2013 JGP Poland Blog: Power outages & a pirate ship!

Greetings from Poland! At the moment I am sitting in the hallway of our hotel with Jean Luc, Ross [Gudis] and Angela [Wang] trying desperately to find a wifi signal.  There’s lots of team bonding going on right now discussing our favorite TV shows (for the girls its Gossip Girl and the guys is Breaking Bad, we’re not very original) and watching funny youtube videos and “Vine” videos. Sorry for the delay, its been a busy couple days here in Gdansk!

Yesterday, there was an unexpected twist in our practice day schedule- the power in the entire area around the rink went out…. right as we were getting on the ice! We had about 10 minutes of practice and then the ISU coordinator called us over to cancel the practice since there was no way of playing music for the teams. The coordinator told us our practice would resume thirty minutes after the power went back on…. but that took three hours! Our afternoon practice got canceled and rescheduled for today. After practices were done, we went and visited the tourist area in Gdansk known as Sopot. It was a beautiful town on the shore of the Baltic Sea and a perfect day to visit (the weather was in the 60s and sunny).  Jean Luc, my mom and I walked on the pier and took lots of photos [see below]. We also saw a pirates ship (ARGGG) and took a seat on some of the funniest benches I have ever seen. Jean Luc explained to me later that they are known as “first date” benches because they force you to sit directly next to the other person sitting on the bench (see below and you’ll understand what I mean). The day wrapped up with a nice dinner in Sopot with our coach Pasquale (I always love traveling with my Italian coaches because they find the BEST restaurants). The food was so good, we had to come back and enjoy it again tonight (and probably tomorrow night as well).

Today was a busy (and very productive) day of practice in Gdansk, with two practices rather than the original single practice on the initial schedule. Luckily, all the lights stayed on for practice today! Bed time for me now, as I have mentioned before hair and makeup is a glorious (and tedious) process that I will be waking up at 5:30am tomorrow morning for.

Good night IDC!

~ Kaitlin