I couldn't have been more wrong. What was meant to be one travel day, again, became two. We loaded all the girls & some parents onto our bus that was to take us to the airport, and after a very long, complicated roll call, we were off.
Once arriving at the airport we hauled ..... wait, I hauled all the equipment off the bus, plus my own luggage. This team seems to think they have magical equipment. It magically shows up, and it magically disappears when they are done with it. Upon letting the team know that they are to be responsible for their own equipment (again), I was confronted with two girls who were missing their luggage. Due to an astronomical misunderstanding, they had been told by another manager to just get on the bus, and while their luggage didn't fit below they bus, it would be sent on a later bus. I instructed them to stand outside the airport and double check every bus that stopped. It was a busy day at the Geneva Airport. The majority of the 19,000 participants were flying home today.
I went in and started the long process of checking in all of our additional luggage. This wasn't easy considering Air Canada's conveyer belts were not working and I had to sign each piece of luggage out to different people to keep our costs down. After this lengthy process, I started another lengthy process. I was given a receipt for every extra piece and had to go to another desk to pay for them. Technology is stupid. The lady had to ring in each piece of luggage separately. By the time I was 2/3 done, I remembered the girls I had instructed to stand and wait outside to check the buses. Over an hour had gone by and they had slipped my mind. The last 1/3 of the paying seemed to take an eternity.
Once finished paying I quickly returned to the rest of the group and was very happy to see my two luggageless girls. They had searched for an hour and a 1/2 and gave up. Their luggage was not on the buses. We were getting close to departure time and still had to go through security. We had no choice, but checked them in without their luggage. It was going to stay in Lausanne for now.
By the time we got through security and customs we were almost running to get to our plane. We had arrived at the airport 3 hours prior to our flight! Disappointingly I had no time to pick up Nate a watch or get any last Swiss wine or chocolates. We were herded onto the plane for our 7 hour flight home. I did feel a pang of jealousy as we passed the 1st class seats, would anyone notice?
We landed in Montreal and hit customs and security where poor Julia forgot to put her last minute, age 16, wine purchase into her checked luggage and had it taken from her. Jumped on to our plane again and headed to Toronto.
I sent the girls off on their own and went to kill our few hour layover. As you can guess .... wine and my book mixed in with a little bit of supper.
And our plane is delayed, our plane is given a gate change, and finally, our flight has been delayed again, this time departing the next morning. Everyone took the news fairly good except two girls who were too homesick to hold back their tears anymore.
The other manager and myself quickly organized our free hotel, and got everyone $10 breakfast vouchers for the morning. Picked up our luggage, stored our equipment in luggage claim area and headed for our shuttle. Of course, nothing is ever easy when you are traveling with a large group. The shuttle drivers were clueless! We showed them our hotel vouchers and asked them to take us there. They did, on their 3rd stop. The chaos will never end. Finally got everyone settled down for their 4 hour nap before heading back to the airport.
In the morning we hauled all of our equipment upstairs to check it again and went to breakfast only to find out our breakfast vouchers were utterly useless because Air Canada made them out for the day before!
Through a little bit of sorting, we ended up with breakfast and boarded our plane where we received a $75 gift voucher for Air Canada. Great, I get to travel with them again.
We arrived in Regina a few hours later to find the inevitable......NO HOOP.
Tuesday 2 August 2011
Switzerland: Last Day
My prediction was right. Pretty boring. We went to the FIG gala, which is an hour and a half show with the best performances of the weekend. They were good, but the show was still too long for me. I needed it to be ½ as long for me to keep my attention the entire time. After the show, I sent the girls on a direct bus to our next location, and took to my walk. I walked briskly, but it was amazing. I love seeing the mountains. The weather again today was awesome. I actually arrived at our destination prior to the girls. I took Julia to our gluten free restaurant and all the girls sent out to trade all their Canada gear for stuff from other countries. I sent Julia out with all of my stuff. She was allowed to trade stuff for herself if she got me a few specific items. She was successful. We headed to opening ceremonies where I sat in a tent and watched the girl’s bags while they performed. We came back to the school and the girls got changed for the beach party. Upon arrival I scoped out the only adult tent and spent all my pre-paid tickets on bruschetta, desserts and wine while I read my book. There seems to be a theme to my best times. I brought the girls home at midnight and everyone got prepared for a very long travel day. At least it is only one day instead of two!
Switzerland: Glorious!
Everything was glorious today: the weather, my scenery and the company. After our performance this morning the girls rushed back to the school to get on our pretty clothes, and I took a group of 4 girls with Klara and Karen and we navigated our way to France. We took the train to Nyon and ferried over to Yvoire, France. It was a beautiful Medieval town built in the 1400’s. It had small narrow cobblestone streets with tons of shops and café’s along the way. We spent the entire afternoon there. I managed to pick up my token traveling piece of art at a glass blowing shop. The atmosphere was incredible. I didn’t wan to leave. We ferried back over to Nyon, ate supper and headed back. It was an amazing day.
Wrist bone is still in place! Tomorrow will be boring and long. We have the FIG performance and closing ceremonies. There is a party on the beach afterwards. It may have been 10 days in Switzerland and I will be leaving without seeing all the things I wanted to. I am leaving behind an incredible castle, and the beach which I never got enough time to go and see, but I heard incredible reviews about. I did hear good reviews about a walk from one venue to the other which I plan to put the girls on the bus and walk myself. They are all complaining about sore feet. It is all downhill with apparently “breathtaking scenery”.
Switzerland: Missing Home
Ahh … this day started out with me asking my arch nemesis chaperone if I could please use her Internet when her kids were done (the internet I was suppose to be included in). I applied for a job just prior to coming to Switzerland and since they can’t call me I told them they could email me. She stared straight ahead, paused for 10 seconds and turned to me “You know, I am not going to treat you like you treat me, and yes, I am going to let you use my Internet”. At this point, I apologized for upsetting her and explained that we had a miscommunication and I was sorry that I had upset her by coming to talk to her regarding it. She then went on a 25-minute rant about every decision I have ever made and how it was wrong. She is convinced I am the person I am because I have never had children. I hate it when parents use this against me. While I know having children changes you, I still believe that when running a team a coach or chaperone needs to make things as fair as possible. She says we will never agree to what “fair” is. To me it means that if one athlete is not allowed to leave for an afternoon because that is the team rule set out prior to departure that means all athletes should have to follow the same rule, regardless of how much they beg. My arch nemesis does not agree. She believes I have never made a decision based on common sense, and that is why she dislikes me. She cited a time after a competition where I made all the athletes go back to the hotel to eat prior to heading off with their parents for the afternoon even though all parents were already at the competition. I didn’t think my decision was unreasonable, the meal had been prepaid and preordered and this was how the schedule was sent out to the parents prior to leaving. I had made a completely senseless decision, according to my nemesis. Examples like this went on for seemingly ever. Nothing I do will ever please this woman, nor is it worth my efforts from this point on! I dropped the girls off to watch performances and went for a cappuccino and Swiss chocolate. I spent the rest of my day trying to relax in the sun and cheer up. I miss Nate and my family. I feel very isolated here. The people are just really weird. Everyone but my nemesis is very nice, just weird and not my type. I have been trying to spend as much time with Klara and Karen as possible. I need too. Tonight I am going to the English Speaking show. I have heard from the coaches it is by far the worst performance, but since Canada is an English speaking country, the entire team got free tickets. Klara and Karen are there, so maybe we can sneak out for some wine!
Yes, the best thing happened! My arch nemesis’s athlete forgot her ticket for the English speaking show. I quickly volunteered my ticket and was off to find a pub. This was the best thing that could have happened. I sat down, ordered a glass of “ven blanc” and began reading my book. This was close to one of my favorite moments here. I met up with some girls after the show and took them down to the concert area with Karen. It was just what I needed. I feel back on track, my chi has been restored.
Tomorrow, France, here we come!
Switzerland: Boring
Not much to report. In short we dropped the girls off at training, I had a quiet coffee with one of the other chaperones. Grabbed a gross lunch and hauled all the girls equipment over to their venue for tonight’s show. Oh, it rained all day, including the hour I spent making an extra trip back to the school to pick up some forgotten tights (athlete was 15 this time). As I stated yesterday, I was to be given the breaks because the other chaperones are going to get from 2:00 pm till 9:00 pm off on Friday. This didn’t happen. When the athlete told me she forgot her tights, I went to inform her chaperone. It was then I was told she wasn’t there because she was on a break! I’m furious, and that is all I am going to say about that! I went and got the missing tights (two metro trains and a twenty minute walk in the rain).
I got volunteered to run the curtains during the PAGU (the Pan-American countries) performance. It was a hilarious experience. My job was to open the curtain when told. As I waited for my cue, coaches and athletes were yelling at me and before I got my cue they would race underneath the curtain, forcing me to open them. It was completely amateur and disorganized; but, since it is a performance, nobody really cares about precision.
Oh ya, by the way. Approximately a week before I left for Switzerland, I was playing ball and on one particular swing I felt something hurt in my wrist. It felt like a dislocation. Since I wasn’t done my at bat, I shook it off, and two swings later, I felt it again. My wrist was very sore for a few days after. Even after 5 days, it still hurt and I thought something was more wrong than me just being a wimp about a sore wrist. Nate’s words of encouragement were “you’ll be ok”. Yesterday while the team physio was working on one of the athlete’s wrist, which was jammed, I casually turned around and asked her if my wrist was jammed. She checked it out and told me within 10 seconds that I had a bone in my wrist and it wasn’t sitting properly and that is why I had so much pain. After playing with my wrist for less than 5 minutes we both felt her slip the bone back into place. It instantly felt glorious. It was weak and tired, but pain free. The problem is when a bone has been out for that long; it is hard to keep it back in place. The muscles get weak. It slipped out twice more yesterday, but I was able to put it back into place after watching the physio. When I woke up this morning it was out again. I wasn’t able to put it back so went back to see the physio. She wasn’t able to get it back in either due to inflammation. I managed to get it back in around noon, and with little use of it have been successful at keeping it in place for the rest of the day. From Switzerland, take that Nate!
Switzerland: Two Hoops!
By the end of today, we had two hoops! The hoop being manufactured by our steel worker was delivered to the school at 5:00 pm, and the Genève airport found our hoop this morning and it was delivered at 5:15 pm. What a mess. The manufactured hoop cost $340.00 franks, and we should have just washed it down the drain. Hopefully we can convince Air Canada to cover the cost.
It was another beautiful day. The girls decided to get their 3-hour mandatory performance watching out of the way first and to shop all afternoon. We headed to the stages. I let the girls loose and perched myself on the steps to soak up the sun and people watch. I also took this time to sew my brand new purse back together. I bought it before we left, and it didn’t even last the trip without a repair. I took major flack from a few of the coaches because I wasn’t watching the shows with the girls, but I put my first priority as maintaining my sanity, and that could not be done while watching performances. I fed the girl’s lunch and we were off to shop. They decided on a mall. This was ok with me; I thought it would be the best place to find lots of jewelry stores selling watches. No luck. The mall was 4 stories, and only had two jewelry stores, which were not to my taste. I exited the building and I walked up to an outside shopping center, madly searched for the illusive public bathroom and to continued my watch shopping. I found some “potentials”, and then realized it was ridiculous for the girls to be inside a mall when most of the same stores were in this outside mall. I went back to get the girls, rounded them up and transferred them to the great outdoors. This outside shopping area consists of pedestrian streets lined with shops. It is where the market is held on Wednesday and Saturdays. It is an incredible area, my favorite part of the city. I went back to deliberating over watches. I finally made a purchase. It was expensive and one of those situations where you are unsure when you buy it, but hope in the end you really, really like it because it was very expensive! After the stress of buying this watch, I sat myself on an outside patio and realize how bad my French really was. I tried to order a glass of wine. The waitress spoke no English. I tried “Vino Blanche”. She was clueless (or was I?). Finally a kind man rescued me and asked in English what I wanted. He ordered me “Ven Blanc”. I sat outside enjoying the atmosphere, my “Ven Blanc”, and my new watch. At this point I was become surer that I was going to like this watch.
Chaperones are not supposed to drink, and I was breaking this rule and didn’t much care. I was relaxing and the girls were off shopping. I had 45 minutes before I needed to meet them. During my second glass (I didn’t verbally order it, I simply raised my hand and pointed at my empty glass), I spotted the girls. Luckily it was my 3 favorites, Julia quickly asked if she could have a sip. The drinking age here is 16, and this way I couldn’t get in trouble if they were drinking too, right? They each had a couple sips (I drew the line and did not allow them to order their own glasses). We took turns showing off our purchases and I sent them on their way, enjoying the last 20 minutes in peace.
We met up with the other girls for supper. Karen and Klara organized chaperoning so that I could have the night off. I gave away my Italy performance ticket and headed out for supper with them. It was awesome to be away from the kids and have some normal adult company. We had a great time. We each ordered our meal and ate it. When we were finished and feeling satisfied the waiter brought over a second portion of the exact same supper! We were blown away. Why would we want to eat the same supper again? It was very weird. We polished off two bottles of “Ven Banc” and headed to the outside concerts they have every night. It is official; I really like my new watch.
I would like to personally thank Kara and Karen for saving my sanity tonight. The other chaperones will take Friday off when the majority of athletes are spending personal time with their parents, and I will have the athletes that do not have any parents here. I am looking forward to this time. Klara and Karen will come with the kids and me and we are going to take a trip to France!
Thursday 21 July 2011
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!
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