Sochi Winter Olympics – Russia

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I've been invited to go to Sochi, Russia, during the Winter Olympics for work while I was working at Canon Brazil. The idea was to support photographers during the Olympics and learn more about big events for what was ahead of us in Brazil.

We stayed there for 2 weeks, Sochi is the largest resort city in Russia and it is a city that is used to receive a bunch of tourists during the summer - to enjoy the beach and the water.

Although there's a great language barrier and not every Russian speaks English, I felt them really welcoming towards the foreigners and excited to see people interested in their culture. As a vegetarian I had a little extra struggle though, as it was usually very hard to understand the menu and if something had any kind of meat in it or not.

Beer was extremely cheap and there was a bunch of German brands available as well, with a much better price than I'm used to pay for them. Going to the market was an adventure by itself, I wanted to buy a good vodka to take home and I knew I would find many brands, I just didn't know I would see myself at a very very long aisle full of vodkas of all kinds and places. How do you decide when you have so many options? Tip: look at the cheapest one, look at the most expensive, now you know the medium price for a bottle, now go a little up that price and select a bottle design you like...

As I was working, I haven't been able to attend a lot of the event itself, except for one day off that I could go watch the female speed skiing competition. It wasn't very crowded because it was raining a lot, but it was beautiful to see the athletes going full speed down the slopes.
As you might know, I'm Brazilian and before Sochi, I've never seen snow before! It was also in Sochi that I've learned and skied the first time: how fancy!

I've also been to the main street market and it amazed me to see all the spices and condiments they had. All the fruits and nuts, different kinds of honey, sweets I've never seen before. Of course I bought a lot of things just to try, can't really remember their names though. Again, not all of them could communicate well in English so if it seemed appealing I was all in, at the same time I'm pretty sure I've paid 10 times the price tag.

I know I've seen very little, I'd love to go back to Russia to know better its culture and the great places this country has!