Sochi, Russia July 8th, 2008

You'll see no English on signs here! A few things to buy but we were not allowed to stop.

Palm trees like Miami!









Three elderly ladies out for a day in the park with their hats, floral print dresses and clutching their handbags like they were full of gold bars!

Which tour should Kathleen take?

The fruit stand was tempting, but we could not stop!

HOLY COW!!

Look closely at the back of the tiny red car. There is a sticker on the window and in the middle of the sticker is a high-heeled shoe. The guide told me that this sticker means this is a woman driver and she might not be very experienced!!!!!

The Russian tree growing on the mountain, the tea room, the entertainment, Kathleen washing the honey off her hands, some beautiful flowers,
Kathleen and a giant tea pot. Charles, Kathleen and Nicky saying good-bye to Russia.


Sochi, Russia is just north of the Russian border. It is blessed with the northernmost subtropical climate in the world. They have quite a unique landscape here. You can be on the sunny hot beaches and then in a 40 minute coach ride you can be at the top of mountains that have snow 9 months out of the year! This is where the 2014 winter Olympic games are set to be held. We did not see any construction except for cranes trying to bring really old communist built dorm-like apts. back to new life.
Getting into Russia, or the Russian Federation as they call it now, was not easy. We had to be on tour from the ship. You cannot enter without a Visa, so we were issued something like a "day pass" Visa to enter. A small pink card we held onto with our passports. We met our guide. Darling cute gal, 21 years old and VERY happy we were there. She was the first smiling face we had seen in quite a while! She tried VERY hard to show us her city. She was bluntly honest about everything we asked her, but when you think about it she was only a toddler when the communist empire crumbled. Her recall, is from history books alone. Anyway, we had a short walking tour of the city and I was amazed at how much it looked like south Florida! Palm tress all over and HOT! After our city tour we headed for the mountains to visit a Russian tea plantation. Sochi has the northern most tea growing in the world. It's climate is perfect for tea and they have a tea that is only grown her, Krasnodarskyi. That is what we drank. After our lecture that was given in Russian and translated to English by our cute guide, we walked through a beautifully dense forest to a log cabin. There we were treated to music and dancing by local people and a man that played many different sizes of accordions, all the way down to maybe 3 inches across! It was amazing. Warm homemade bread with apple butter like jam inside. Very good. Unfortunately this ended our day in Russia after our bus ride in. We went trough some villages that would have been nice to stop and browse their things but that was not allowed. We were brought back to the port, went through immigration again and had to turn in our pink cards and not talk. That is the only thing I did wrong. As I gave the gal my pink card, I said "good luck with the Olympics!" She took my pink card and put her finger up to her pursed lips as if to say "HUSH LADY"! And that was the end of our day. I guess she did not want me to talk to her...what do you think??