Valentina Sochi

... time for the actual event. We stopped for a look at a valley in the Caucasus Mountains where new road and rail tunnels were in evidence before having a meal of sweet cake and tea at a honey establishment which had a very attractive garden and backdrop. There the lady of the house / business gave an interpreted talk about honey.

Next we went to the actual Olympic site which is currently only a chairlift station and quite few small stalls and ...

... they? But, there must've been times of suspense, when the outcomes looked uncertain. Let's see how, exactly, our plots thickened.) Thirty kilometers outside of Tomsk, Roma Mesigin's truck and I had crossed the River Ob, where the curvature of our white planet seemed visible, and a town shivered like an Arctic fishermens' village. Near the Ural Mountains, the "white forest" of beech trees was covered in frost. Roma Mesigin recited a Pushkin ...

The first of our eastern block countries. The news about Sochi was that they were waiting to see the outcome of their winter Olympics bid. We heard when we arrived back to Sydney that they were successful in that bid. The only issue I have with that is that they will probably need to have an etiquette crash course as I found them particularly unfriendly. You would imagine if they were practising hosting the Olympics that they ...

... but it doesn't really show much of the town. Today is a day at Sea. These days are quite boring because there are so many guests onboard that we can't really use any of the guest facilities, so I end up working most of the day. Tonight Verne Lundquist from CBS Sports is the entertainment so I might go watch that for a lack of something better to do. I have put pictures from Kusadasi and Yalta up. Take Care,