Friday-Sunday

BUONGIORNO di ITALIA!

So this blog was a brilliant idea of mine to keep my mom, Sonya, and my boyfriend, Spencer, and whoever else meanders their way here, up-to-date on whats happening here in Italy. For those of you who don't know, I'm here currently in Bormio but soon continuing on to Bolzano, IT for the JR World Championships for Short Track Speedskating. I'm here with two other girl teammates: Aly Dudek and Erin Bartlett; three boy teammates: J.R. Celski, Kyle Uyehara, and Walter Rusk; our coach: Trisha Stennes, our blades guy: Mike Corman, and our trainer: Colby Lash. Nine of us Americanos, who all of us put together speak no more than 10 words of the language, against the world of Italians.

My interesting journey started on FRIDAY morning at about 8.30 am when the flight was supposed to leave LA for Newark. We didn't end up leaving til 9.45 (apparently there was a weather delay. In L.A.. which is absolutely absurd but I was later told by Spencer was completely valid as it miraculously torrentially downpoured all day.) which gave us 20 min to make our flight to Milan once we got to Newark. Yay. *shaking head* So after we got to Newark, we ended up having 30 min to get on the flight, which was fine because we were all there. Except for Erin who had been held up leaving Cleveland. And according to Mike, if all of us weren't there, nobody was getting on. And even better, the next flight to Milan didn't leave til 2 days later on Sunday. AHH! After this we were seriously NOT happy, even with the opportunity to spend a few days in the Big Apple. we wanted to get to ITALY! But five minutes before the plane was supposed to take off, we got the go ahead, that Erin was being rushed there, and to get on the plane. PHEW.

The flight was pretty good, watched House and C.S.I. Miami. I probably should have slept more, but only the last hour or so of the 7 hour flight consisted of Zzzzzzs. If only I had known about the long day ahead. Once we got to Milan SATURDAY morning, we went to claim our luggage, but everyone wasn't so lucky. Mike and Erin both didn't receive their bags, which turned into a hoo-rah of over 2 hours of trying to figure out where they were, and when they were getting here. They found Erin's, and I guess they are coming today, but they honestly have no clue what happened to Mike's. *shaking head again* If only US Speedskating took a tip from inline and gave us a translator, Tricia's headache and the bus driver waiting 3 hours for us, probably would have been kept at a minimum. I of course attempted to help in my span-italian, figuring most of the words were fairly similar. And my handy dandy pocket sized Italian book proved very useful for the unknown vocab. I at least calmed down the bus driver, even though I understood not a word of his reply. Haha.

We finally got on our way, minus the lost luggage, and the bus drive to Bormio took about 3 hours. and there are no freeways here. there are two lane roads, and the higher up we got, the rain falling in Milan turned into some heavy snow. Oh fun. It was very beautiful countryside, truly a winter wonderland. The features that are distinctive of Italy became more apparent, as we passed aqueducts and continuously were traveling through mountains via tunnels.

Once we got to Bormio, we checked into our hotel Sant Anton, which was the idyllic small village town nice hotel. Erin and i got to the room, and asked for jogging clothes, as remember, she only had the clothes on her back. We went back downstairs, ate a lunch of ravioli and eggs which was the safest two choices we could get from the menu. Walter and J.R. thought they'd be adventurous and got the cold meat plate. Not such a good idea. Lol. they were asking for everyone else's left overs. Colby asked for coffee and got good ol espresso instead. We are in Italy.

After lunch, we went jogging to the rink and back, then us girls accompanied Trisha to the store to get water and fruit and bread, the essentials and i got some shampoo and conditioner. that was a challenge in itself. we finally gave up on finding the conditioner, til Aly was brilliant and figure the other word on the 2-in-1 bottle (champoo and balsama) had to be conditioner. so i found that and got it. we hurried back to the hotel dropped off our stuff, stretched and headed out again to shop.

The Street with all the shops was called VIA ROMA. And lemme tell you was it packed. After going in a few stores, seeing the designer name tags of Dolce and Gabbana and Armani and a few others, and the prices to match, we ran back out as eagerly as we came in. Finally amiss the hoards of people, and humorously just about as many dogs with cute sweaters on, we found a cute underwear store. Good for Erin, seeing she needed those. We were bracing for prices to rival Vickys, but were pleasantly surprised to find that a spazio was occurring, hence the state of the store which was almost impossible to move through. Nevertheless, Erin got her undies, I got 2 cute bras and a shirt to wear to the banquet no one told me about. And amazingly, all were super cheap.

We were exhausted after that, so we headed back to the hotel for dinner of pasta in tomate sauce and salmon, again the safest choices. After we had a meeting, I got online and video chatted with the boyfriend for a few minutes, and then we all headed to our rooms to sharpen, shower and sleep.

SUNDAY, started off with a ring and 5.30am, thank goodness, from our wake up call form the front desk who I swear didn't understand a word i said the night before when I set it up. We got ready and headed downstairs to leave at 6 to walk to the rink. It was completely dark and snowing pretty heavily. Ew. and we had to walk on like a gravely back road that was all downhill for about a half a mile to the rink. once we got there, it was locked so we jogged and stretched then headed inside to do band and then got on the ice at 7. We did relays all practice. And let me tell you. The ice was great, but that was the coldest rink I have ever been in in my entire life. My fingers got so cold, in between on of our sets of relays, I ran into the locker room and exchanged my tipped gloves for my puffy ones. Figured I shouldn't be going fast enough to pivot anyways. And it warmed em right up so that by the end of practice, they were toasty. Haha.

We headed back to the hotel, had an AMAZING breakfast of pastries, nutella, fruit bowl, and scrambled eggs (best meal yet so far) and after that I headed into town, did a little shopping, and got back here just in time to get worked on by the trainer. The knees are still hurting. and NOW you are all caught up! I'm downstairs sitting in the business center while I've been told the boys made a gigantic snowman. Walter is going to let me use his camera and I'm going to hopefully use Colby's cord to upload them. so next time there should be pictures explaining not just my words. and as for my words, I promise there will be less next time I get on. I just wanted to catch you up, that's all! well I'm headed up to lunch, its 1pm now, we have practice again at 7pm. I'll try to be on MSN (skylar.usa@homail) if anyone wants to chat after I get back to the hotel. So that will probably be around 9 or so, which is 3pm east coast and noon west coast. So weird the time change. I'm pretty much already used to it. Which is always good. So arrivederci til tomorrow probably! Stay Tuned!

Ciao di Cielo!