2-21-14

Yesterday – Wednesday — the sun came back out and it was another great and busy day. We started out by taking the bus from the hotel to the Adler train station and took some pictures of the Black Sea again.

Then we took a bus to downtown Adler, a quaint little town center. The massive Olympic Coastal Park is located at the South end of the town. Looking past the Olympic Park to the south is the country of Georgia, not five kilometers away. You would never know we are so close to Georgia.

We shopped, and shopped. I’ll admit, I’m not a shopper unless I’m looking for souvenirs. This was an enjoyable experience as there was booth after booth to check out the wares. We found absolutely everything we were looking for, and filled my backpack with stuff. Probably way overpaid, but prices were cheaper than at the Olympic store in the park.

We took our time in the nice weather. Next thing you know, Chris says, “Hey dad, isn’t that Lester Holt over there?” Sure enough Lester Holt was shopping too, along with a camera crew. Lester is one of the news anchors of NBC Nightly News along with Brian Williams. We watch him all the time.

Not being bashful, Sue and I went up to Lester and introduced ourselves, saying we are the parents of J.R. He knew of J.R. right away, so we started a nice, long conversation about how our experience here is NOTHING like it was supposed to be as portrayed in the media prior to the games.

He too has really enjoyed himself here when breaking away from the NBC Nightly News cast. Before we knew it, his crew chief Kim asks us if we wouldn’t mind being interviewed for an NBC Nightly News segment they will be airing in the next few days. We were totally willing, in an effort to tell the true story of what is going on here in Sochi.

It was a spur-of-the moment thing but a lot of fun.

After shopping, I packed all our stuff in my backpack and we took a train back to the Olympic Park. We went straight to the P&G Family Home and met up with J.R. It was great to see him, he was relaxed and calm, saying the ice is much better and he’s feeling great on it. This is awesome news.

He was there for a sponsor event – P&G sponsors J.R. as many have seen in the P&G/Braun commercials. So he got a spa treatment. Now get this, so did I.

P&G has this spa set up for the moms, but even the dads have one chair (out of about nine chairs on site). Now, I must admit I’ve never had a spa treatment before, ever. I was encouraged to do it by Sue.

In the end, I really enjoyed it and may return again. Sue and Andrea had a Cover Girl spa treatment before an event that happened here on site. It was the rollout of an inspirational P&G commercial that aired worldwide last night (Wednesday) regarding the Paralympics that will be held here in Sochi in two weeks. I will say that even I almost needed a Puffs tissue watching this. Perhaps you saw it on TV Wednesday night? Quite an inspirational story.

After eating dinner, Chris, Sue, Andrea and I went to see the U.S. men defeat the Czech Republic in hockey by 5-2 in the quarterfinal at the Shayba Arena. It was fast and exciting – these players are serious about playing for their country.

Most are NHL players, and therefore why the Stanley Cup showed up the other day at the USA House. Several of them will earn this trophy later in the season playing for their NHL team.

It was a late night, and we didn’t get back to the hotel until after 1 a.m.