Switzerland: 1st Day of Performances

Still no hoop.  Karen called Genève cargo this morning the hoop is gone.  Immediately we got on finding someone to make us a new one.  After a few phone calls by our French mom, we found someone who can have it done by tomorrow morning.  It will miss our first big performance, but will be there for the really important performances later this week.  In the meantime, while walking around the performance grounds, I saw the Swiss team carrying a similar hoop.  I approached them and luckily the girls spoke a little English.  I explained (or at least tried to) what happened to our hoop.  One of the Swiss girls immediately got defensive and stated very clearly that the hoop they had, was not ours.  My communications skills were obviously lacking.  The Swiss thought I was accusing them of stealing our hoop.  After a quick clarification the girls understood that because ours was missing, I was wondering if I could borrow theirs for our show tonight.  They passed me off to their head honcho who spoke perfect English, and I had us a hoop for our performance.  The hoop had a diameter of 6 feet instead of 5, and was made of plastic so it couldn’t be stunted on, but it was the best we could we could get so it was going to have to work! 

            By this time in the week, I’m exhausted.  It didn’t help that I had to take a quick subway and run 10 blocks to try to find a performance suit 30 minutes prior to one of the performances.  I have had to do this before when managing, but never in my life have I done it for someone over the age of 14.  This athlete was 26!  In the end the suit was not at the school where I was looking, it was at the performance site where she took it out of her bag when she took the performance music out!

Overall, the day consisted of running around after kids and preparing them for their performances.  The day ended with me chaperoning a group of 5 to Austria’s performance.  I am performanced out!  After a full day, I have had enough.  I do not know how I will make it through the next 5 days.  During Austria’s performance (you have to pay to go, $40 got us front row seats), I started frantically searching through my purse for some sort of wake-me-up.  The only thing I could find was two vitamin C’s. I quickly gobbled them up, and was understanding, but disappointed in the results.  I was nodding off in the front row where the performers could see.  I didn’t think it would be appropriate to walk out to get some fresh air.  I was desperate; these performances might be the end of me.  I even considered picking the scab on my knee in order to stay awake.  That’s how bad it was!

Switzerland: Opening Ceremonies

Still no hoop.  Karen was at the Genève airport all morning.  Apparently Air Canada said it was sent on a certain flight, Genève didn’t receive it.  It is officially lost.  We had one of our French speaking mom’s asking every random person she knew on the street if they knew a metal worker that was open on Sunday.  Not only did they not know one that was open, they didn’t know one period.  She did some major research and has set up some numbers of steel workers to call tomorrow to see if they can make our hoop by 5:00 pm when our performance is.  We have given her the dimensions and we are going to cross our fingers. The day started out glorious.  We have been having storms at night, and when I got up this morning the sun was out and shinning.  After showers (cold but by myself), breakfast, team meeting and parent meeting (yes, we have to meet with the parents every morning so they know what we are doing), Klara and I headed for breakfast (her first, my second).   We then had to run a few errands and of course the torrential downpour begins.  I do not have my poncho or my umbrella.  Klara lent me hers and we were off.  I had to pick up groceries/snacks for my group.  

Shortly after our return (12:00) the entire group of 60 athletes, 4 chaperones, 1 manager and a chief headed to eat lunch at our venue.  Lausanne has almost doubled in size.  There are 19,000 athletes here to participate in Gymnaestrada, along with thousands of supporters/parents. All participants and supporters had to eat at the same time and head towards opening ceremonies.  It was more than busy, and still pouring.  Directly after supper we headed to a special area where we were to wait to march in for the opening ceremonies.  We waited there for almost 1 ½ hours; thank goodness by this time the rain had stopped and the sun had decided to make an appearance again.  We then started marching, and we marched for another 1 ½ hours until we finally entered the Olympic Stadium in Lausanne.   This was the coolest part, Lausanne hosted the Olympics in ???? (At the time of writing I didn't know what year Lausanne had hosted the Olympics, more on this point later) and we were marching where the Olympians marched.  I am sure the Olympians were greeted by something more amazing than seniors doing aerobics; at least I hope so.  Opening Ceremonies took another 2 hours (at least) and were falling asleep boring for the most part.  Leaving that stadium after was something else.  I quickly lined up my 9 athletes, told each one to hold onto the other’s backpack, and we were pushed out of the arena (45 min).  The momentum kept pushing us from behind.  We had almost no control; the movement of the crowd was determining everything.  After a brisk 30-minute walk, we caught the bus and were only a short stop from home.  We were one of the first groups back!  My girls did awesome.  (After returning home and doing some brief research on when Lausanne hosted the Olympics, I found out that they never hosted the Olympics.  St. Moritz, Switzerland hosted the winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948, but I could find no proof the Lausanne stadium was the stadium that the athletes march in during opening ceremonies.  Another disappointment).

I had a hard time with one of my athletes today.  Her mother gave me a bit of a background on this particular athlete.  She has anxiety, is on anti-depressants and has been suicidal in the past 6 months.  I was well prepared for this.  I was not well prepared for her eating habits/restrictions.  Her mother never mentioned anything to me.  Neither did the daughter when I asked the entire group about eating habits on the first day.  I learned no one had any nut allergies, and Julia has celiac disease and is a vegetarian.  I found out nothing about this particular athlete until today at lunch when she out right refused to eat.  I told her she needed to eat.  She refused.  We were heading out to spend hours waiting to march in, marching in and watching opening ceremonies before making our way back to the school for supper.  When I picked up snacks, I only got her two croissants and an orange, this was going to have to last her 12 hours.  I didn’t have time to get her anything else this late in the game. I found out, she does not eat salad, does not eat rice if it has anything in it, and does not eat any type of sauce.  It all “makes her sick”.  This was the type of information I thought I should have known in advance.  Lunch consisted of salad, rice (with things in it), and a lemon type sauce on the chicken.  Once we got back to the school we were offered salad, rice (with things in it) and chicken in a curry sauce for supper.  I was furious at her and I was furious with her parents.  She quickly told me she didn’t need to eat supper and that she would just skip it.  This was not acceptable to me.  I called her parents, explained the situation and asked them to bring her supper.  They said “oh ya, she doesn’t really eat any of that stuff”.  They also said they didn’t need to bring her supper because they had bought her fries and ice cream at opening ceremonies.  Well, I know where the kid gets her eating habits.  Oy.

            Tomorrow the park performances start along with a super busy schedule.  Let the fun continue!

Switzerland: The Day of The Hoop

Woke up and headed to the showers early enough to avoid all children.   Ate breakfast and got my girls ready for practice.  The girls practiced from 9:30 am to 12:00 pm, so I had the morning off and was ready to go shopping.  I had a few things on my list, and a new watch was at the very top.  After waiting for Karen and Klara to be done talking with all the parents, we headed out to enjoy the morning.  First order of agenda, we needed to find some wiffy in order to check the status of our hoop.   Here is a picture of one of the acts our hoop is in:

After a very strong European coffee, we still had not had any luck finding it.  The phone number we were given was useless.  For the better part of the morning, I was thrown between a German guy telling me to use the website, and a German guy telling me he is unable to place my call.  The website only told us it was “tracking” our item, but would not tell us where it was.  We were finally booted out of the coffee shop for a reservation and had, at the current time exhausted our entire hoop finding resources. 

Karen, Klara and I headed to the outside market and shopping center.  It was beautiful, but I only had approximately 45 minutes to spare.  I have to figure out how to spend more time in this market, my watch shopping was very time limited.  I headed back, fed the girls and sent the majority of them off to another practice and took the few in my care back to the outside market.  They loved it.  I spent most of my time talking with the parent that works at Air Canada exhausting all of her resources trying to find our hoop.  I was not getting any closer to my new watch.  

By this time I had already phone Sara in Regina, woke her up at 6:00 am and started her on the search for our missing hoop.  We thought it would be better getting someone in Canada to work on it.  We struggle making phone calls and have very limited wiffy, which increases difficulties.  Sara, was super patient with my 6:00 wake up call, and worked endlessly all day between Regina, Toronto and Genève Airports.  None of the tracking numbers given to us worked.  The hoop was officially missing!  I headed back to the school, picked up the rest of my crew (who I had convinced to come to the Jazz festival with me) and headed off.   A short train ride later we were in Montreux enjoying the festival on the shoreline of Lac Genève.

I moseyed around the market, setting the girls loose to shop the festival and finally settled on a silver bracelet.  So, for 19 Franc I had replaced my urge to buy a watch.  I then received a phone call.  It took me a while to figure out which phone I should answer.  I had my Canadian phone, which was completely useless; I had a Swiss phone from Klara and had stolen a Blackberry from one of the coaches because it seemed to be the only one I could operate.  Well, by the time I figured out it was my Swiss phone that ringing, I had missed the call.  Since very few people know my Swiss number and one of them was the Airport in Genève, I was in panic.  I quickly texted Klara (from the coaches phone) and told her what happened.  As soon as I pressed send, I hear my named called.  It was Klara and Karen at the Jazz festival taking a hoop-searching break with white wine and hot dogs.  I joined them immediately.   

After our wine and hotdogs, I gathered the kids and headed back to the school for our official “Team Canada” pictures.  I know I should be somewhat excited about this; it will most likely be the only “Team Canada” photo I will ever be in, but I just couldn’t rise to the occasion.  After an hour and a half of pictures (we have a delegation of approximately 600 people, almost ½ of which are “supporters”, aka parents who paid an astronomical amount of money to get all of their “Team Canada” apparel) I was ready for bed.  After a quick managers meeting to put out a few fires fabricated by one of our managers (later to be referred to as my nemesis), I was off to bed.   Tomorrow morning Karen will head to the Genève airport (40 km) , and see if she can do any searching for our hoop there.  The girls have practice in the morning, I’m going to try my watch purchasing again, but it is Sunday, so I’m not getting my hopes up.

Switzerland: Cheese & Chocolate

Today I got to see Switzerland!  The day was beautiful.  Considering we were told it would be 11 days of rain, this was our second day of sunshine.  I got a group of 20 girls up and ready and headed on a chocolate train tour.  It took a little navigating to get from the metro station to the train station, but by 10am, we were on our fancy chocolate train and touring through incredible scenery.  We were going to get our fill of what Switzerland has to offer …. Cheese and Chocolate.   Our first stop was at a cheese factory. The cheese factory was good, the free samples were even better, although, my digestive system needed anything but cheese, I couldn’t help myself. 

After the cheese tour we hopped on a bus and headed to the town of Gruyere.  This was a beautiful town built around cobblestone roads up the side of a mountain and lined with small shops, bakeries and ending with a castle at the top of the mountain.  The scenery was breathtaking.  By far our 2 hours in this town was the highlight of my day.  I could have stayed the entire 11 days right there.  Lunch consisted of freshly baked bread, some local meat and of course, more cheese; I was going to pay for this.  

After lunch we headed through more countryside to the Callier Chocolate factory.  The majority of the tour was suited for young kids, but the end would suit anyone.  We entered a room where there were 100’s, and I mean 100’s of chocolates sitting around the table. (sorry, broken chain of thoughts, I am sitting in my small classroom working on my computer with the lights out attracting bugs to my screen and a bug flew directly into my eye) We were allowed to have as many as we wanted as long as we ate them prior to leaving the room.  This sampling table left me (and everyone else) sick but prevailing, everyone purchased more chocolate in the souvenir shop at the end of the tour.   

We hopped back on our train, headed back to civilization, had supper at the school and headed to bed.  At this point, still no hoop.

Switzerland: Two Days In One

Intro:


Let me fill you in briefly.  I just attended World Gymnastraeda 2011.  It was held in Switzerland. For those of you who have never heard of it before (I didn't really know until about 2 years ago), this is the biggest "sporting" event in the world.  In fact, there are more participants from around the world than at any Olympics.  Now, please be aware that I am not comparing the two.  I truly believe the Olympians are athletes, and those how attended Gymnastraeda were for the most part "performers", mixed in with the odd "athlete".  This event had 19,000 participants, with an additional 7,000 supporters (coaches and managers).  The average age of participants was 30 years old.


I also need to add a quick side note that Nate is upset I am blogging about my days in Switzerland.  The blog is called "Jes & Nate Vs. The World" and Nate wasn't with me.  I think he is just upset because he went on a bunch of incredible hikes in BC and Alberta while I was gone and didn't write about them, therefore, they will not appear on the blog.  Neither will his video of a mouse crawling out of the hood of his car while he was driving on the highway, unless he decides to write about it!


Travel Days:


July 6^th and 7^th became one very, super, ridiculously long day.  It started with me getting out of Nate’s car at the airport wearing a ½ a bagel with approximately 2 tbsp of melted peanut butter on my pants!  The peanut butter was spread far and wide even covering parts of my fleece.  This was quickly cleaned up with a bottle of water and Nate’s traveling pillowcase.   I departed Regina at 10:15 am after a minor panic attack …. Ok, maybe two.  In order for the athletes to travel international without both parents, they need a notarized letter stating that both parents agree to allow their child to travel ½ way around the world with me.  Most of these letters I have in hand prior to leaving except one.  This athlete did not have it done in time to send in the mail, she was to bring it to the airport herself.  Before even getting on the airplane in Regina (approximately 15 minutes before boarding), she approaches me and informs me that she has lost her notarized letter!  This child cannot leave the country without it!  She informs me that she had it in her passport when she handed it over to the lady at the check-in desk.  I quickly contacted the first Air Canada personnel that I could find and set her on a mission to find the missing notarized letter.  In the meantime, the humungous hoop, which is a key instrument in the girls World Gymnastraeda routine will not fit into the plane.  It is made of solid steel and used to fling athletes around; it could not be bent to fit into the cargo hold of the plane.  Full-blown panic sets in for the entire team.  The enormous hoop is the routine!  Luckily one of the girls parents works for Air Canada.  She had us organized to ship the hoop to Calgary via West Jet, and Fed-ex it to Lausanne, Switzerland the following day.  Phew, crisis averted, hopefully.  In the meantime, our other handy Air Canada personnel had found the missing notarized letter and we are all boarding the plane!  With this start, all I could think was … let the games begin!

The rest of the travel day was very long, but ran smoothly.  We had a two-hour layover in Toronto followed by a one-hour layover in Montreal.  At 6:30 pm Regina time, we departed Montreal for Geneva, Switzerland.  I was lucky enough to catch a few hours of shuteye before landing in Geneva at the local time of 10:20 am.  This is where day one starts blurring into day two.  On the bright side of our first day, everyone’s luggage arrived.  This includes 4 hockey bags full of extra clothing (to be sold by Gymnastics Canada), and 3 extra bags full of equipment.  I should clarify, by all, I mean everything except the massive hoop that is our World Gymnastraeda routine.  We hopped onto the bus and headed to our school in Lausanne (40 minutes from Geneva).  Upon arrival we were read the riot act and handed an air mattress, pillow and blanket and left to set up camp.  I am staying in a classroom with 9 15-17 year olds.  Oh the joys.  These will be my roommates and tour group for the next 9 days.  After setting up camp, having a very lengthy Team “Sask” Canada meeting (There are 12 teams here from Canada), the girls nestled in, and I headed for a shower feeling unbearably grimy after “two” days of travel.  While I knew I was staying in a school, and sharing a classroom for sleeping accommodations, I failed to realize this meant communal showers!  UGH!  GROSS!  I was not mentally prepared for this.  There are over 600 athletes and supporters (managers & parents) staying at this school.  Privacy was going to be non-existent!  The other adult chaperones scoffed at my mention of shyness.  They clearly have no problem getting naked in front of the athletes.  Myself was glad to have brought my bathing suit.  Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a super huge problem showering naked in front of a bunch of women, it’s the kids that makes it a little weird!  Apparently, the other chaperones did not understand my worries one bit, and very quickly stripped down to their birthday suits and jumped in.  This was going to be a long week!