February 11

Today was quite the busy day! This afternoon we went for a ride to the mountains. The highest mountain is 3,000 meters. There were a lot of pine trees with snow on them, so it reminded us of home. We saw a skating rink and also a ski area. Olesya had fallen asleep in the car, so she and I missed the ski area, but Mom enjoyed it. The skating rink was a large arena where a lot of people were skating. There were also some carnival rides going. We saw several wedding parties that drove up to the mountains to celebrate.
The ski area was small, you could see from the bottom to the top. There was one long chair lift and there was also a rope tow. There was a hotel right at the bottom of the slope. The ride up to it was very steep, narrow and winding. There were a couple of times when we weren’t sure if we would make it up the hill, but we did.
Olesya again proved to be a wonderful traveler. The change in altitude did not bother her ears and she was able to sleep in the car even though we were going down curvy roads.