HAPPY NEW YEAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you!

May all your dreams and wishes come true!

another one of my "me&my friends in Europe" pictures...

MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYBODY!
I am home since Monday and getting ready for Christmas: (tiny) Christmas tree and all.....
Good to be home!
Wish you a peaceful and fun time with your family and friends and hope to see many of you in the next few days!

In Munich

Now we are sitting in Munich, waiting for out return flight on Monday.....A few of the bobsledders were able to change their flights and already home or on their way. The rest of my little sheep and I are entertaining ourselves at a boring airport hotel with doing nothing and eating..I am sure I gained a few pounds on this trip!
Yesterday I sent them all to a fitness centre (they are athletes, right?!) and went to the Christkindelsmarket in Munich. It was fun, and sure: I have said a few times in the past that I would love to spend pre-Christmas season in Germany and visit "a" Christmas market.
Thanks! I have had my fair share this year....
Still: Munich market and just being by myself was fun AND I am done with my Christmas shopping.
Today I took the "leftover" Canadians to a cool waterslide/thermal pool in Erding. What a blast!

and then they all left...

On Tuesday evening the race was cancelled and hell broke lose:

everybody was stampeding out the door.... But first they hit the bar: Now I can see why American Training centres do not have bars....their athletes are not trained enough to survive some heavy drinking.

Anyways: next morning everybody got up, dug out the cars, loaded the sleds and headed off for Munich...Almost everybody: One of the trucks had problems with the brake line and guess who was one of four to stay behind to take care of this little problem??? Of course! The team manager!!! At the end I didn't mind: the next day was beautiful weather down in the valley and had the rentall car company provided a solution to the problem, it wouldn't have been that bad....

So, it was a little stressful and my Italian is good enough to order a bottle of red wine....actually I can do that in almost any language... With the help of my favourite German son, who did not even complain about the phone call early morning, we found an exchange car and got out late at night!

Snow days....

And that is how I entertained myself....there was no or only unreliable internet at the centre...Nothing to do really, except to wait for meal times....and they did have a bar!!! And that is the difference between NorthAmerica and Europe: Olympic Training centre in Italy: Bar! Olympic Training centre in USA: we almost got kicked out because they found alcohol in the room of one of our athletes.....Cheers!

I remembered Italy differently.....

It has been a few days since my last post....and what kind of days those were:

Last Sunday we drove straight into a snow storm in Italy! The good news: everybody arrived safely at the Olympic Training Centre at Cesana/Torino. But that was the good news....After that we were just sitting around and watched the snow fall..and fall...and fall.....

The parking lot the next morning was a guessing game: Is this snow pile my car? Or this??? or??

Yahooooo..I found it!

keOutdoors was actually quite fun for "people like me" who do not really care about training times and conditions at the track. I have never seen this much snow in my life! For bored bobsledders who are just pacing up and down the hallways, not so much fun...

Another race day...

Another race is over with some results: Gold for the bobsleigh girls again. Congratulations! ..and 4th place for the skeleton men.
It is winter wonderland here: Austria is drowning under record snow falls, but the sun and chinook winds came through today. It was just beautiful!
We are now heading to Italy..I am excited!!...and by next week I will be back in Calgary for a short Christmas break. Yahooooooo..

Innsbruck

Since there was another support staff member coming today who needed pick up from the train station,I had the opportunity of an afternoon in "downtown" Innsbruck. I was hoping for some inspirations for Christmas presents, but ended up strolling the Christmas market and after 35 years re-visiting the Goldene Dachl....Am I really that old already?????? The weather has been outstanding, a little overcast today, but still nice. This morning I went to the Alpenzoo...another location I still remember from "way back when". I went with one of the athletes and his family and we had a lot of fun. I guess this afternoon I have to go back to the track and videotape..every now and then I have to pretend I am actually working.

It is nice here, but everybody, including me, seems to be a bit tired of traveling and is counting down to get home... The hotel we are staying in is not the greatest and the owners are "real Austrian". Which means: they are doing us a favour by allowing us to stay at their hotel..and that is how they treat us....

Lazy Sunday

Today was another day "away" from the Canadian Sports World.

We visited some more of M.'s interesting friends:

I am still dragging around enough adidas stuff for the rest of my life, so I shared some of the cool wear with the "Germans"...

Other than this it was a lazy Sunday, I am having a cold and as usual I am"suffering" quietly...I probably missed to pick up the conditioning coach in Munich today...I thought, he was arriving tomorrow?! Oh well...

Christkindlesmarkt in Nuernberg

My skeletonians left early for Austria and my bobsledders were heading to Herzogenaurach for some more shopping after the 4-man race. That gave me the opportunity to spent another day in Nuernberg with M.&R.

After all these years I made it to the famous Nuremberg Christmas market again: the smell of Bratwurst,Lebkuchen (kind of gingerbread) and Gluehwein, the Christmas decorations, even the cheesy Christmas music...That is the Christmas spirit!

We spent a beautiful early evening at the market and then met another friend at one of the little restaurants with good German food and beer from one of 300 micro breweries in the area.That is what this region is about: good food and good beer!

...oh, and before I forget: there was another World Cup race, too: the best skeletonian finished 8th, the bob sleigh girls were ok and the rest does not need mentioning. There will be another race next weekend.....

Second week of World Cup at the end of the world....

I am in Altenberg now...really close to Dresden actually....but in a totally different world! It is the middle of nowhere (but they do have an ice track and that is why we are here).The hotel we are in is quite a "culture shock" after the nice and familiar place in Winterberg. Skeletonians and I are living in a huuuuuuge place that used to be an East German hospital/prison/SED vacation place???? and my bobsledders are even deaper in the woods in a hostel style place called "Waldidylle"....
I never knew such places existed in this country?! Somehow soccer fields seem to be in more central locations.
The races last weekend were somewhat disappointing for (all) the boys, so pressure is on! The track is different again and seems to be more challenging: I have seen some interesting body positions on skeleton this morning while videotaping between curve 4 and 5.