The hotel we are staying in is a 4 star hotel called “ Hotel Olympia.” This is such a great pleasure to be here since the previous nights stay was not good. You can really appreciate a good hotel after staying in one not so pleasant. After getting to bed at 4 30am I woke up at 8am to eat breakfast secretly hoping they would have some Creaps. After eating I went back to sleep for about 2 hours. After walking around a bit and going to the bank and exchanging money I went to the mall next door. This mall was pretty big for Russia. It had three floors and was pretty modern. The funny part was going to the food court and seeing stores called “Southern Fried Chicken, The Steak House, and Baskin Robbins.” They also had a huge electronic store that looked just Circuit City. After spending about an hour at the mall in the sport store and grocery store with Victor I went back to the hotel. After finding out that there was an Olympic size swimming pool right behind the hotel, Victor and I decided to go over there and swim. This was the most sophisticated pool I had been in. They give you a bracelet to enter and that gives you access to everything even the locker and showers. They also give you slip on covers for your shoes when you enter so your not tracking dirt and mud everywhere. Upon entering the pool they did not want to let me in at first because of my swimming trunks they said. Victor then got a girl we meet on the way in to talk to them about us and then they let me in the pool. The facility was awesome with 9 swimming lanes, a diving pool, children’s section, Russian saunas, etc. I had never been in a Russian sauna before so I tried it and it was great. It is like a dry sauna that is super hot. I only lasted 6 minutes and then went out and came back in for 5 minutes. After the pool I went back to the hotel to get a well needed massage at 5pm. The masseuse spoke very little English but the masseuse did manage to tell me that jazz was a style of music that was appreciated.

After eating dinner at 7pm I got on line since it had been about 4 days or so since I had been on the internet. This has by far been the best rest day I have had on this trip. The blue team works hard and plays hard!

Song for the day-“Runaway Love” –band Ludacris