Weekend in Sochi

 

At our EF school, it has become an annual event for the teachers to go on a weekend trip somewhere.  In the past, the teachers went to St. Petersburg, Kiev (Ukraine), and Kaliningrad last year.  This year, 15 teachers (all women—Rex decided not to go) went to Sochi.  You may remember hearing the name, because the winter Olympics will be held there in 2014.

 

Sochi is a resort city on the Black Sea in the very southern part of Russia.  It is a mixture of tropics and mountains.  There are still snow-covered mountains around Sochi!  Our trip began by being picked up at 3:30 am Friday morning to go to the airport for a 6:00 flight.  We actually ate breakfast in Sochi!  The rest of that day was spent being taken many places in a van.  You can see pictures in our photo gallery.  Our driver was very good at being a tour guide, even using both hands to demonstrate and emphasize.  Those of us in the back were wondering how he was driving!  I’m happy to say that we didn’t have any close calls. 

On Saturday, 12 of us went on an excursion down the coast to the little country of Abkhazia.   We left at 7:00 am and didn’t return until 12:00 pm.  Our tour bus (with about 50 people) was very comfortable.  Here are some of the things we saw:

Since Saturday was so full, there was nothing official planned for Sunday.  Around 4:00, we were to go eat shashlik, or shish-ka-bobs.  The driver from Friday picked us up, but he had his own idea about shashlik.  He took us to several stores that he knew had fresh meat.  Our director bought big pork chops and live fish.  We had to listen to a big bag full of fish jerk around for a while.  Then he went to a place by a river to cook it all.  He had never been to this place, but he asked the man if we could use his facilities, which were really nice for our group.  The man agreed, our driver started the coals, cooked the chops to perfection, and showed us how to prepare the fish.  It was all wonderful, and I’m sure we gave the owner quite a story to tell.

Our plane left Sochi at 12:55 am.  I crawled into bed at 4:30 Monday morning—very tired but very happy.