2014 JGP Dresden Blog: Dancing Hat & Shakira

Dancing Hat

Julia and I arrived at the hotel to be greeted by our hilarious team leader Lorrie Parker. She was in her full blown Team USA apparel and was equipped with a talking hat that she had gotten in Munich a few days before. Yovanny, didn’t like that the hat took him out of being the center of attention, so he stole it to show us a dance (video coming soon).

After that we got our room assignments and decided to go unpack. Julia and I, and essentially everyone else from Team USA, decided that it would be best to force ourselves to stay awake for the rest of the day to try to reduce the jetlag. Julia wanted to go explore town so we agreed that we would get ready and meet up after an hour. During that hour I had managed to style my hair better than I ever have before and realized that I had forgotten hair spray. I knew Julia would have some so I went to her room. After five minutes of me knocking on the door, singing really loudly, and yelling her name, I realized that she had fallen asleep.

Three hours later I got a text “okay I’m ready.”  By that time we had to meet up with the rest of our teammates for a team dinner and photo. Everyone at dinner looked like they we’re extras in a zombie movie. We all had fought to stay awake all day, except for Julia, and were ready to crash.  Lorrie went through the standard procedures and then we headed back to the hotel to go to bed.

Wednesday

On Wednesday we had two official practices and went site seeing. I wish that that was more to say but the day was somewhat uneventful other than the fact that we had really good practices.

Shakira
 
Thursday was time for our short dance. We woke up super early to get to practice. Surprisingly Julia was able to do majority of her hair and makeup in only two hours. Since part of our samba short dance is to Shakira, Julia has to go full out. Her makeup includes Swarovski crystals outlining her eyes and long fake eyelashes. I don’t need any embellishments because Julia has enough for the both of us.

Julia and I had our best skate of the season and also scored our personal best. Because we skated so early in the day, we had a lot of free time to go site seeing and exploring in Dresden. There are many old buildings and castles that are huge. Julia and I got a kick out of the one castle that was under renovation. One of the walls was being rebuilt so the construction workers used tarps that looked exactly like the original wall to disguise the construction.

After a long walk while touring the city we enjoyed a nice meal and then went back to our hotel to rest up and get ready for free dance the next day.