Lara's Reasons Why Not

We love that so many of you have enjoyed our Olympic blog and followed our Sochi adventure!  We're even more thrilled that so many of you have expressed interest in going yourselves-it is most definitely the trip and experience of a lifetime!  We're planning a blog post that goes over what it costs to go to the Olympics, so hopefully that will push even the more tentative folks over the edge into YES territory!  And if you are a little hesitant, here are some reasons to go (or not go) to the Olympics if you're waffling...

DO go if you straight up love the Olympics-every event, no matter the medal chances of your home country.
DON'T go if you only want to see very few and very specific events.  You're limiting your schedule, your ticket options and prices, and where you'll get to go at the Olympics.  If you only want to see events in the mountains at the Winter Olympics, you don't get into Olympic Park for free, and it's definitely worth seeing.

DO go if you love to travel and experience other cultures.  Planning your trip and actually being at the Games is a mind-blowing cultural mixup of epic proportions.  Interacting with others outside of your own cultural comfort zone results in funny misunderstandings, strange friendships, and a camaraderie that doesn't exist when the Olympics aren't happening.  When I go to visit Jessica in London later this year, I highly doubt anyone will talk to me about the Olympics, even if I wear my red, white, and blue America flair on the Tube (which is a very very sad thought).  The very fact of the Games in a location creates a very special atmosphere of friendliness and fun.
DON'T go if you get frustrated at the idea of non-English speaking volunteers, or non-English signage.  Non-verbal communication works, but it takes some patience.

DO go if you want to see every event possible during your time there, even something that comes up unexpectedly.  There are always tickets available to something, sometimes people are even giving them away for free!  Always be up for a new adventure.
DON'T go if you want to do a lot of sightseeing and tourism based activities.  The Olympics bring a LOT of people to town, and guess what?  They all want to see the Tower of London.  Or the Christ the Redeemer statue.  Or any other myriad of destination highlights.  Unless you plan extra days at the beginning or end of your trip, or a few days in the middle specifically for these things, the time and effort spent getting from one event to the next is time consuming and doesn't allow for a lot of last minute stops.  Erin and I were going to see all manner of London's best tourist destinations-the Tower, the British Museum, the National Gallery, the British Library, etc.  We saw Churchill's bunker and went on a Thames river boat ride.  Late nights spent carousing with Brazilians, Germans, Aussies, the English, and the Dutch make getting up early really difficult.  You're there for the Olympics. BE there for the Olympics.  If you really want to go to Rio, then go to Rio when it's not packed to the gills with people, hotels are overpriced, and flights are overbooked.

DO go if you are prepared to cheer your ass off, dance like no one is watching, and wave your flag like a nutty patriot at the Boston Tea Party.  Because that's what this is ABOUT. 
DON'T go if you are afraid to look silly or too pro-American.  The greatest thing about the Olympics is that you don't have to cloak your patriotism in guilt (as if you should anyway-what's wrong with loving your homeland?).  And if you think wearing some beads or crazy hats is a little over the line, there are dudes in unitards.  There is no way you ever look like the most ridiculous person in the venue.


DO go if you are always someone that says "YES!"
DON'T go if you are someone that isn't up for something exciting, new, and unknown.  Snuff?  Why not?  Ride on the Olympic Park shuttle?  Why not?  Take pictures with random strangers? Why not?  If you can think of reasons why not, then you are missing out on the opportunity to have so much fun your abs are sore from laughing for days afterward.  No one likes a party pooper.

DO go if you are prepared to do a lot of work to get to the Games.  This isn't like a normal vacation.  It's not just about finding a hotel room, it's about finding a place in a location that is close to transportation, or in an area/neighborhood that you want to be.  With the amount of time it can take to get a venue, these factors are important, and research and patience are a huge part of it.  Buying tickets also takes a concerted effort, as you have to plan in advance the tickets you want, establish what you want to pay for them, and then actually buy them.  For countries like Russia and Brazil, you also need to understand and prepare properly for the additional visa requirements, which can be complicated and confusing. 
DON'T go if you expect this work to be done for you.  If you can't help with one thing, help with another.  Be an active participant in the trip-it gets everyone excited when everyone is contributing news, updates, and other exciting facets of the Games!

DO go if you are okay with less than ideal conditions.  Mother Nature doesn't always cooperate for events to go off when you have a ticket for it.  Sometimes there is brown drinking water, stray dogs, and strange toilets.  You will survive.  You might get norovirus, but you will survive.
DON'T go if you are easily frustrated at change, or have toilet anxiety in foreign countries.  The best way to figure out if this is you is to find out how you feel about porta-potties.  If you refuse to use a porta-potty, stay home.  Not that every toilet is a porta-pottie, and it's not like people should be amped to use a porta-pottie, but don't subject your fellow travellers to weird constraints or travel speedbumps based on your toilet hang ups.

DO go if you are okay with surviving on hot dogs and donuts. You'll be able to squeeze in a few decent meals here and there as time and schedule allows.  But don't get your hopes up on fancy restaurant reservations-you're going to be exhausted and sometimes a hot dog just seems like a lot less of a hassle.
DON'T go if you are a picky eater that can't be satisfied with mere concession stand food.  Look, I get it-I'm a total foodie, but the Olympics are not the time to demand Michelin star restaurant service.  You're going to be eating a LOT of concession stand food-some of it okay, some of it terrible, some of it that words can't possibly describe.  What feeds you during the Olympics is the experience.  And the beer. 

If you want to go, feel free to ask us questions!  We'll answer whatever we can!

"Disappointed Sisters"

 Hey, did you guys see this????  We're famous.  Don't worry, we promise not to change.  We were already jerks before the fame arrived.

Bloomberg News Blurb

So, yes, disppointed sisters and disappointed friends we were indeed to have the 2nd of 2 events in a row cancel due to the fog.  We had no events for tomorrow, so luckily, the rescheduled times work with what we had going on!!  Thank goodness we didn't get more greedy when it came to tickets, otherwise I would be missing out on 2 of my favorite events to watch-biathlon and snowboard cross!  Snowboard cross, for those that don't know, is an actual RACE.  No timed runs of one person down the hill, just you against the other people beside you.  The USA has good medal chances here.  WATCH IT.  It's great, you'll love it!

Biggest Olympic tip and life tip EVER:  Always have an emergency meetup point.  Always.  At every venue, at every public transit stop, always, always, always have a meetup point.  We have found that even though the Olympic crowds are smaller, they are also like the Mississippi River when it comes to exiting.  Even in the General Admission section, it can be impossible to find your friends if you meet there!   The funny thing we found is that we all DO think alike in "What would person X do?" but that doesn't help when there are thousands of people trying to leave a venue.

After Jess and I lost Erin and Mike, we ended up finally having a proper Russian (well, Georgian) meal at a place in Esto Sodok, which is in the mountain cluster.  We sat across from a nice couple that got the waitress to bring English menus for us, and the food was really great.  After days of horrid hot dogs (seriously, Russia, how do the lips, cheeks, and rear ends of animals taste so terribly different in the USA?), it was a much deserved break.  We had some pork with onions and a really great cheese on top, then mushrooms with the really great cheese on top, and some dumplings that had a beef and pork filling.  Sooooo good.  Also, I never want to drink anything but sour cherry juice for the rest of my life.  Greatest thing ever.

On our bucket list, we wanted to find a Russian woman we mistook for a man.  Well, we haven't seen one so far, but ALL Russians definitely have the biggest balls when it comes to getting to the front of a line.  If you ever wondered why they produce such amazing athletes, this is why-they ALL want to be first.


Jessica and I went to curling yesterday morning and it was so fun to watch live!  The curling rink was FREEZING in comparison to hockey and speed skating...maybe it was because we were closer to the ice, or there were less people, but it was a good help to keep our sleep deprivation from kicking in.  Plus, the hottie in the crazy pants on the Norwegian team piqued our interest and held our most rapt attention throughout the games.  The USA lost to Canada, and Russia lost to Sweden, but it was still fun and the curling rink was really intimate and close to the action!   It was awesome live!  I remember when they brought curling back in 1998-I was in college, and we were glued to the TV everywhere we went-parties, bars, etc, because we had never seen anything like it before.  Massively great to see one of my favorite Winter Olympic live.

The Paralympics are going to start after the Olympics and we are all still mystified by how exactly they think the mountain venues are handicapped friendly.  There are a minimum of 5000 stairs for every event, and no where that I can see where people in a wheelchair could reasonably get there.  It's nuts.  Are they planning on using a claw like in Toy Story to pick them up and deposit them at their seat?  I mean, I kind of hope so because that would be AMAZING.

I feel like I won't need my yearly trip to the lady doctor after the amount and the in depth nature of the patdowns I've received.  The security ladies in Russia could tell me if I have breast cancer.  Not gonna lie, the full body massage before every train ride is kind of relaxing.


Dear Canada-every Canadian I know in person is a very, very, very nice person.  Why do you only send the jerks to the Olympics?

TOILET UPDATE
There is a pretty gross porta potty style toilet near Snowboard Cross, but the rest of the toilets at Snowboard Cross are fine.  And porta potties are gross no matter where you go.  Also, we thought we had such a great scam going by using the handicapped toilets where there's no line (because no handicapped person can get to these events) and today there was someone guarding them!  I know we shouldn't be sad because they're reserved for the handicapped, but STILL.



Funny exchanges:

Me:  "Our media is a bunch of whiny little bitches."
British guy:  "Your words, not mine."

Erin:  I took a picture of that girl that got hurt on the mountain from our gondola to biathlon. 
British guy:  You are a horrible person.

Talking about how the children don't smile in pictures
Australian guy:  I got one to smile, and their parents waved their finger at him.  Like "YOU WILL NOT SMILE AND YOU WILL BE HAPPY ABOUT IT."

At a booth at a souvenir fair after buying the Sochi stacky dolls
Russian:  Why you buy this?  It's terrible

German man:  You want sweeties?
Jessica and Lara:  WE WANT SWEETIES!!!

Lara:  Apparently washing your hands is an American thing???

Stockholm Syndrome

The last 7 days, I have cheered for the Russians but not the Canadians.  No, you didn't read that wrong.  No, I'm not in gulag.  I have cheered for the Russians because they are undoubtedly the only country that compares in any way to the US when it comes to cheering their athletes on!!!  They are very passionate and they are very VOCAL!  Whereas I chose to stop cheering for our North American neighbors (and my own relatives) yesterday when I realized that Canada does not return the favor.  Never.  Like ever.  In fact, they actively cheer AGAINST us-which, that's cool, Canada, no biggie, just didn't realize it was a 1 way street.

Best Place to Get Drunk And Take Pictures With Every Stranger Imaginable
Austria House.  Located right next to the train station up in the mountains where you go for all the alpine events, it's the perfect meet-up point, beer drinking point, faux podium photo op point, faux ski lift photo op point, giant cowbell photo op point, you name it!  Great food, awesome people (it's open to the public, so it's heavily Austrian and Russian populated), and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better beer than they are serving at the venues.

Can We Just Talk About Baltika Beer?
If you don't see the beer cooler to the right of the cashier, you get warm beer.  No, seriously, HOT BEER.  If you grab the wrong one, and pick 0 Baltika, it's non-alcoholic.  If you are lucky enough to grab your own beer (it's weird to get used to the non-controlled way of thinking about alcohol!), then it's going to either taste like piss or taste like drinkable piss.  If Russians think this is beer, no wonder they suck down the vodka.

Crazy Olympic Moments
Everything is so hard to capture.  Little moments when you are laughing at foreign names like Freek Van Der Wort, or a Croatian skiier whose name has 9 letters but only 1 vowel, and doesn't appear to be a name as much as a sound effect.  Sounds like "Zrrrrrrrrinchhhhhh."  Seriously.  Or when they show skiiers biting into apples and bananas (???) on the big screen, in non-appealing ways.  Or seeing a chick dressed  entirely in fur with 8" heels to navigate the ginormous Olympic Park.  Or this from a 7 year old boy:  "My name is Vlad!"  Me:  "My name is Lara!"  "I am from Vladivostock!"  Me:  "I am from USA!  What's your favorite Olympic sport?"  "My name is Vlad..."

I Heart the Olympics.
I mean, you know I do.  YOU KNOW I DO.  You're sick of hearing about it. The last 5 days have been a melee of meeting other Americans, both awesome and not.  (YOU KNOW YOU'RE AWESOME, HEATHER AND BEN!!!)  When I tell you that we're like celebrities, I'm not joking-we sang about half the first verse of "Sweet Child 'O Mine" and I watched at least 10 people get up to come running to take pictures with us.  We sang the Star Spangled Banner and it was like the Cincinnati Who Concert.  I was realizing that LITERALLY this might be the first time these people might be meeting Americans!  So we try our very best to say thank you in Russian, to share smiles and laughs and beers and make sure their first impression is the best one and the one that stays!

USA-RUSSIA HOCKEY
Was it loud on TV?  Because that place was rocking.  Russians know how to cheer!  However, we found out that they don't allow beer inside because of laws meant to curb alcoholism in Russia.  Which is sad and all, but we love our beer !  (Even if we have to drink the goat piss known as Baltika!)

Yesterday was Men's Super Combined and Ski Jumping.  Ski Jumping felt like this awesome party where your friends were strapping themselves to skis and jumping off for your entertainment, but with better equipment and knowledge of physics.  It was sad to see Bode not medal, BUT AWESOME TO SEE HIM WALK INTO THE AUSTRIA HOUSE!!  Every Austrian kept telling me how much they loved him.  Adorable.

Earlier today, we went to Women's Super G.  We also didn't medal there, but like 12 women wiped out-it was NUTS!!!   FYI, hope you like steps if you're going to Alpine events.  I swear we climbed up a 20 story building every time we were there!

Tomorrow-Curling and Biathlon!  Skis and GUNS!  And a stop at Austria House.  Of course.  Because.

NBC Olympic Coverage-Predicting The Cheesy Music Montages

I'm not a sports expert, so it's difficult for me to predict how medals and performances are going to shake out in Sochi.  But I AM an expert at WATCHING the Olympics, and I can tell you exactly how some of these broadcasts are going to go.  The footage of athletes falling, failing, flailing.  The footage of them getting up.  The footage of them victorious.  Or the footage of them gloriously defeated.

You know what I'm talking about.  In fact, the last 2 months, whenever I hear particular songs, I can literally picture how NBC will work a specific stanza or chord into what will undoubtedly be a super cheesy story of how one of our athletes overcame incredible odds to make it to the Olympic stage in Sochi.  Since we'll be in Russia for most of the games, I'd love if anyone could tell me how right or terribly wrong I was in my predictions.

Avicii-"Wake Me Up" will be used as background music to introduce background stories on Olympians, with action shots.  It will also be used to play out to commercial breaks.  Key lyric: "I only have 2 hands."

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis-"Can't Hold Us" is a little bit older, but the beats play perfectly for a Bob Costas special.  This one will be used about midway to the end of the Games, with American champions putting up their arms in victory, fist pumping, and general celebration.  Key lyric:  "Tonight is the night, we'll fight 'til it's over."

One Republic-"Counting Stars".  Look, if this is used in a Bud Light commercial during the Superbowl, that's a guarantee that it will be used for all manner of sports broadcasts.  I'm guessing this will be a good luge/skeleton song, as the key lyric is "everything that kills me makes me feel alive."

Lord-"Team."  I hate Lorde and all of her slowly sung songs that don't really make any sense.  This song will be used only for the musical part at the beginning...I'm guessing with Olympians lifting up their faces and opening up their eyes.  Seriously, there are ALWAYS shots of athletes opening up their eyes-it's such a cliche.  This song seems best suited for it.  Key lyric:  "Look upon your greatness."

Bastille-"Pompeii".  This song has the bombastic greatness that was made for overly sentimental pieces on athletes that have "one last chance" at gold, or are "putting it all on the line."  Key lyric:  "Does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all?...Like you've been here before?"  These lines were made for a Vancouver 2010 recap, right??

Finally, let's get to what will undoubtedly be the overplayed and overwrought anthem of the 2014 Sochi Olympics.  Yep, you guessed it:  Katy Perry, with "Roar."  It's almost like Katy Perry wrote the song specifically FOR the Olympics.  "Cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me ROAR."  Look, even my CEO from Europe likes this song.  You are already sick of it.  Prepare to be drowned in it over the next 2 weeks, people.  This is happening.

How to get tickets for Olympic events

Being in an Olympic venue is a life changing experience. You’re surrounded by people from all around the world, celebrating the achievements of incredibly talented athletes. Waves of goosebumps are likely, especially if your country takes home a gold medal and you get to see your flag hoisted above the crowd and your anthem blasted through an Olympic stadium. The best dollars you will spend for your Olympic trip will be on your tickets, so don't scrimp here. If you plan well, it won’t break the bank. You don’t need the best seat in the place. You just want a seat. Here’s how to get as many as possible.

As many of our followers know, getting tickets for the Olympics at the last minute has now become nearly impossible. Don’t show up without tickets and think you’ll get some on the street. The fines are high, and unlike most sports events, Olympic venues in London were completely devoid of scalpers. 

The ticketing process is fraught with obstacles, including a complicated pricing structure, random availability on any ticket drop day, and the fact that buying your tickets at one time doesn't mean that those tickets are anywhere near each other in the venue, especially if you purchase them very late (or during the Games). So where do you start? The first ticket drop will be a year before the Olympics, with announced drops to follow. The best drop will be the first one, with the most low cost options in one drop. 

The first step is to prioritize which events you want to see, and how many tickets you need for each event. A good way to do this is to go to the Olympic website, and make quick calendar of which events are on which days. Check out your country’s Olympic site to find out who your best athletes are, and which events they’re likely to medal in to determine the medal rounds that will be worth paying a little extra for a medal round. Consider an event that is really representative of the country you’re visiting for the Olympics, and that you’re less familiar with, like Russia and the biathlon, or Brazil and soccer. Send the list around to your group, and find out which events appeal most to them. Then prioritize. Your list might look like this: 

Women’s Downhill (4) Wednesday, February 8, 1:20 p.m.

Men’s Luge (4) Thursday, February 9, 5:15 p.m.

Men’s Curling (4) Friday, 10:20 a.m.

The event name, date and time are all important to include in the list. 

Everyone who is planning to attend should set up an account with the official ticketing agent of their home country. Having friends from different countries helps here, because each country gets an allocation at each ticket drop, so a different country might have better access to a particular event. In the USA, Cosport handles the ticketing. 

Once you have an account, you will receive notifications of when ticketing windows will open. Everyone attending should mark this time in their calendars. EVERYONE needs to be working on tickets at that time. It will be very difficult for one person to get more than one set of tickets for one event in a ticketing window. It’s a team effort, and part of the beginning of the Olympic excitement!! 

The day before the ticketing window, get your list ready. Assign each person trying for tickets ONE primary event to start with, to ensure that you’re grabbing different things as soon as the window opens. 

Login to the site in advance, and start refreshing. Ping everyone reminders, to make sure you’re not working alone. 

Once the ticketing window opens, you can search two ways, by event, and by date. If you have a priority event you’re looking for, go for that event first. It will list the different days and times, and the prices for each type of ticket. None of these should be a surprise at this point, because you can look up pricing in advance of the ticket window. This is where your list is helpful, because some events may have several times even in one day. Select the event you’d like to go to, and the number of tickets you would like. If you need 4 and there are only 2, remember that it’s possible that in the future you could get two more, and that two are better than none for high profile events. 

Once you have your priority event, it’s time to go for an all-out grab on anything else you might want. Basket times have lengthened recently, so you’ll have a bit of time to instant message your friends after you’ve grabbed everything that you can. Grab extras of other priority events. If you have a naughty friend, or their credit card gets rejected, or they get asked for a visa code they can’t remember, you have a backup plan. Grab cheap seats at events on days that you don’t have a prioritized event. Some can go for as little as $25, and you’ll still be at an Olympic event. 

It will only take a few minutes to get to the point where you have about everything you might want. It’s time to IM your friends. They should be at the same point as you. Confirm what they have, and determine what everyone is buying. This is also a good time to look for single tickets if one person was a few short for an event. Buy one cart at a time, and dump the tickets you don’t need as you go.

Good Luck getting tickets (especially if you’re cheering for Team USA)!