Sochi Prices

[Digit]

#76109
CNN Money estimates the average American going to these games could spend $7,000 to $14,000 per person. Some figures from that article:
Many hotels are charging one grand per night. Family of Olympians can get the bargain price of $750 per night.
Event tickets start at about $100 and they can run into the thousands for hockey and skating.
Seats at the opening ceremony are between $793 and $1,838.
American attendees must also have a visa to enter Russia, which costs roughly $300.

In Russia, Olympics play you.

[Digit]

Also, looks like many hotels have yellow water, tiny, bare rooms, and toilets you can't flush the toilet paper down (please do not flush toilet paper down the toilet; put it in the bin provided)

[Yarjka]

Also, looks like many hotels have yellow water, tiny, bare rooms, and toilets you can't flush the toilet paper down (please do not flush toilet paper down the toilet; put it in the bin provided)

That's all pretty standard for Russia. Don't know why people would expect anything different.

[Digit]

Why can't their toilets handle TP, I wonder?

[Yarjka]

Why can't their toilets handle TP, I wonder?

Poor plumbing, I'd suspect, don't want to deal with clogged pipes. Water pressure is haphazard at best.

I saw toilet paper trash in every bathroom in Ecuador when I visited there, and it's not uncommon in other areas of Latin America. I've been told it's the same in Thailand as well.

In some cases it might just be how they used to have to do things and now it has become the cultural norm. In any case, it's really not that big of a deal. You fold the toilet paper up so the poop is on the inside, there's usually a lid, and it's a small enough trash that it gets emptied frequently. It's just a different way of doing things.

In the US, we have this mentality of 'flush it and it's gone - out of sight, out of mind'. It's not exactly healthy. I've been on tours of sewage treatment facilities and it's amazing how much junk we flush down our toilets that really shouldn't be there. Just because you flush it doesn't mean it disappears.

[wryness]

Check out this Washington Post article for yet more reasons (including some of the aforementioned) why tickets to the Sochi Olympics sound ridiculously overpriced. After reading that, I'm not even that excited to watch the Olympics on TV, something I have traditionally done with my family for every round of the Games. (Then again, I'm living away from them anyway now. Bleah.)

[Digit]

So the yellow water from #13 is not only not safe enough to drink, they are being told it's too polluted to bathe in. I hope that's not a norm for most Russians.

[Owlet]

I saw toilet paper trash in every bathroom in Ecuador when I visited there

I was just thinking this! I remember forgetting a couple times and accidentally flushing the toilet paper, and I freaked out -- I thought I was going to break all of Ecuador's sewage system! Even though I was only there for a couple months, it took me a while to get used to the American way when I got back.

[Yarjka]

So the yellow water from #13 is not only not safe enough to drink, they are being told it's too polluted to bathe in. I hope that's not a norm for most Russians.

Plenty of buildings turn the water off completely for most of the day. But yes, they should fix the problem, water contamination is no joke. We've had our own issues with it, so we should understand. I just think in the large scheme of things, these are fairly run-of-the-mill problems for Russia that should have been somewhat expected by reading any standard travel book on the region. I think people are deflated from high expectations (the high cost of the Olympics should bring a reward of posh luxury and entertainment), but they also seem overly gleeful about the chance to mock Russia's problems.

[bismark]

There is something about folding up your used toilet paper in a nice little square that really makes you feel a connection to your inner self.

[Digit]

Speaking of different ways of taking care of business in different cultures around the world, don't they still use their good ol' left hand to do the job in Saudi Arabia and other countries on the Arabian Peninsula?

[Yarjka]

Speaking of different ways of taking care of business in different cultures around the world, don't they still use their good ol' left hand to do the job in Saudi Arabia and other countries on the Arabian Peninsula?

I use my right hand to wipe, but I hold with my left when I pee. This ruined Gattaca for me (an otherwise great film) because the plot rests on the idea that right-handed people only use their right hand. Oh well.

Anyways, as far as Muslims go, things get more complicated than just which hand you use, depending on how strict you want to observe. Some will do a purifying wash (wudu - ablution) anytime they pass gas (but note: "If Satan approaches one of you saying 'you have broken your state of purity', tell him he is lying, unless you smell it with your nose or hear the sound with your ears.").

[Digit]

The idea of a devil appearing to someone and then accusing them of farting made me chuckle.

But referring to the left hand, I had read that they use just their left hand and water in rural parts. Is that what you do also?

[Yarjka]

But referring to the left hand, I had read that they use just their left hand and water in rural parts. Is that what you do also?

Please stop referring to my rural parts, you don't know me that well!

[Digit]

Sorry, that wasn't very urbane of me at all

[Portia]

Speaking of different ways of taking care of business in different cultures around the world, don't they still use their good ol' left hand to do the job in Saudi Arabia and other countries on the Arabian Peninsula?

I use my right hand to wipe, but I hold with my left when I pee. This ruined Gattaca for me (an otherwise great film) because the plot rests on the idea that right-handed people only use their right hand. Oh well.

Anyways, as far as Muslims go, things get more complicated than just which hand you use, depending on how strict you want to observe. Some will do a purifying wash (wudu - ablution) anytime they pass gas (but note: "If Satan approaches one of you saying 'you have broken your state of purity', tell him he is lying, unless you smell it with your nose or hear the sound with your ears.").

OMG GATTACA is amazing. Was there gratuitous Jude Law nudity that I forgot and need to go investigate?

[Yarjka]

OMG GATTACA is amazing. Was there gratuitous Jude Law nudity that I forgot and need to go investigate?

Well, it never hurts to rewatch just in case.