Back from Sochi

Our first Mission Presidents' Seminar is history and it was not without incident. The host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics has a way to go!! Even without the crowds that will be associated with the Olympics, it took one of our groups over two hours to get from the airport to the hotel. We were one of the fortunate groups that made the same distance in only 30 minutes. There is only one road in and out of the city.

Our first view of Sochi was from the tarmack. It is a beautiful mediterranean building graced with lovely palm trees:

This is the view from our first hotel room. We had to switch rooms because of the construction noise (that continues until about 3:00 a.m. every day) from a building adjacent the hotel.

The weather was a bit colder than we had hoped for...but that was nothing compared to what we were greeted by the next morning!!

The snow has a way of slowing down the babuskas!!!

By the afternoon it had cleared,

By eventide, it was spectacular!!

Friday afternoon we had a chance to go to an art museum. We saw a number of works by Russian painters, a massive model of the city of Sochi as they hope it will be by the time the Olympics gets to town, and a few sculptures. While they are planning an ambitious project to create a man-made island, there are still no plans to create a better road to the city!!

A portrait of Pushkin in St. Petersburg.

A model of the city of Sochi, showing the island to be built in the Black Sea. Our hotel was located in the northwest portion of this photo. The airport, which is not shown, would be to the far right. They do have a new airport, but it is has not opened yet.

A sculpture that I thought my grandkids would get a kick out of!!

Friday night was a game and talent night. President Cranney, our mission president stole the show:

The mission presidents were edified and were very much appreciative of all that had been done to make this event all that it could be for them and their wives. The hotel rooms were nice. The food was good. The weather was eventful. The service was good at times. I was disappointed when I asked the Hotel Director to turn off the 4 foot by 6 foot television set in the hotel lobby, that we had to walk by every time we went to dinner or to our meetings, and he refused. It was showing provocative scantily-clad women in a number of rock videos. Not quite the environment we had hoped for. Not everything can be completely anticipated.

When we arrived back home in Moscow, they had had a little snow (but not as much as we had in Sochi) and it was about 10 degrees colder, about 16 degrees below freezing. Tomorrow it is back to the grindstone. Next stop, the Meridian Hotel in Moscow for the new Mission Presidents' Seminar and Helsinki, Finland in August for the 2nd Annual Mission Presidents' Seminar. Stay tuned.