Ready for takeoff!

Well, almost time to take off!  I leave on Saturday morning, with a flight to Newark, New Jersey, and then an NBC Charter direct to Sochi on United.  I can't tell you how glad I am to be on the Charter.  It's a 10 hour direct flight, whereas if you fly commercial, you have to go through Moscow, which is 1600km out of the way, and add a 5 hour layover on top of that.

Plus, the NBC Charter has lots of free food and drink, and often there will be NBC talent on board, like Bob Costas.  I remember my charter flight to Beijing was filled with all the NBC interns. They were all plastered within a couple hours of take off, and I kept thinking they really needed to pace themselves better!  I land on the morning of Superbowl Sunday, though by game time it will be 3am on Monday in Sochi, and I somehow don't think I'll be up watching the game.  But, Go Seahawks!

Sochi has a "humid subtropical climate", which seems like an odd place to hold the Winter Olympics.  It is a resort town on the eastern shore of the Black Sea.  There are palm trees and beaches.  The average temperature in February is about 10C (50F).  It has been so cold here in Ontario this winter, I am really looking forward to the warmer temperatures.

The plaza area of the Azimut Hotel.

In Sochi/Adler, I will be staying at the Azimut Hotel Sochi, which is new, and has over 2800 rooms.  It is about a 30-40 minute Olympic Shuttle bus ride to the IBC and Olympic Park.  Oddly, you can also walk to the IBC in about 30-40 minutes too because the buses take such circuitous routes.  I'm not sure yet which will be best.  I guess it will depend on the weather, and how safe I feel on both routes.

Overview of the Azimut Hotel

I will be working 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week, as usual, and after the Opening Ceremonies, my regular shift will be 9pm to 9am (Sochi time), which is 12pm to 12am EST.  This means I will not be working when most of the events are taking place during the day (except evening events like Figure Skating!).  However, I will be working when NBC is producing their afternoon and primetime shows back to the US.

It's actually a pretty good schedule.  I will be busy monitoring the studio shows and helping control room staff with communication issues during most of my shift, and then at around 6am most of the venues will be starting to wake up for the day and I'll be doing the daily check-ins with them to make sure everything is working correctly and that the control rooms and production people in the IBC know how to communicate with the venues they will be working with that day.

I haven't decided yet whether I will sleep after work, and do my exploring in the late afternoon and early evening before heading back to work, or whether I will spend the mornings looking around, and then sleep in the afternoon until it is time to go back to work.

Anyway, thanks for following me on this (hopefully interesting) journey.  I can't wait to get started!