Ryan Whitney - Player's Tribune

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Another good read.

So let me preface the rest of this story by saying that I’m a kid from Boston about to get on a plane and be thrown into a very strange experience on the other side of the world. You may experience some strong language. Viewer discretion is advised.

The plane touched down at 4 a.m. I had to fly from Boston to Turkey to Sochi. My head is spinning. Eyes are red. I’m delirious. This guy picks me up at baggage claim with the big sign, just like the movies. He barely speaks English.

Look, I’m not naive. I’ve traveled abroad before. But my first thought at the airport was, Holy shit. Why is the letter H upside down? Everything’s in Russian. Like, everything.

The guy drives me to my apartment. There’s no more exciting and nerve-wracking feeling than landing in a new city and being driven to your new home. So after a while, I start seeing all the Olympic rings everywhere. We drive into this big complex, and there are hundreds of these brand-new apartments. Perfectly paved streets. Rows of street lamps.

And there’s not a single living soul that I can see. No cars. No nothing.

I’m like, “Wait a second, this is the actual Olympic village.”

Which is awesome, except for the fact that the Olympics are over.

The guy stops the car outside one of the buildings. He points. “OK. Apartment.”

I get out of the car and look around, and it was like the zombie apocalypse had hit a college town. I get into the apartment, and there’s a single light and a bed.

My driver turns to leave and says, “10 a.m. Hospital. Drug test. I’ll be back. 10 a.m.”

I just laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling, repeating, What the hell did you do? What the hell did you do?

Sure enough, 10 a.m. the next morning, my driver shows up and takes me 45 minutes away to the nearest hospital. The drive helped calm my nerves. I got some sleep. I’m telling myself, You’re good. This will be fun. It’s a new experience. Just roll with it. You’ll find some friends on the team.

I walk into the hospital and this is the sound I’m greeted with:

“AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!”

There’s literally a dude laying in the waiting room in agony. There’s no separate emergency room. It’s all one room. I mean, this guy is bleeding. Just sitting in a chair, bleeding out of his arm. He’s got a towel over it that looked like a towel Slava Fetisov might have used to wipe his face clean at the ’80 Olympics in Lake Placid.

I go up to the nurse like, Is this? What is this? Am I in the right room?

Nothin’. Blank stare. No English. I go sit down. What can I do? I wait.

Now I’m panicking.

After an hour, the nurse calls me: “Wheet-ney.”

Mind you, the bleeding guy is still sitting there, so that’s probably not good, but what am I gonna do? I go in.

Despite the language barrier, we figure it out. I do the standard stuff. Pee in a cup. Breathe deep. Cough. Whatever.

Then the nurse straps the band on my arm to do my blood pressure, and she’s pumping the pump, and I look up …

She’s smoking a cigarette.

Tales From Abroad: Russia | By Ryan Whitney

 

[Gooch1034]

Good read! I laughed at the vid he posted because you can tell by the movement of the cam or phone he recorded it with that he was like, "WTF just happened?"