Exploring Russia- Day 3

By: Erin Lycan
Breakfast buffet at 9:45am in the Vega Hotel in Moscow. At 10:30 we went through our active warm-up and did a few team building activities. Did some line transitions patterns and played WA!. Met at noon to go to the outdoor bazaar within walking distance. Moved luggage around twice.

Bought/haggled while there and bought two Russian dolls as gifts …also found a very cool hand carved chess set and an arctic fox fur hat.

Left for the airport at 2 p.m. Arrived at 4, said goodbye to Rosa. Got through security with plenty of time to kill for our 7:45 p.m. flight to Sochi. While we were playing a game of Pig Mania (tossing small rubber pigs like dice and getting points based on how they land…yes leaning jowler!) we met some cute young Russian kids. Katie gave out Tic Tac boxes and I did introductions in my baby Russian. It was a massive collision of cultures made all the more easy by the lack of inhibition from the kids. They were returning from a big tae kwan do competition and one 14 yr old girl there had just won national champion. After a big game of hacky sack (and tons of photos by the parents) we got a big game of WA going. The older kids connected over American pop music, politics, and Facebook. The Chinese team was on the same flight and looked on quietly.  Sometime, we truly are the loud Americans.

We arrived in the small Sochi airport and it took a while to get our luggage. When we got to the Sputnik hotel after being on the bus for about 20 minutes, the Chinese were unloading ahead of us. Giant fuzzy mascots were there to greet us excitedly. Some of the girls were a little creeped out. Dinner was in a bag and consisted of grilled chicken, white sticky rice, some amazing red sauce, and a veggie combo which was delicious.