In Norway

Well we finally got here, with not too much difficulty. we caught a bus from oslo upto Øyer just out of Lillihammer where the track is, a friend of Desiree (local athlete) picked us up and took us to our cabin. We are sharing with Ben and Peter and the two Czech guys, Martin and Joseph, Ben had our food in the car he drove from Altenberg so kel and i were surviving for two days on protein bars and meal replacements.

Kels birthday dinner was redwine and porrage when we arrived at the cabins, it was surprisingly good after ODing on protein bars.

We slid this morning, only the Russians, Norweigans the brits and us are here so far, i think everyone else is driving up form germany right now.

My runs today were good, any th track is quite friendly, any thing seems nice after being at altenberg.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say, during our last night in the castle in nurnberg we watched that most awesome thunder and lightening storm while hanging out our little castle window on the 5 floor, it was real impressive.

well must go,

I'll keep you all posted.

lou

A half second Personal Best Down Time!

We raced in the the Brittish Champs yesterday morning at 9am, and my first run was awesome, i finally got corners 1 2 3 clean with out any hits, I think that is the key to my pb, I took half a second off my time I had here at the world cup final last season when I finished 14th, I did a 103.37 (I think), Kel also got a personal best and Ben too, Both Ben and I won the guest classes, and we got gold rimmed ashtrays/award to remember the event.

It is kellys birthday today, so can everyone who is reading this please send her a quick birthday email to kel@surf.co.nz . Today will be a pretty poor birthday because we will be travelling all day we fly out of Nurnberg airport at 11 and arrive in Oslo at 3, catch a bus to lillihammer at 4.15 wich takes about 3 to 4 hours then we have to find transport (a cab?) to a cabin that has been arranged for us, but we dont actually have the address to the cabin, hmmm.

Ben and Peter (dutch) are catching a minivan to lillihammer, it will take about 15 hours driving and a boat trip that could take upto 20hours (depending on which ferry they get). I hope they dont take too long because kelly and i will be using the same minivan for transport once we get there.

We have a new kiwi athlete, Ian was a novice at the British champs, but his dad is a kiwi and he has dual nationality, we have convinced him that he would have a lot more fun sliding as a kiwi, and he is coming with ben to the Lillihammer world cup adn the sigulda world cup, (Russ is coming over from Canada to do the Altenberg World Cup and the Junior World Champs). Ben is trying to get hold of Don to get a licence sent over for him. There will be 6 kiwis with world rankings at the end of this season.

Money.

I am running out, any one got any ideas, I need about $2000 more to survive, Kelly needs about $3000, When kelly runs out she will probable come home, when i run out I will get into debt and finishe the season but it means that I wont be able to go to university when I get home because I will have to try clear the debt. Help. Any ideas!!!!!! Please.



Plea

Altenberg British Champs

Well we are in Altenberg right now staying at the youth hostel which is commonly known as the sports prison, it is the old border guards camp (we are only about 20min to the Czech border), pretty run down and all, the walls are paper thin and the heating gets turned off during the day, and the food is terrible as well, we all love it here.

Kel and I started our new year in the Lake District in Cumbria, we has a lovely meal with mz boyfriends parents and grandparents, played a few games and finished off a bottle of baileys, it snowed all night and the hills were beautiful in the morning. We all went out walking on the fells on new years day. We went to see a pantomime on the 2nd, it was sleepign beauty, it is a bit of an english tradition to go and see a pantomime around christmas, it was really well done. on the 3rd we headed back to my grandmothers in Liverpool.

On the 4th we left Manchester and flew to Nurenburg Germany, we got there safely however our sleds didn't, it is one of our worst nightmares, having your sled get lost somewehre, they couldn't even tell us where they where or it they had made it onto the flight in Manchester! we arrived at 5pm and the next flight from frankfurt was due in at 9.45, Lufthansa assured us that they should be on the next flight, they could have couriered them to us in Altenberg but there was not much use leaving with out our sleds, so we decided to staz the night in the youth hostel in Nurnberg, apparently our sleds would be couriered to us before midnight. So now with out our sleds we went to trz and get a car, we had booked one with Budget a few days earlier but we are both under 25 and on the website it said that we couldn't get a car, so i just hoped there was some waz we could make it work. The guy at the counter never questioned my age and prceeded with the booking but then he mentioned that the car they had set aside for me has summer tyres, (and there was a blizard out side) so he offered us a really nice big audi with winter tyres for onlz about 40 euro more so we went with that, he still didnt mention my age, we asked if it cost extra for a 2nd driver, it did, then we tryed to convincehim that Kelly and I were a Lesbian couple in a defacto relationship and since partners can drive a car for no extra cost Kellz should be added as my partner, unfortunately the guz at the counter turned out to be gay himself and didn't believe us (and we weren't going to try and proove it!), then once everzthing was done he said oh no, your too young for this car. SHIT. So now I went and asked all the people at all the different desks if they had a car with winter tyres that I could drive, we did find one for about 50 euro more than the Audi, but when i went back to the budget guy he thought he might be able to help us and found another nice little audi we could take. What a mission. And they didn't feed us on the flight. So off we went to find the youth hostel in Nurnburg, and we promptly got lost. Nurnburg is an beautiful old city with lots of castles in the city center, but it was flattened during the war, so there alot of new sections to the castles and city walls. We eventually foudn the Youth Hostel, it was the biggest of all the castles that over look the whole city, it was awesome. Our sleds didn't arrive and in the mornign they said that they woudl be on the 9am flight, and we would have them by 10am, but no sleds arrived, they then said 12 noon, so we went and had a look around the town, I think it was prettier than Innsbruck in some ways, with all its street stalls and vege markets, any way our sleds still didnt arrive and they said definately by 3pm, at three I called and they has one sled and didnt know where the other one had got to! We were sick of waiting and decided to get the one and go and have them send the other when it arrived, When we got to the airport both our sleds where there, the second one had just arrived but with out any tags! how it made it to nurnburg we dont know.

So on the road, it took 4 or 5 hour to get to Altenberg, and we arrived at about 8.30pm.
There are about 15 other sliders staying with us here at the youth hostel, brits, irish, dutch and czechs. We slid on Tuesday evening, we decided to do a run from the ladies luge start, that is about 1/3 of the way down the track, Altenberg can be a really dangerous track and I figure that if we made it a peace offering and showed it a little bit of respect by doing a run from ladies luge start then it would be nice to us for the rest of the week.

That first run was a shock to the system, high G's and lots of rough exits of corners, the next run from the top was the same but faster, God I love this track, it really is my favourite, it is real challenging and you know that if you mess up you could end up in hospital, it makes you really appreciate each run, the emotions you go through in the the minute before then during and after the run cover the whole spectrum. You can experience real fear when your standing at the top about to do a run here, and then total elation at the end, that makes you just want to get back to the top again, but once your back up there your desperate to go to the loo and feel like your going to puke in your helmet, lovely.

Any way, today I had some real good times on the track , I got a 103.91, which is only one tenth of a hundreth of my pb I did here at the World Cup final last year, but the run was pretty terrible, which meens I have a lot of room to improve. My second run was pretty poor, and i flipped out of corner four ( which is a funny crash becuase it doesnt hurt but seriously pisses you off for the rest of the run), and looped corner 17 and hit the wall on the finish and had an instant swollen hand, it really looks quite bad, my little finger and hand are all swollen and sore, but nothing is broken.

Well must go, We are here for the brittish champs, I think this will be my first gold medal!(in the guest class) Then on Sundaz we head for norway the library wont be open so I will try to write again then.

Love to every one at home, sorry I havent been able to email lately, thanks for all your emails, I love getting them.

Take care

Lou xxxx

Preparing for Norway!

Kelly and I are emailing from the Noris Green public Library, here in the UK internet access is free, wonderful!

Today Kelly and I decided that we needed to go shopping and get all our food for our 2 week stint in Norway. Last time I was in Norway, I had to spend my last night in a hotel near the airport, as we had an early flight, we arrived at the hotel quite late and the only place to eat was at another hotel up the road, it wasn't the flashest of hotel's but had a nice restaurant, I ordered the cheapest thing I could find on the menu, a hamburger and chips. It cost $50 NZ dollars. Kelly and I are really concerned about running out of money, and we just don't have the money to pay for food in Norway, Norway makes the UK look cheap, and since we have a 3 piece luggage allowance, if we juggle our bags around we can include a box of food.

Food in the UK is quite expensive but if you stick to the ASDA brands (ie the cheapest no name brands) you can get some real good bargains. So here is a list of our supplies for Norway.
(the pound key doesn't work on this computer)
6 Cans of Kidney beans 11p each
8 Cans of creamed rice 15p each
8 cans of peeled tomatoes 20p each
2 cans of evaporated milk 28p each (for teas and coffee)
2 cans of carrots 9p each
12 cans of tuna chunks in spring water 50p each
1 can of sweet corn 15p
Sweet chili sauce 77p
Instant coffee 2.08p
Tabasco sauce 1.20p
2 cans of black olives 98p each ( we can have 3 on each meal!)
7 tiny cans of tomato puree 24p each
honey 1.38p
pickle 88p
1kg brown rice 77p
2kg white rice 1.68p
4 boxes of cup of soups 25p each
2 packets of spaghetti 17p each
3 500g packets of pasta twists 19p each
Tea bags 81p (fruit)
Digestive biscuits x 2 packets 25p each
cookies 27p
2kg porridge 88p
Normal tea bags 148p

We spent about 30 pound, $NZ100 I would hate to think what it would have cost if we got it all in Norway.

We'll need to get some bread and some ham and cheese for lunches, but other than that we should survive. Kelly's 8kg of protein bars that she has lugged around all season will start to be handy.


In Norway, 10 athletes are sharing cottage accommodation, it will be the race HQ for New Zealand, Denmark, South Africa, Netherlands, Finland and Czech Republic. It will be pretty chaotic, especially if we are all cooking separately, but Kelly and I are really running out of money, and you've got to do what you've got to do, it is certainly going to be an adventure!

I hope you all have fantastic New Year celebrations, I will write again from he Lake District.

We are in Liverpool.

We arrived in Liverpool yesterday, my cousin Liam drove us from Coventry. I didn't finish telling you all about what we got up to in Coventry, like I said, we had a great feast for Christmas dinner, and watched a couple of videos.

On boxing day, Kelly and I went for a walk into town and and signed up at the library to use the internet, when we left we head back the way we had come into town, but somehow we got lost and ended up in all the wrong places, some of the under passes we went through were sooo dodgey, the kind of places your told never to go at night (at least that's how they felt to two lost kiwis). Eventually we got directions back into town and retraced our steps and finally made it back to my aunts our 15 minute walk home took over an hour. On the 27th Kel, Mattie, Rosie, Liam, Emily, Elanor (cousins) and my aunt and uncle Fel and Jimmy went to see the Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King. What a fantastic movie, I loved it. It has been a bit of a tradition to go and see the lord of the rings on boxing day, this is the 3rd year in a row that I have had Christmas with my family in England and gone to see the lord of the rings with them. Seeing the scenery on the film always makes me a bit home sick, I would love to have a kiwi Christmas, with a barbecue, sunshine, beaches, cold beer and snoopies Christmas!? For some reason I really miss hearing that song on the radio, they play it heaps over Christmas in NZ.

Today Kelly and my cousin Mattie and I caught a bus into town, just to have a look around, some of the buildings stunning here in Liverpool, we have been for a walk down to the docks, and down Bold St with thousands and thousands of shoppers clogging up the road. It can be quite overwhelming with so many people around you.

The best thing about Liverpool are the accents, I love them.

On Wednesday Kelly and I are going up to the Lake District, to visit Marks parents Dave and Di (My boyfriend Mark and I met while I was working in the Lake district 3 years ago, he now lives in NZ). Dave and Di just returned from a 3 week holiday in NZ, it will be nice to see Ambleside again, I worked there for 7 months while I was on my Big OE before I started skeleton racing.

Well must go, I hope you all have a wonderful new years eve.

(Some of you will be pleased that I have gone through and spell checked my last few entries, it was quite entertaining.)

Merry Christmas every one

I just signed as a member at the Coventry Library, it means that I can have free email access. The trip from Innsbruck up to Prague was very stressful, we drove into, through and out the other side of a nasty blizzard, Czech drivers all have a death wish, not only did we see 9 road accidents on the Czech roads we nearly hit 5 teenagers and a dog who decided to step out in front of us while we were going about 100kmph on a snowy highway, with summer tires on, down hill,right on dusk... I am amazed that the wheels did not lock up as Kelly slammed on the anchors, if they had we would have hit them. The drive north took 7 and a half hours, we took a 2 minute pee stop and a quick re-fuel, and made it to the airport 10 minutes after our last check in time, we then began explaining why one of the wheels was damaged, and how they nearly killed us by sending us out with summer tires. There is no way we are going to pay for the repair fees. When we checked in, it became apparent that our ticket was not valid because we were booked on a CSK flight, and CSK is not part of the Star Alliance which means our Star Alliance around the world ticket should have never has that flight printed on it. AAAAHHHHHH, we thought there was an issue with our 3 piece baggage limit, but it was even worse our tickets were not valid. Thankfully Lufthansa who is part of the star alliance put us for no charge onto one of their flights and did not question our 3 piece baggage limit. The flight was due to leave in 30 minutes so we hurried off to gate. At the gate, the funniest thing happened. Kelly has the amazing ability to attract the attention of drunk old men who don't speak English, this 30 stone 6 foot 4 drunk Russian came up to us and started speaking in Russian, we both said in sign that we only speak English, so he reach over and Kelly a much unwanted drunken bone squashing hug and said 'Russian'. AAAHHHH poor Kelly, we were in the queue for the security check and couldn't move away, this whale like Russian stood behind Kelly making dodgy comments to his Russian friend and kept bumping Kelly in the back with his huge belly. YUCK. We were soon on the plane bound for Frankfurt, and then onto Manchester, where my aunt Maggie collected us, we were supposed to head for Coventry but ended up on the wrong motorway and found our selves half way to Liverpool, we decided to drop our sleds off in Liverpool before heading back to Coventry. As we were unloading the car in Liverpool ( about midnight) Kelly went to put her runners (blades) on the foot path but was quickly told not to in case the young lad walking up the street took the opportunity to run off with them, you should have seen the look of horror on keels face as she snatched her runners back off the foot path. Welcome to Liverpool Kelly, it isn't that bad. WE arrived in Coventry about 3.30am, a world away from the snowy Christmas market in Innsbruck and the track in the cute village of Igls.

Christmas has been a great feast with my aunts, uncles, older cousins, little cousins, cousins kids and my grandma, Cec. We had a traditional Christmas dinner, and drank lots of wine and baileys, then watched the Pirates of the Caribbean........
I must go as the library is closing I will finish the story later.....

sliding in the snow in Insbruck

Innsbruck is beautiful right now, it is snowing and the christmas market is open, just stunning, we slid this morning in lots of slow slow snow, but it was a real good run, will be back there tonight at 6 pm, then kel and i leave tomorrow and drive to Prague and fly onto Manchester, looks like christmas will be at mz aunts in Coventry and not Liverpool.

Ah, it looks like that computer did work after all!

I have 10 minutes to tell you all about what we have been upto, the last computer that i tried blogging from crashed everz time i posted my blog, but by the looks of it it worked. after i last made an entry, i headed to hospital to see if I coud get my chin stitched, since the wound has opened up and was big and gaping. However I was told that was too late and would have to live with it, it has since healed, i should have a nice little scar. The sliding I did was good in Konigsee, but it was expensive, and I still have to qualifz for the world champs to be able to get there wich mans not running out of money before then. Please for give all the spelling mistakes, the kez board is all crayz over here in germanz and i am paying per minute. In Konigsee we stazing in a verz nice holidaz home which we shared withthe dutch team, unfortunatelz it was more expensive that we had expected. Yesterdaz we (ben, kel and I) headed to insbruck where the Igls track is, but befoe we could leave we had to change the bent tyre that kel and i had squashed on the way down from prague, I was packing in mz room when i heard a larged bang, and then heard ben zelling, he had managed to put the Jack through the floor of the rental car, it was verz funn, then when he got the jack in the right spot, he cranked it up and got half of the bolt out when the jack slipped and the car cam crashing down with the wheel hanging half waz off. verz funnz, although i think ben had nearlz had enough. Then a while later ben lets out a damsel in distress call "Girls, help!" the car was missing the bent tyre sitting on the concrete with the axel and the wheel break thingy that is inside under the wheel was on the ground with the jack bent and stuck under it all. Ahhhhh, ben was readz to throw his toys, but we manged to get the jack back and with the help of the kitchen chopping board we steadied the jack got the car up and the tyre on, and on the road to insbruck. We had sent our sleds ahead withte italians, an interesting storie, but no time to tell it.....later. we slid thismorning in igls, such a nice easy track, took 3 runs, 3 fun runs, we slide again tomorrow then head to the uk, must go. will write again soon

Konigssee

Well finally I have found a computer with a key board. had a busy few days, our trip to Prague went well, we made the flight,
and arrived with all our luggage, but when Kellys runners came around the
conveyer belt they were hanging out ouf their tube with no runner guards
on! She is sooo lucky that they did not get all scratch up or fall out
compleatly. So we arrived in Prague at about 1pm, and got our rental car,
a very small Skoda, and started driving south, the further south we got
the more it started to snow, it took 7 hours to get 400km down to
Konigssee, and our car has summer tyres even after we especially requested
winter ones. as we arrived in Konigssee we droped down a steep hill and
lost control of the car on the ice, thankfully there was a big stone wall
on the bend in the road that stoped us falling over the edge, we dented
the the wheel rim and lost a hub cap then crawled the last 10 km to our
holiday home that we are sharing withthe Dutch team, we arrived at about
midnight. We slid at 11 am the next day Kel was tired so decided to
watch, it was snowing heavily which I was happy about, I didnät mind my
first run being a slow one, Konigssee has a 360 degrees kriesel corner
like Calgary, but in this one you have to steer up real hard to avoid
flipping on the exit, this is my 3rd time here, last year I flipped and
ended up in hospital with a very bad concussion, so on day one of training
i was a little nervous. I came out of the corner and flipped but rolled
back over pretty quickly, i didnät hit my head, but i got a small cut on
my chin, so the american medic super glued it up and put 3 butterfly
stitches on it, all was good, untill the butterfly stitches came undone
last night, and we notice that the glue has not worked and i have a hole i
could stick mz little finger into on mz chin. Very nice, I will try to
find a doctor at the track to put stitches in it today at the track.
Yesterday I took 2 runs and got out safely, so did Kel, she was here last
year for the Junior Worlds and flipped nearly every run, so she is pleased
at getting 2 safe decents yesterday. Lots of people are flipping this
week. We have 2 more days of training, then we are onto Igls for a few
days, then on the 23rd we fly into the UK for christmas.

Germany

Well finally I have found a computer with a key board.