HITS AND MISSES MICHELLE PICKLES

HITI love travelling, particularly flying, so every time I get on a plane it’s a hit for me. I’ve been lucky enough to travel a lot for work over the years to some amazing places including Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics, Beijing and London for the Olympic Games and Melbourne, Delhi and Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games. Delhi was definitely a hit, such a fascinating place. I remember one time we were late for a live cross, stuck in traffic on a huge roundabout, with cars going everywhere and horns sounding constantly — it was pandemonium and then I looked out to my left and there was a man riding an elephant. Such a beautiful, calm image among all the crazy chaos, and certainly one that captures the city’s amazing culture. I’m off to Rio soon with Mike McRoberts and our Newshub team — so hopefully that will also be a big hit — especially for our athletes.

MISSWe went out for dinner in Sochi one night to an authentic Russian restaurant, well known for its wine. Problem was it only sold red wine and I’m a white wine drinker. No problem, I’ll just have a lemonade. They didn’t sell fizzy drink. Okay, an orange juice then ... no juice either. Okay, um water? Nope. Right, I thought, I’m in Russia — I’ll have a vodka — they must have vodka right? No. Seriously, all they sold was red wine. But then through the language difficulties — the waiter smiled and said a word I didn’t understand. He came back with what looked like orange juice and tasted like Metamucil. I’m happy to report, though, that the food was amazing. Apart from the salted fat. We thought it must translate to crackling. But no...