Im still in Sochi, going to be here until the 10th of January where I have to travel back to the UK to do 2 things, fist one is to renew my passport as there are no available pages for the second thing I need, which is a new Russian work visa, its a tight turn around but hopefully it will go without a hitch!
The Fisht stadium is such a huge place, and getting around takes quite a while, there are two main arches where allot of our kit and cable infrastructure is being hung from and this whole place is no more than 100m from the black sea. Look one way and its part buildings part stadium and look the other way and you see the beautiful vista of the sea, nice when the sun is shining.
All f last week was taken up with pulling up and threading cable trough the arches along the catalos to various which cabinets and safety circuit cabinets, pretty similar as the week but much heavier work, at the end of play today (Tuesday 26th Nov) most of it is in on the high catwalks but theres still allot to go in lower down. Jam and Chris had a bit of a competition reeling the excess cable we didn’t use back not he cable drum and had a good giggle at the same time.
I think it was wednesday last week we went to the supermarket to get some bits and bobs, you can see what most of the stuff is but don’t actually 100% know what your buying. I later discovered that what i thought was beef jerky was really fired fish, Bleugh. What was really ace was the size of the Vodka section, as to be expected when in Russia. Someone told me earlier this wee that when they went to see the medic about an incredibly sore throat they couldn’t get rid of that she told them to gargle with vodka at the end of each day then then swallow it! I was pretty happy when I saw this one, Si Bye had introduced me to green tea and Vodka during manchester festival couple of years ago and it was a revelation to see this on the shelves!
When it hasn’t rained for a couple of days it becomes pretty dusty in the venue with all the work going on. The downside is that it makes you cough, the plus side you see Crepuscular rays like this when the sun is in the right place
Sunday, on our day off, Nat, one of our riggers had organised a trip ingot he mountains to have a BBQ and drink some ChaCha, there was only a few of us went and when we got to the picnic site it wasn’t what I was expecting. Really beautiful place and it was good to be away from work and away from the hotel were living in. It was a well needed break and once to meet some new people, I possibly drank too much ChaCha.
Theres a bit of a theme developing with faces in places, after pointing out some to colleagues we’ve ball been spotting ore and more. The best one by far and the one that made us laugh the most was when Jam put his lunchbox on the table in the canteen and i spotted a happy little sandwich face.
These are just a few if the highlights of the past 10 days, theres been some really good days and some painfully slow days with various hold ups but everyone seems to be in good spirits. Theres still a long way to go for a show and hopefully the humour stays up as the days get longer.