Czech Checked!

Warning: trying to get to this 9pm game involved a lot of numbers. Get your pencils ready.

7:13pm
Maddeningly the free, comfortable train trip from Sochi airport to Adler train station was only 9 minutes long but I'd just missed the last half hourly departure meaning a wait three times as long as the journey itself. In case you missed it in the previous post, I was in a hurry.

7:49pm
Alongside a crush of people I burst from the train station and it's semi chaotic. The easily recognisable rainbow suited volunteers seem a good resource to direct me to my local hostel I know to be 3km away from the shoddily hand drawn map they provided. The first I speak to directs me away from the buses I anticipated boarding and back into the second floor of the train station I'd just left. I join the queue for security in haste but mulling it over it seemed a buck passing by the Russian speaking volunteer so I withdrew from the line and tried again. This time a mob of volunteer youngsters team up to pore over the map eventually coming up with 'taxi?' I ask about a bus and eventually get to the point where I can get on a bus halfway and go by foot with my massive backpack the rest of the way. Settled. What bus? 125.

Turning to the row of buses the 125 was right in front of me, jammed full and ready to depart. The volunteers run me over, shout my stop name to me and push on my pack to make me fit in the door.

7:58pm
The bus cost 19 rubles which I pass through a couple hands to the driver on some sort of honour system. From my offline maps I attempt to prepare the latter part of my trip, by foot, but am not making much sense of it. My good fortune placed a Russian saviour beside me on the bus who meekly offered his help though admitting "with English I'm like a dog, I understand but cannot talk back." He gets off the bus with me and points in the right direction. I shout my thanks and run off into the warm night, backpack and frontpack bouncing.

8:16pm
Searching for #85 I run more than a few minutes down the road finally recognising a hotel familiar from pictures. I duck through the gate but there's absolutely no sign - but there wasn't in Moscow either. There's also no front entrance but a few dodgy side entrances and the third one has a man who clearly says this is private apartment building, #84, trying looking across the street.

8:24pm
Having run further down the street to #52 on one side and #17 in the other exasperated I think this can't be right. Double checking the address (of course not written on the map cuz that would make it not a shoddy map) I realise I was in fact looking for #84 not #85 and curse mildly (for the sake of this blog) while turning to backtrack.

8:30pm
The apartment complex is no more inviting and I just keep walking hastily alongside it as it gets dodgier and I'm finally being the building with some back alleyway, albeit moderately lit. I enter another doorway to find still no sign, a staircase, and a doorway with a welcome mat. Desperation and lack of options I their open wide the door behind the welcome mat, and freeze.
A family is sitting around their living room and all turn in confusion to glare at me.
"Hostel?" I squeak. The patriarch begins lambasting me in strong Russian and I murmur an apology, slam the door and run back the way I came with glances to see if he is following me with a broom or something less friendly.

8:31pm
Besides my heart firmly in my throat nothing has changed about my situation and the clock is ticking. Not knowing what else to do I peek through a curtain of a stained glass window and then approach the doorway. This time I ring the bell. The man is gruff but when I ask for the hostel he points back around the corner, aka the danger zone potentially with a broom wielding Russky, and says 6.
Back I hustle past the doormat ("Welcome" my ass) and up flight after flight, huffing with the pack. In my hurry I lose count of the flights of this seemingly abandoned, unsigned stairwell and start back to the bottom to count again when someone comes along and tells me to keep going - all the way to the top.

8:34pm
I tumble through the door a sweaty disheveled mess to the merriment of the bunch of Aussies and Americans hanging around having a drink. My story flows from my mouth as I being ripping through my pack for what I need. They are helpful as the hostel attendants are no where to be found (still aren't) and assure me I can dump my bag in a corner. Talking me out of running the two kilometres to the Olympic park (which would have brought me to the wrong side and been a disaster) they direct me back to the bus stop I'd just left.

8:41pm
100 rubles are converted into dinner at the convenience store - blue Powerade and a jumbo snickers. To go with my lunch of Twix and a stale airline bun and breakfast of half a pack of peanuts.

8:44pm
Bus B6 pulls up just as I arrive and I leap on.

9:01pm
Finally we stop in Olympic Park Hub and following a young man and his father we begin running to security. Denied! This is apparently staff entrance, the bus has pulled away and we have to run around the corner.. As we run the young man says in hesitant English "Olympics. We are like sportsmen." I laugh and run faster than the father.

9:14pm
The wrong gate has set me back but security was relatively painless. Now begins the apparently 25 minute walk to the arena that at my vacation-exercise-level takes me something like a mere 24-minute run. What I would give to have a montage of the 85 or so photos I bombed while running across the Olympic park as I took in the familiar Fisk stadium and Olympic flame for the first time firsthand.

9:27pm
I've never been so pleased to see the Swiss flag, projected on top of the Bolshoy Arena located at the further end of this massive park. One more security hurdle before Rockying the arena steps and scanning in. 

9m57s 1st period
Halfway through the first period I flop into my awesome seat for an (actually) entertaining tilt, a 1-0 Swiss upset on Jonas Hiller's shoulders, despite Jagr's birthday and Kaberle's best effort.