have never actually gotten to watch them before.  Interesting.  Definitely cannot be afraid of heights or small spaces to do that job.

Removing all the ice from the night before.

I knew it was going to be a long flight when I was already tired of sitting by the time I reached JFK.  At least I had some good news to brighten my day when I got off the plane.  The first person I saw was Nancy Hendrickson (Mom of Sarah Hendrickson on our ski jumping team).  It was unexpected, so her first question was "What are you doing here?"  I told her my guess would be the same thing she was doing.  I now had part of the Hendrickson fan club and Graham on my flights.  Things were improving by the moment.  That changed a bit when we got on the flight.  Due to the weather issues the day before, they were trying to fit people onto our flight.  For some reason that meant everyone had a new seat.  Can anyone explain to me why the airline would not just add those people to the empty seats wherever they could be found?  I lost my window seat and ended up in the middle section between two guys.  Both of whom were very nice, but it is a long flight to Moscow stuck between two people.  The one on my left turned out to work for USAToday.  We had lots of fun chatting along the way.  He discovered that we had free Wifi until we were a certain distance from the USA.  Both of us were trying to see how much work we could get done before we lost the signal.  It was an entertaining hour or so before we lost service.  I tried to sleep on the flight over but could never do much more than doze.  So I decided to catch up on my Disney movies.  I think my niece would be proud of me.  I watched "Brave" and really enjoyed it.  Eventually after what felt like forever, but they promise was only a little more than 9 hours, we reached Moscow.  Let the fun begin.

Getting through passport control turned out to be surprisingly easy.  I am not even sure the woman and I spoke a word to each other.  At the bottom of the escalator there were Sochi volunteers waiting to direct us.  We were told to go get our luggage and come back to them.  When we came back they took us to the area to recheck our bags for the flight to Sochi.  While standing in line I had the opportunity to meet Eliza Outtrim's (mogul skier) family.  Before long I was showing the agent my receipt from Salt Lake that showed that I had already paid overweight for the bag of hats.  And just like that I was through checked baggage and ready to head up to security.  I fully expected to be hit with a large fee for having 3 bags (# includes the carry-on) that were over the expected weight.  That turned out much better than expected.  The volunteer who had taken me and some of the others under her wing walked us all the way up to the security gate before saying good bye.  I am sorry all I had to give her was a team pin, although she seemed happy with that.  It only took a moment and I was through security.  And that is when I realized that there was something wrong with my boots.  Looking down I realized that they had cracked across the top.  I rarely use them so I thought they would be fine for this trip.  Guess I was wrong.  I am going to need some duct tape or new boots.

Should have bought new ones for the trip.

Since everything went so smoothly I had plenty of time to sit in the airport and chill until my flight to Sochi.  At this point I was on my own because the families had the earlier flight.  I managed to grab a bite to eat at an Irish pub of all things.  My first food in Russia was a burger and fries.  Not what I expected to eat.  When we got on the flight to Sochi they handed us a card with a menu on it and drinks.  I thought it was informational.  Here are your drink options and food if you want to buy some.  Turns out that it was actually what they were going to serve to us.  My system was completely out of whack and not sure what time it was by this point.  So being served raw salmon, another kind of raw fish and caviar was rough.  I wanted to try a bite of everything, but after one bite of a very strong fish I knew I could not do it.  I did try a teensy taste of the caviar but could not handle much.  The mango cake was very nice though.  The flight attendants on Aeroflot look like something out of the old days.  They wear jackets, skirts, hats and white gloves at take off and landing.  I noticed they ditched the hats and gloves while serving food and drinks.  The views as we came into the Sochi area were gorgeous.  You could see the snow capped mountains in the distance and the beautiful Black Sea below us.  They definitely chose a gorgeous place to hold the Olympics.

View heading in toward Sochi

My phone for this trip was in Russia ahead of me.  So I did not have a method for checking on my ride from the airport to the hotel.  I had been told that I would see a USOC staff member or a driver with a sign that had my name on it.  I did not see either.  After looking around for a bit I walked outside.  As I walked out the door I received a very enthusiastic greeting from a bunch of volunteers in Coke jackets.  It turned out that walking outside was a mistake because then I could not go back inside with all my luggage.  I did find someone with a USOC jacket who watched my bag while I went back inside with a volunteer to see if the transportation desk could help me find my ride.  They had the # for the USOC transportation crew and in no time they figured out the driver was at the wrong terminal.  He found me and we were headed to the hotel in no time.  I am so glad that I do not have to drive while I am over here.  I am sure if you are used to it that the roads make sense.  But I would not enjoy figuring it out.  There were cops everywhere but in the most random places.  And of course all the signs are in Russian so it would be hard to know if you were headed in the right direction.  

The hotel is in a neighborhood near the Olympic Park.  Julie from the USOC met me at the front desk and showed me to my room.  I really did end up with my own room for the trip.  I also have a balcony that looks out toward Olympic Park and the Black Sea.  I had a gorgeous sunset to greet me that first evening.  I had some time to settle in a bit before dinner.  My room comes with two meals a day prepared by the USOC chefs.  With all the walking I will be doing I was hoping to lose weight.  But with the breakfasts and dinners they serve that might be hard.  For everyone who heard the horror stories about the bathrooms, mine is great.  I have a shower with a door, hot water and it is clear water.  We are not drinking it or brushing our teeth with it, but otherwise it is great.  The only thing we had to learn was that you do not flush toilet paper here.  So I have to remember to throw it in the little trash can next to the toilet.  Thank goodness I had practice with that at Adventure camp in Alaska this summer.

My room

Black Sea Sunset

The first night I spent getting settled, answering emails, figuring out my first smart phone and preparing for the next day.  Lauren (USSA staff member in charge of the Friends and Family program) and I had decided that I would have "office hours" at the hotel each morning so parents knew they could find me there to pick up tickets.  Since she was still sorting out tickets I was not going to have any first thing in the morning.  Posted a message to the parents on our Facebook page and made plans to go check out the spectator pass office in the morning with the USOC Friends and Family contact Bridget.

Thursday, February 6th

If you want to get over jet lag fast I recommend not sleeping on the flight and staying awake until a late bedtime.  I actually got a decent night sleep.  I have been warned that I will feel fine the first day and it will hit the second day.  I am curious to see if that turns out to be the case.  I rarely sleep well anyway so I am used to it.  I walked over to the Olympic Park from our hotel with Bridget so that I could learn the route and pick up my spectator pass.  It is an easy walk that takes about 20 minutes.  There was no line at the office so I was able to pick up my pass quickly.  Bridget was headed to take the train up to the mountains so she could check out different details for everyone to pass along to the families.  I headed back to the hotel to wait for the first batch of tickets to arrive by USOC courier.  I managed to retrace our route without any difficulty.  Not bad for my first full day in the country.  I was hanging out in my room when the first family members arrived.  I knew tickets were coming so they decided to wait with me.  While we were chatting, the Hendrickson crew arrived.  So I had a room full of family members waiting on their tickets and hanging out.  Once the tickets arrived I distributed those and then walked everyone over to the Park so they could pick up their spectator passes.  We had a nice walk over and got everyone their passes.  Then we checked out the line for the box office but it was not moving very quickly.  Everyone else wandered off and I sat on a park bench to wait for another family who was on their way over from Sochi.  They eventually found me and exchanged tickets and information.  Before I left the area I decided to go inside the train station and scope out what all is in there.  There are some mini markets and some souvenir shops and they have two cafes and a fast food chicken place.  Since I had not stopped for lunch I decided I should at least grab a sandwich while I was there.  Fortunately, the person behind me in line happened to be one of the volunteer interpreters.  She helped me decipher the menu and order since my first option was not available.  It turns out the fast food place is Texas Chicken.  There is no sign that says that but their bags do.  Kind of crazy.  After eating I headed back to the hotel and managed to find my way again without any trouble. 

Spectator entrance before everyone arrives.

Rings by the Park.

The most interesting thing along my walk is the theme park.  I have not seen one of those next to an Olympic venue before.  There look to be a couple roller coasters and some kid rides.  There is also a castle like hotel in the center.  I have been told it is a 5 star hotel and might be where the IOC is staying, not that anyone really knows.  Someone made a comment about it being a Disney park after the Olympics end.  But I think that would be more of Russia trying to create that feeling.  Does not seem like a Disney kind of park.  Things seem to be in better shape than expected from reports before we came over, but I am not sure about the amusement park.  Good thing rides are not really a big deal for me, so it will not hurt me to skip that area.

Theme Park

View of the mountains from the Coastal Cluster.

Two trips to the park in one day just did not seem like enough.  So Bridget and I decided to go back to visit P&G Family House for their opening party.  After submitting my name numerous times before we got here, I discovered I still was not on the list.  But neither was Bridget.  They let us in anyway.  We toured around to get a feel for things and then headed back to our hotel for dinner.  At this rate I am going to be averaging 10 miles a day.  It is approximately 1.5 from our hotel to the spectator entrance.  

Some of the trips back and forth I did with other people.  Some of the trips I did on my own.  I feel safe walking around the area.  We are very close to the Olympic zone and this seems to be a very busy area.  At the end of our street is a large hotel complex, so there are lots of lights and people around that area at all hours.  So far so good.  I'm being aware and careful, but it seems like it will work out fine.