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Bring on the World ... the Canadian Women are ready! |
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| August 25th, 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||
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It's the night before our first race here at the IDBF World Championships in Prague, Czech Republic. We've been here together since Saturday getting settled in and having three days of practices on the water. Our hotel is a cute little place in the middle of nowhere :) We are in Roztoky which is just outside of Prague. It's about a 12 minute train ride into the heart of the city. Went in on Sunday and Mondayto do some sightseeing and exploring. It was interesting doing this in a group compared to when I did it all by myself everywhere I've been so far. Great to have some company and people to talk in English with that's for sure! So I guess the last you folks heard I was in Paris and heading to the Louvre before I was going to make my way to Amsterdam. Wednesday was another scortching hot day in Paris, mid 30s temperatures. Woke up, ate, packed up, hit the metro to the Gare du Nord, got my ticket to Amsterdam and then went to put my bag in a locker for the day ... but no, scanner was busted so no lockers available today! Could not believe it! So I walked down to Gare du Est and put it in there before hitting the town. First stop was the Louvre where I was able to bypass the line since I had a ticket already (bought it at the hostel) and walk right in. Busy place though, so many people. It was pretty darn cool in there. The sculptures, giant paintings, beautiful pottery, and so much other stuff in there was just plain cool! I wandered for a good part of the day before heading back out into the sunshine and discovering some new parts of Paris before making my way back up to the train stations. Rolled into Amsterdam around 10pm. Enjoyed my stroll through the crowds and red light district to get to my hostel. Got checked in, locked up my gear in the locker and crashed. Up early next day, which just happened to set records in Amsterdam as the hottest day in YEARS!!! Think we were told it reached 37C. I took a 3 hr free walking tour that was pretty good then went wandering on my own. I met up with a friend that lives there for dinner and some more siteseeing with the stories from a local. Thanks to Stacey for a great evening! After we parted at the train station I went back into the mix and checked out the night life for a bit before returning to the hostel and actually getting some work done on some interview questions that I'm doing for a woman writing a book about women with type 1 Diabetes. Next day was more wandering, did the Anne Frank Haus Museum, went up to the Van Gogh Museum, took a canal boat tour and found some pretty cool little places along the way. The day passed so quickly and before I knew it I had to board my 19:01 train to Prague! I settled into my seat for the overnight trip to Prague, chatting with the two German guys and then the Dutch couple that joined me in the cabin for a little while. Just as we were all kind of settling into fall asleep we get told that we will have to change cars soon as there's something wrong with our car. Midnight was the time we were told so we didn't bother going to sleep as that was only an hour away or so. Chatted with a bunch of guys out by the car entrance for a bit. One from Vancouver, one from Holland but is a "wanna-be" Canadian and the other was Dutch too I think. Quite an interesting trio. Anyways, lose track of time and don't realize that it's well after midnight and we still haven't reached our stop where we have to change trains. Finally get there, they take the back half of the train off and remove our defective car then reattach the rest of the train. Take a look at my photo album on facebook for the pictures of our scheduled time of departure and our actual time! So finally got to go to sleep around 2am after finally figuring out through various translations that we had to change cars again in Berlin. They woke us up at 5am. As I stepped out of my sleeping car, I looked out the window to see a misty beautiful countryside. We went past one little town with a church up on the hill that looked like it was rising out of the mist ... so amazing! We rolled into Berlin around 6am (2 hrs late), changed cars again and I fell back to sleep pretty quickly after we got out of Berlin even though our cabin was freezing! Prague train station is under construction so the signs were pretty misleading. But I managed to find a currancy place giving decent exchange so I could get a couple hundred Krowns for the subway/bus. I managed to get the info of how to get to my hotel from the tourist info lady. Hit the subway, found my bus which just happened to stop directly across from my hotel! It all sounds easy but Czech is way harder to try and figure out than German, French or even Dutch in terms of language, signs and such! Got checked into the hotel easily, most of the team already here ... pretty much vegged out and checked email, let mom and dad know I was alive (didn't have internet in Amsterdam as I was too cheap to pay their prices for access), and had a snooze. Then went guess what ... wandering :) There's a grocery store up the hill so got some supplies then kept going just to see what the other grocery store was like. Nice little walk. Sunday practices started so we were on the water for an hour. It was nice to see a lot of the folks from Vancouver that are here for the mixed and open teams that I practiced with back in July when I was out there. Good practice, got a feel for the Champion boats that they have for us to race, found some of the shallow spots in the race course and just to get in the mindset of what we're about to do here. Today after practice we stood in the longest grocery-store lines I have ever been in! But it was necessary as we will be at the race site from about 1pm till 7pm for the next few days and there's no way I'm paying for food there as you never know what you're going to get and what's available. Still quite pleased that I brought a jar of Kraft PB with me! PB is impossible to find here, and when we finally did it's tiny and crazy $$! Today was a chill day around Roztoky. We had a team dinner then some of us went for a walk down by the river. So that's what's happened. Now for what's going to be happening ... tomorrow is the 2000m race. Teams start at 12s intervals, we start second from last so we have lots of teams to chase. Thursday is the 1000m heats and finals. Friday is 250s, Saturday we have off and Sunday is the final showdown with the 500m heats and finals. Medals are awarded in each event but only the 1000, 250 and 500 count towards the Nations Cup. I'm ready to get this party started. I can't wait to see how we stack up against the best in the world. It's a bit of a different feeling from last year in Sacramento as it's not just me I'm excited for, there's 25 of us chomping at the bit to get on the water. As much as I enjoy being the individual athlete, there's something to be said for being part of a team all working their butts off towards that common goal. I know that each one of these girls is going to give absolutely everything they have and more when they are in that boat over the next couple days. I'm definitely privleged to be apart of this team. They are one special group of girls. How often do you get a group of 25 women together that all like each other, get along and hang out with everyone? It's amazing and it just keeps getting better. We also have to remember that none of us would be here with out the support, love, understanding and encouragement from our loved ones, family, friends and coworkers. I know for me personally, I'm not always the easiest person to be around but thank you to all that have helped me get here. You will be in the boat with me the next few days. Check Facebook and here for updates. The hotel internet has been spotty but I'll do my best to update asap, just keep in mind that we're 6 hours ahead of you folks in Ontario and 9 hours ahead of BC. As I shut this down to go to sleep, a few thoughts to leave you with. I couldn't help but smile when I went to answer these questions, mostly because of people like you. "Have you found joy in your life?" "Has your life brought joy to others?"
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Old Posts ... August:
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June:
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Last update on: August 25th, 2009 |
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Copyright 2009 Leanne Stanley. All rights reserved. |
