Sochi Olympics - Here I Come!!!!

A dream is coming true as I am preparing to fly to Moscow to spend a few days with my family and then we all fly off to be at the Sochi Winter Olympics. I have always watched just about every minute of TV coverage of the Winter Olympics as long as I can remember. I love it all from the figure skating to the biathalon and cheer along from my spot on the couch. Sometimes I really get loud and the dog starts barking at me wondering what is going on. My daughter is a volunteer and flew to Sochi this week. Seeing her posts is so exciting as this is her dream come true and she is such a language geek that she'll be able to speak French all day long, switch to another language when she hears someone speaking it nearby and soak in all the atmosphere. She is such a people person and very outgoing so she will make lots of new friends. It seems odd to see pictures of Sochi with palm trees as it's the Winter Olympics but there's snow an hour away up in the mountains. How nice it'll be to be in Sochi and not freezing walking around in boots and a down coat. Before we fly off to Sochi, I'll be teaching one of my daughter's English classes. I spent many years substitute teaching and haven't done that since the spring of 1990 so it'll be fun. She said the class is great. That day and another day, my granddaughters are in school so two of my daughter's friends will take me sightseeing. One thing I have never done is to actually go inside St. Basile's in Red Square so I'd like to do that and also get my last picture in Red Square as I won't be back to Moscow again (since my kids are moving to England in June). We will go to the Pushkin Museum as I've not been there either. One of Tami's friends is Russian and she's been here to my house so I have met her. The other friend moved to Moscow this year and is American and this will be our first time meeting. The few days in Moscow will fly by I know. The best part will be seeing my granddaughters the morning I arrive as I haven't seen them since July and I miss them. I am sure lucky that I'll never have problems not knowing the language or the money in Sochi as I'll be with my son-in-law and granddaughters the whole time and they speak fluent Russian. One of my friends gave me a travel journal and I plan to write in it each day to capture my trip. This will help save the memories and my scrapbook journaling when I do my Sochi scrapbook this winter and spring. I'll also be making one for my daughter's family and then one for her of her five weeks there as a volunteer. Look for us at figure skating, mogul skiing, alpine downhill skiing and women's hockey events. We have red, white and blue headbands with two big puffy stars that are on springs that stick up from the headbands. We'll also have the American flag or USA painted on our faces. My son-in-law won't be sporting a headband and I don't know if we will be able to talk him into the face paint. I bought us all gray hoodies with the American and Russian flags on the chest at the NBC Store in Rockefeller Plaza in NYC. We won't get to see my daughter much as she'll be working. She does have tickets to the women's ice hockey game though. If you are my friend on Facebook, look for my posts from Russia. Dasvidaniya! I don't know why but when I preview, it takes away all my paragraph formatting.