NRW Trophy Blog 1: Trick or Treat and Travel!

Cathy Reed brings us her perspective from NRW Trophy in Dortmund, Germany. 

Didn’t quite expect Halloween week to give us such a fright!

Living and training in and around Hackensack, New Jersey, we experienced no “treat” from Hurricane Sandy with all the flooding, downed trees, and loss of power. Many people are still suffering and my heart goes out to them. Hopefully power will be restored soon, and the damage will be cleaned up so we can all return to normalcy and begin rebuilding.

Chris and I, along with the rest of the skaters in our group, weren’t able to skate for almost four days. On top of that, our flights to Germany for NRW Trophy were cancelled, so we weren’t sure if we would be able to compete! Most of us still don’t have power in our homes, so getting out of there wasn’t such a bad idea — just a massive challenge!

Luckily we found a flight from Philadelphia to Munich, so we jumped on that opportunity. The good news is that Philadelphia is located on the western border of New Jersey, an area that did not sustain the damage that the Jersey Shore (east side) did.

We drove two-and-a-half hours south to Philly, trying to find a way to get there through the heavy traffic, closed roads, and busy gas stations. But somehow, we got there and finally got on a plane!

Once in Munich, we took a connecting flight to Dusseldorf, and then took a bus to Dortmund. This part of the trip I cannot comment much on, as I was asleep throughout it all!

Once in our hotel in Dortmund, they allowed dance teams who have arrived early to skate on practice ice in the evening, which we were extremely grateful for as we didn’t get to skate much this week!

Now just finished up a nice dinner and off to bed! Tomorrow the novice dance teams compete, and I wish the best of luck to them all!!!! 

At the airport in Philly, I came across a Liberty Bell made up entirely of LEGOS!!!!	Look what we found at the airport in Dusseldorf!  A large hand grabbing a mini cooper!

=)Cathy