Received 09/17/2009 03:35
Wednesday, Sep 16 - Bregenz, Team Leader Meeting, Supporter Dinne
After our long day visiting the castles, I was really looking forward to sleeping in on our last day off. However, that was not to be. Nancy wanted me to be meet her and Andy at a 7:30 breakfast meeting to talk about the day’s schedule and what would go on at the Supporter Dinner that night. So, I was up at 7:00 and down to breakfast to start off the day. The meeting went quickly and I was back in the room by 8:00 to find Val just crawling out of bed. Lucky girl!
As this was our last day to do any sort of local sightseeing, we decided to go over to Bregenz, a nearby town, and take the cable car up to the top of the mountain. There was a Bird Show advertised and some others who had seen it the day before said it was well worth seeing. So, at about 9:30, we loaded back up in the van and headed down the road to Bregenz. Faithful George got us there without any wrong turns. After a slight adventure in parking (our vans are really tall), we bought our tickets and got on the next gondola to the top. It was a beautiful trip up, giving us panoramic views of Lake Lucerne (also called Bodensee here in Austria) and the surrounding mountains. The Bird show started at 11:00 am, so we have about 45 minutes to wander around. About 30 minutes before the show, we started down towards where the bird show would be . What we hadn’t realized was that there was a wildlife park at the top as well with a few different animals, ranging from bunnies to wild boar to ibex and mountain sheep! They were all beautiful and pretty indifferent to visitors.
We got down to the Bird show about 20 minutes before show time. That gave us some time to admire allthe different birds in their mews. There were owls, hawks, falcons, eagles, and vultures. The owls, hawks, falcons, and vultures were all in cages. The eagles, however, were just tethered to stumps on the hillside. You couldn’t walk up to them of course, but they weren’t caged. They all looked very healthy with shiny feathers. These were the birds that would be used in the show. After walking around the mews for awhile, we took seats on the benches and waited for the show to start.
Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the whole narration was in German. So, we could watch and admire the birds, but had absolutely no idea of what was being said. We had great seats, mostly because we had asked when we bought our tickets where would be the best place to sit. There really wasn’t a bad seat anywhere in the house. The bird handlers made sure they held their birds long enough for us to get great photos and when they gave demonstrations of the birds’ hunting styles. At one point, one of the falcons decided to be a bit naughty and ignore her recall signal, flying off out of the demonstration area and out of sight for a bit, but she eventually came back and landed on her handlers arm. Probably the most awesome of the birds was the vulture. All the birds would fly right over the audience, some of them very close above. In fact, at one point when a little owl was released from her handler, I actually got hit a glancing blow in the back of the head! Twice! But it was all a lot of fun. Sure wish we could have understood what they were telling us about the birds though. The show ended and we were faced with a really steep climb back up the hill to where the cable cars would depart from. That was the hardest hike I’ve had yet! I was really puffing by the time we reached the top. Of course part of that is that we were also at 1064 meters altitude (about 3100 feet) and this little girl is used to sea level! After a quick ride down, the two vans split up. One to take one team member to find a dentist cause she lost a temporary crown right when we arrived at the cable car in the morning; the other down into Bregenz for some shopping and wander around time. What we didn’t realize at that point was that in Austria, most shopping closes from noon – 2 pm. And of course, what time did we get there? Just after noon. But everyone still had a good time. The restaurants and bakeries were open and so we stopped into a bakery for lunch, then spent the rest of the time wandering around. We all met back up at the van at 2 and headed back to Lustenau and the hotel.
Nancy, Andy, and I left to attend the Team Leaders meeting over at the event site about 5:15 pm. This meeting is where the event organizers go over any particulars about this event such as: no food on the practice floor during the Thursday practice; how the starting procedure would work; introduction of the two judges; and where we turned in our team running order and picked up our team credentials and the competitor’s bibs with numbers. Normally, this is also when we received the event catalog, but not this time. Not sure why not. This meeting has always been on Thursday night in the past, which is why our Supporter Dinner is scheduled on Wed. But for whatever reason this year, they changed it to Wed. So, the dinner, originally scheduled for 7 was slipped to 7:15 and we hoped that he Team Leader meeting that started at 6:00 would go quickly! It wasn’t too bad—we got back to the hotel at 7:40. They had started without us, which is good, but they were only on the appetizer buffet. The food was incredible! And, in true European tradition, we had a very leisurely dinner. The different courses were separated by speeches from Andy, the Team and the Coaches. Andy introduced the team members to the Supporters; gave thanks to our sponsors and those who did so much work behind the scenes but for some reason could not travel with us (Sharon Anderson and Toni Osojnicki) and then introduced the coaches. Up next was the Team representative, Karen Holik who read off the Top 10 Reasons Why Nancy Gyes Had to Coach the World Team Again Next Year”. There were many inside jokes that probably went over the heads of the supporters, but the team and coaches all thought they were very funny. At that point the dinner buffet was set up and we took a break in the speeches to eat yet again! The final part of the speeches was Nancy talking to the Supporters and playing a little trivia with everyone. When she was done, the dessert buffet was set up. See the pattern of the night? Our night ended with a brief team meeting so we could go over what we learned at the Team leaders meeting. We also used this time to get everyone refocused on why we are here. Everyone left the banquet room, with high spirits and ready to get started tomorrow.
