Many of the facilities are Soviet era, and the building standards are pretty shoddy. There are also cultural differences – not everyone will like the Russian concept of interior decoration which frankly reminds me of my maternal grandmother’s house.

The workers in the Soviet ‘paradise’ didn’t have much, so a lot of decoration was considered really posh. You end up with Rococo and bare concrete. Westerners certainly won’t like it, but the Russians won’t understand what the problem is.

As for the door, it was probably a hollow-core with veneer plywood on a strand board frame. Dogs can demolish them by scratching.

I had tickets for the 1972 Olympics in Munich, but a bit of a problem there put us all on alert and I had to sit them out in meetings over the ‘situation’.

I’ve always wanted to see the opening games of the Olympics, but it’s just never worked out. And maybe it’s for the best this time as it sounds as if there have been quite a few challenges in the accomodations. As you said, the infrastructure is better than elsewhere, but this is a horde of people to handle in one go. And many of these people are of the spoiled variety so there’s a lot of whining going around about it.

One guy had to kick his way out of his bathroom apparently because a faulty lock on the door locked him in instead of just locking others out. He tweeted a photo of a man size hole in the door. He was one of the athletes so I guess he had pretty strong legs. 🙂

The Fairbanks to Whitehorse Quest is the easier of the two because the Rosebud-Eagle double summit comes at the beginning, not the end, so there are always more rookies in even years.

I’m not welcome in Russia. They aren’t interested in letting bygones be bygones. Those are the breaks.

The biggest problem of these Olympics is infrastructure, there isn’t a lot, which is why the outdoor events won’t have the coverage people have come to expect – there are no roads to good camera positions, and the Russians aren’t going to let the media just wander around at will.

As bad as the infrastructure is in Sochi, it has the most of any place they could have selected because it is a Soviet era seaside resort. It is one of the few places in Russia outside of Moscow that has multiple hotels and transportation connections. If they had gone anywhere else in Russia they would have been starting from scratch.

Decided to take a break and check out the Quest. It always surprises me the number of rookies in this race. Brave souls.

In other news, the Olympics this year is in RUSSIA! How about that? I thought you might pack up and head out there. I don’t watch a lot of sports, just the dog sledding (and that’s because of the dogs, to be honest) and the Olympics. I did sit down and watch the Superbowl this year (until it got painfully one-sided), but minutes before the game started I called my brother to find out who was playing…

Yep, I’m a real sports fan.

Just noticed that an American won the first gold. Sage Kotsenburg in the new snowboarding event. I made a cursory effort to find a video of his full run, but all I can find are little snippets. Even on the NBC main site…sigh.