Sunday night (well kinda Monday morning)

Wow. Even though I left you guys only a couple of hours ago, one of the most amazing days ever has occured. Haha. So the main topic at lunch was the lost luggage, and how Mike and Erin still don't have any clothes. We discussed this over ham and spaghetti, the choices I had chosen, some others got a couple of other things, including Walter with his cheese platter. Yes, we made fun. Anyways, I wasn't feeling to great and I was going to lay down when everyone decided to go to town. This was about 2 and I knew all the shops would be closed, as the Italians observe some sort of "siesta" (if you've been to Mexico, you know what I'm referring to) and the shops are closed til 3.30 pm. Well I guess they got the best of me and I decided to go. Yay for Ugg boots in melting slush, trampling through town. Yay.

Our journey commenced by going into town to go through the shops, looking for any open. As I thought, no luck. But then Mike got a light bulb above his head and decided to turn down some stairs and go further into the older part of town. Mike has been here a few times in the past for some world cups and such, guess he was good or something. Haha. Juuuuuuust kidding Mike! So as we are now looking completely like tourists with our USA stuff on and snapping pictures at EVERYTHING, I noticed how unique this town really is. It is very old, with amazing
architecture, dating back to what looked like the Dark Ages. We climbed the cobblestone road, pausing here and there to take group photos with the amazing backgrounds of the buildings and the mountains, as this is a village in a valley, completely surrounded by mountains. soon enough we were on the opposite side of town, the side that was home to the ski slope. As you can guess, this pleased the boys very much, and us girls were pretty happy too when Walter got the idea that we needed to rent a sled. And low and behold we came upon a store that was not only open on the Sabbath, but that rented sleds for 5 euro a piece!

We of course did it, and then ran to the slope, that seemed to be open to the public. We then continued to have the time of our lives, first doubling up, girl and boy per sled, then switched around partners, then the boys raced, then the girls raced, then we partnered up again to go skeleton. I will say Walter and I were the only ones to make it to the bottom with girl still on top of guy in on piece. The others ate it. Hard. Mike was our photographer, and the pictures really do speak louder than words. (As I mentioned previously, the camera that the pictures are being taken with, the memory card doesn't fit so there wont be pics til Wed. when the cord gets here via The Rusks) But i will tell you there is an amazing one of Walter and I getting air of this awesome jump, it's so perfect. But the way our tailbones felt afterwards, not so perfect.

So now that we were drenched to the core and laughing til we wanted to pee, we decided to retire the sleds and attempt to meander our way back to the hotel, since we only had a little bit of time before practice. It was hard, but very scenic (again, there WILL be pictures. Promise) but we finally made it back, changed out of the wet clothes into dry ones, and headed off to practice, hoping Tricia wasn't too mad.

We got to the rink, and to our dismay, it was just as cold as we left it. So we attempted to warm up, and then got on the ice, and got lucky cause we only had to skate about 45 min of excels and 2 lappers for Aly and I and a relay for the boys then a 10 lap passing drill to cool down. Just getting the crap out of the legs. So we hurriedly packed up and took off to the hotel to eat a dinner of pasta of cheese and spinach rolls, which the latter was my choice and grilled turkey or the prawn, which our waiter Marino, who by the way is the only guy in the restaurant part that speaks a lick of English, described as "big shrimpies". They were ok, but I pretty much lost my appetite after those, but quickly regained it once I had a bite of dessert, the best fruit tart I've ever had! Soon after I went to go ice my knees and get on the computer, talk to the boyfriend and the mom, which I'm currently still doing. But now its time to hit the sack. We have practice at 8 and we leave for Bolzano around noon. I'll try to get on before we leave, but it probably wont be til tomorrow night.

Big shout out to everyone who is tuning in! Hope you're enjoying yourselves! And I want to give a special shout out to Wilma Boomstra and Kelly Springer, my coaches, none of this would have been possible without you. And to my Daddy. I love you! Miss everyone! Til next time!

Ciao di Cielo!