peaking

I haven't done a great job of posting updates here, though overall, things have been going well and there's plenty to post - so I'm going to try to do a bit of catch up over the next couple days. (By the way, I have found that I do post to Instagram fairly often since its easier just to post a pic here and there - so be sure to check there if you want the most frequent updates: @jonberrydesign.)  I mentioned on my last post that we were thinking about going up to the mountain venues after work the next day - and in fact, we did! (The Sochi Olympics are different than most previous Winter Games in that instead of games venues being scattered all over the place, both in the city and in the mountains, they built a cluster of arena venues near the coast and a cluster of mountain venues for the outdoor events.)  We took a car (an adventure itself in Russia) up to the Rosa Khutuor area and basically wandered a little without any idea where we were or what to see. It didn't really matter a lot since the goal was just to see and be in the mountains. We wandered the village a bit (all of this is newly built, mind you) and then found our way to a gondola that took us up the mountain to one of the athlete villages. We couldn't enter that village, but wandered around up there for a while taking pictures (and selfies) and taking in the view of the mountains. The view really was amazing.  Back in the village, we wandered into a hotel where we were to be picked up and got invited into a reception that we probably weren't really supposed to be in (but hey, they invited us!). Some free snacks and beers topped off a good day, even if it took away from prized sleep time.