Post #53
Switzerland - What a month it has been. Julie and I started rowing the double together in late April and within about five weeks, we've qualified the boat in the US, come overseas to Vienna, then gone to Munich, and qualified ourselves for the World Championships team. Phew!
We've been training in Switzerland since World Cup I. It has been the perfect place to unwind from the first batch of racing, get some training in, and figure out logistics for the rest of the summer. Switzerland is an incredible country and every day we talk about how lucky we are to be here. We're rowing on a aqua blue lake surrounded by perfectly groomed hillsides, cows with cowbells, and stunning snow-capped Alps in the distance. I could get used to this!
Looking down the buoyed course on the lake. I don't think I've ever rowed in a place this gorgeous.
Perfect hillsides
Alps at dusk
A few other impressions of Switzerland:
1. Everything is small, except for the mountains. Our "family size" milk is smaller than a half gallon, I haven't eaten off of a regular sized spoon (mini spoons only) since we arrived, and the washing machine only fits a few days worth of workout clothes. The smallness also applies to fruit, refrigerators, cars, docks, and - perhaps most alarming - the width of two-way streets.
Mini everything. Penny for scale.
2. Every town has at least one church whose bells chime every fifteen minutes. Our town's church also does a big bell song at 7 am and at noon. Up and at 'em!
3. Each town has one or two amazing bakeries. When we row by the town centers in our morning workouts, the fresh bread and pastry smells waft across the lake. Kind of nauseating during practice - and hard to resist afterwards!
4. Much to our occasional frustration, the Swiss actually take lunch breaks. Every store in town closes for a solid hour and a half in the middle of the day. We also tried to get some groceries on June 2, only to find out (after we were standing in front of the store's locked doors of course) that it's a national holiday. And if any national holiday falls on a Thursday, they just take that Friday off too and make it one big four-day weekend.
5. German is the main language spoken where we are, which means we're in the land of long words. They take a phrase like "central train station" and smoosh it all together to make one big word. Julie took a year and a half of German in high school, and (lucky for me and Ken), she actually remembers it. We'd be lost without her!
World Cup II starts next week in Hamburg, Germany. Much more info to come as we lead up to it, so check back to follow along.
Training in Switzerland
2 comments:
Wow, look at that flat water! Be wary--the smell of delicious, yummy baked goods can drive rowers crazy!
Hope you're loving life! Looks amazing. The bakeries are irresistable. Can't wait to hear about the next round of racing. Keep up the good work Kristin!
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