Bad Hindelang!

ahhhh, Deutchland!  After a long day of following the sings to that led to "D" yesterday, we had settled into our place in Bad Hindelang today.  We got in around ten am, it was only a half our drive from the place we stayed last night to our hotel in Hindelang, so we had all day today to wander around.  We  drove to Oberjoch, which is where we will be racing, its only about twenty minutes, 300meters of vertical elevation, 7.5 kilometers, and 105 curves away.  For those of you that don't feel like doing the math, thats 14 curves per kilometer.  Personally I think they underestimate that number, the road is rediculous.  It puts the kanc to shame.  There is legitimatly not a single section of road that is straight for more than three or four meters.  Its silly, and we have to drive it twice a day.  The race piste is hard as a rock. Apparently it has been quite warm here, and just recentlz thez had one or two nights of intense cold.  Its boilerplate hard.  We watched a little bit of the German teams training and it looked rough.  Hopefully we can do some freeskiing on the race hill tomorrow to get a feel for it.  We went for a little run throught Oberjoch, it felt great to do something physical.  Its amazing what a half an hour of running, pushups, high knees, and other assorted exercises  can do for a body that has been sitting for three days.  Cole and Maggie got here around four from Munich and we just went out to a "Shneitzel Haus" for dinner.  SOO tasty.  I am loving the food here.  I am looking forward to doing some skiing finally tomorrow!  Lets get shreddy!!

Oh I almost forgot!

Did I mention our car is WAAYY too nice for us?  Its this fancy OPEL station wagon, we look like a couple of rich tourists, then upon a second glance into the backseat you will find it completely packed with an assortment of ski equipment and other goodies all in some sort of hefty wear and tear, definitely not what rich tourists cars look like!

Travel sucks...

That was the longest two days of my LIFFEE.  Great travel day today, ha. Everything went fine until the baby next to me kept me awake all the way from Chicago to London, so no sleep for Cory on the overnight.  Then I can't sleep in the Heathrow airport, well because thats just kind of sketchy, I don't want to get all of my stuff stollen while I snooze.  So there's a solid six and a half hours of no sleep.  Sweeeett! I did sleep the entire one and a half hour flight from London to Geneva, and believe me it was great.  Then I get off the plane go through customs, a breeze believe it or not, and go to baggage claim.  No if running on one and a half hours of sleep wasn't bad enough, I get to baggage claim only to discover that none of my stuff really made it to Geneva from London.  AWESOME!  So  here I am in Geneva, no skis, no clothes, boots and helmet check, but nothing else.  Shane has been waiting for me since eleven o'clock (turns out he got there around three) and my flight was a little bit late, just to add some icing onto the cake.  So I am standing in line at the baggage services desk staring aimlessly around the baggage claim area pondering how I was going to sort this mess out, and what do I spy on the back of a luggage trolly, but my ski bag. I must have looked insane, I jumped out of line and flagged down the trolley driver and grabbed my bag off the top.  I now have skis, poles, boots, helmet, goggles, and my jackets and pants.  Good enough to ski.  Long story short, my ski bag went on an earlier flight than mine from London to Geneva, and my duffle bag took the next later flight after mine.  I got there right in-between them.  How funny is that?  So Shane and I are in a hotel somewhere south of Bern, Switzerland.  We really aren't sure exactly where we are, but we are headed in the right direction, and within a stones throw of the highway we want to take to Germany, so I guess we aren't too bad off.  Tomorrow we will start the drive and see how far we get, should be a fun day.  I am looking forward to racing, World Cup opener is just a few days away!!

oh gosh...

 i am seated in row fourty three g.....of fourty five rows...going to be a long trip.  

And So the Adventure Begins...

In t-minus 32 hours (well 24 technically but 32 sounds better) I will land in Geneva Switzerland and then the adventures start for real!

Enjoying the last couple days in the 'boat!

I am enjoying my last couple days here in Steamboat before heading off to World Cup races! Yesterday I got to ski a little powder over on Mt. Werner, that was epic. The snow out here is so so so much lighter than east coast snow. I have now skied champagne powder! Today I got some good training with the winter sports club over on Howelson Hill. On Sunday we did some gs gate drills to work on turn shape and moving the skis away from the gates to generate some sick angles and make things FAST!! Today we just did straight gs training with a little post training skate. The set was super tricky and it had some elements that reminded me of the world championship course at Rjukan with some rolls and banked turns. I am skiing fast so hopefully I can trow down some good results at world cup in the next couple weeks!! Yeehaaww!

TRIVIA NIGHT!

I went to trivia for the second time on my steamboat trip last night at the Rio Grande. The first time we went we were first and second the first time, this time not so much. We didn't even stay for the second round. But The food was spectacular! I had a spectacularly spicy roasted chicken burrito. WOW was that thing spicy. That was probably the most spicy food I have ever eaten...ever. Seriously it was crraazzyy!!! I practically slept on the toilet I drank so much water!