Sochi, Russia
The ship offers the crew an opportunity to act as escorts on many of the shore excursions. It is free to us, but we are assigned to whatever tour they choose. Some people end up going on the same tour year after year and others luck out. Well, I had not wanted to go on any of the tours in the “hot” ports, plus Carter and I have enjoyed exploring on our own after clinic. It seemed to get into a pattern of his doing the clinics in the morning and then not getting off until after 2pm. Well, I have the option to choose morning only tours, so that is what I am doing now.
When we first heard about Sochi, Russia we were told that no one could go off the ship unless they were on a tour or had a visa for Russia, so I thought now was a good time to escort a tour. I signed up and lo’ and behold, they put me on a tea plantation tour. I guess there were 2 different locations for this Russian tea party and I drew the lesser of the two. But no complaints. I got off the ship!
The tours were all late getting started because of the immigration. It went on forever. They must have spent 5 minutes on my passport alone. Just think of getting 1200 passengers off the ship, onto tenders and then on their buses. Once everyone was on the bus, we were told that we were going to have to cut the tours short because our ship was too slow…….Several of the tours were to see specific houses as their last stop. The tour guides all read from a script and if they didn’t have time for the house, they just returned to the ship.
It was a rainy, foggy day and cold besides. I had brought along my down vest and had a wind-breaker/rain coat, so I was fine. Others were not so lucky. It ended up that our Tea Party was totally outside, although it was covered for the time we were drinking tea. The wind was relentless and most of the people had dressed so poorly that they began to get chilled. We had a woman who was almost blind, three or four with canes and several with walkers. Three or so were not able to do the minimal walking that was required from the bus to the site. The pavement was uneven, muddy and there were huge holes intermittently in the sidewalks. Not ideal for these with disabilities. Then the bus fogged up all the tour and the guide had painful English. She really had troubles with the numbers, like 1856. You could see that she was counting from one to 18, then just plain said 5 and 6, rather than 56.
The adventure occurred when we were driving out of the mountains back to the ship. We were stopped by the police right in front of the residence where Bush and Putin will be meeting in a few days. They didn’t inspect our documents, but took the driver into their patrol cars and examined multiple documents he had – keeping a blue notebook full of papers. I think they were just practicing for the international visit.
The ubiquitous feeling after this tour and most of the other ones was that Sochi has a long way to go for the Olympics. They roads are 2 lane and circuitous. They have no signs in any language other than Russian, no souvenir shops, postcards, anything. They have a few hotels and spas, but no where enough places to house the millions of guests who come for the Olympics. And they need good translators and some way to speed up their immigration situation. It was laborious.
April 2, 2008
Sevastopol, Ukraine
Late last night I received a phone call asking me to escort a tour along the Crimean Peninsula to Bakalava, exploring the Crimean War sites and the hidden submarine work yards of the Soviets. This was an all day tour, so I wasn’t sure I should do it. Carter would be left on his own. Never fear! Within hours Carter had been given a ticket to go on a tour of Yalta to Nicholas II’s summer palace. I tried to convince Carter that he would prefer the submarines (in reality, I thought the palace was better than the submarines), but he wouldn’t be deterred.
In the end, we were both pleased with our trips and had tons of history to share, as well as tales of our fellow visitors. The funniest comparisons were the toilet stories. I was on a tour that cost $109 for each person and the tour operators insisted on charging us 50 cents to go to the toilet. My groups was aghast to have the 2 footprints and a hole toilet. The paper was on the wall before entering the stall. At least it had toilet paper. I just rolled my pants up and took care of business in the first place. I didn’t want to be riding the bus for 2 hours in discomfort. Our next potty stop was Western and you should have seen the apprehensive looks prior to use. They sent me in first to check it out. They were relieved to find that this was more to their liking.
Carter’s situation was funny because it was in the middle of a VERY nice restaurant. Something went wrong with the women’s toilet, so they decided to use the men’s for both. There were 3 urinals and 3 stalls, so they told the women not to look and ushered them into the stalls, while the men were on the other side of the bathroom doing their thing. Everyone was embarrassed.
Check out the photos of the tours. Carter got to see the room and table where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met in Yalta, as well as the opulence of the Palace. He had a long ride to Yalta (about 2 hours), but at the end was rewarded with a fantastic lunch and entertainment by local artisans. I got to go in some secret underground tunnels for Soviet submarines as well as see the site of the Valley of Death. I had some rather unruly passengers and felt somewhat like a teacher of smaller children. Two of the men started to yell at each other during one of the presentations. It was an argument over battle tactics – which I know nothing about. But I do understand basic courtesy, so I had to get between them. I think they got the point and it got quieter.
Labels: Personal
posted by Hills @ 8:24 AM
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