Germany update 1

Alright guys heres the first post from deustchland (I think thats how you spell it). Pardon me if there are some erorrs cause this german keyboard is slightly different then in the U.S.

Things are going well. The airplane rides were somewhat long but nothing to eventful happened and we arrived safely along with all of our luggage and bikes thankfully. After the shuttle over we ended up waiting around for about 3 hours cause we REALLY wanted a room that was nonsmoking. Chilled at a little cafe for a while, found the supermarket and a sweet spinning thing in a park. When we finally got a room we put our bikes together and headed out to ride to the accreditation site (or packet pickup.) bad idea.

It`s less then 2 miles as the crow flies to get there but we kept getting lost and it took us more then an hour and a half. Got our stuff with some pretty cool goodies and then headed back. Again not as easy as it looks. Another hour and a half saw me and Travis tour more of downtown Hamburg, lose each other for about 20 minutes, and finally end up back at the hotel. Yes I had a map but when everything is in German and streets change name like EVERY block it makes things rather difficult.

After that we went to the little mini-market to buy some bread, meat, cheese, and you know... other stuff. Then dinner before going to chill in the sauna and pool for a while. By 9 we had finally made it long enough to be able to hit the sack and I was asleep approximatelz 3 minutes after my head hit the pool

16 hours and 35 minutes later we woke up. Yes indeed, I rolled over to look at my watch and gasped when I saw it read 1:40!!!! We had a team meeting at 2 pm so we quickly got up, threw some pants on, then went downstairs to that. They covered a bunch of stuff then we got on the team bus to go over to the race site for a swim.

Now the water temperature here is about 17 degrees celcius. I´m not exactly sure what that equates to farhenheit but its COLD, believe me. Travis didn´t even have a wetsuit but he had called his mom and she said he could go buy one so he went over to do that. I swam for not very long then went to find Travis. We both went back to the bus and headed back to the hotel.

Dashing up to our rooms we changed into our parade shirts and ran back down to get on before the bus left for the opening ceremonies. Thanks to our fast transitions, we made it. A quick team picture at the site and we had plenty of time to get some dinner with a fellow triathlete we met doing the sprint race. Then some waiting around for the ceremony to begin where we got to meet with a bunch of other sprint athletes and take some pictures with teams from other countries.

The actual ceremony was somewhat dull and it started to rain while we were standing there. We cheered loud when they announced the U.S.A, listened to German folk songs, and watched the fireworks show, which was pretty cool.

I'm back at the hotel, Travis is going to run on the treadmill and swim in our little hotel pool and I'm about to follow him here shortly. So far it's been a lot of fun getting to meet and talk to people. Tomorrow we're going to go down to watch the Junior and U23 races and then come back for a little swim/bike workout. Hopefully we can wake up at a decent time ;). We've been taking lots of pictures and especially videos on Travis' camera so there will be plenty to see when we get back. G'night!