Bourg-Seu

Our time in Bourg St. Mourice France was amazing but had to come to an end...thanks so much again to Cieran and his Mum for their hospitality, was really cool. After another long drive we finally arrived back in Spain. Here is La Seu we are staying with Andorra Olympian Montse. Her home is really typical Catalan and Mike and I have been treated to all the typical Spanish meals and style of eating. This time of the year is Fiesta(Party) time in Espanol so the town of La Seu is in party mode. Today at lunch time there will be a lot going on in the town and Saturday night is going to be BIG! Training is going really well. I am taking part in the C1W training camp that is on here this week, it makes for a bit of fun thats for sure!!! I am still trying to keep focus for my K1 for the World Championships though.

Slovenia- France!!!

The race on the weekend was once again not the greatest...I finished 33rd thanks to my touches and loosing some time. Luuka was the only one to make the Semis and finished in 20th.
We then ventured across Slovenia and half way through Italy, until the Van came to stop at a gas station, 120km from Milan. Unfortunately it had come to the end of its time on the roads. It wouldn't start again. So we had no choice but to hitch to Milan to get a rental car. It was pretty sad leaving the van but was time to move on. So we convoyed our way to Bourg St. Mourice in France with our mates Cieran and Nouria. Bourg is a town in the French Alps that is in the valley of some of the best skifields in the world! Soooo beautiful! The river here is massive and really fun to paddle. This is definately one of my favourite places in Europe. You can almost ski all yr round too because it is so high up here. AWESOME!!! We are staying here with Cieran at his parents place, it is a beautiful wooden villa!!!They are looking after us Kiwis super well:)
Tommorrow we will go for another paddle here in Bourg and then head for Spain to begin our lead up for the Worlds!Less than 3weeks!
Some pics of the van...many memories...it served us well for the 5months it lasted!
See www.luukayer.blogspot.com for our last picture with the Incredible Van:)

Slovakia- Slovenia

On the Sunday we watched Mike race his way from the Semis to qualify in 5th for the final. He ended up in 9th in the final, an awesome result!!!Then we packed the van and roadtripped our way to Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia. Slovenia is a beautiful country with a lot of greenery, mountrains and nice nature. The city of Ljubljana is very social and full of art and music. Every night the streets are full of people out for a drink or walking, its great. Training here is equally as good as the whitewater is challenging and great fun. This weekend we have the Pre World Championships here!!!

Slovak Open-Quals Race

Today we had the qualification for the Slovak Open. The boys were off first this morning. Then Luuka, Brent and I were this afternoon. I know the course here in Bratislava really well so I was feeling pretty good, even though the course was pretty tricky. However I had an average 1st run with two touches and I took a roll, my time was 129+4secs. My 2nd run started a lot better with a pretty solid online top section, then I unfortunately made a small mistake which caused me to do another roll and 50 two gates! So my 2nd run time was 124+102. I ended up in 37th, top 20 cuttoff was 124seconds. I was pretty gutted as I was feeling good for this race and was hoping to do a lot better. Luuka had some touches in her runs which was enough to put her out of the top 20, so she ended up in 34th. Brent has only just arrived in Europe so is still aclimatizing, he missed the Semi for C1M. Unfortunately Johann and Aaron missed the Semi too, there were over 100 K1M! Mike dominated the K1M to qualify in 1st!!!Very stoked for him, its awesome and well deserved!
So tommorrow we will be cheering on Mike in the Semis, along with doing some assignments for me!!!and then Monday I think we will cruise to Ljubiana.
Off to a concert by the course tonight:)

Bratislava-Slovak Open

As stoked as we were to be in Seu training at the Worlds venue, the weather took a turn in our last few days and turned a bit rainy, so it was time to leave. The car was finally fixed so we picked it up and drove all the way to Bratislava(Via Augsburg, with a quick visit at our friend Kathrins). Its great to be back here in Bratislava, it is like my 2nd home:).
This weekend we have the Slovak Open competition. The course is looking really tough, I think there will be some interesting racing for sure. Our K1M are off this morning and we are in the afternoon.
Checkout the online results at www.mates.sk

Training in Seu-sweet

Training has continued to go well here in La Seu of Spain. We will be catching a ride with the Spanish on Monday to Bratislava. We have the Slovak Open next weekend in Bratislava that we are looking forward to. Yesterday I was taken up into the Spanish countryside by Olivia a Swiss girl and some Spanish Chicka’s to some natural pools, they were amazing and really beautiful. Everythings sweet.

Training

Life in Espanol

Our luck has taken an amazing turn for the better. Training this week has been epic. We have been doing a bit with the British and the French and the Czechs! Still staying with our friend Andreu, who is an awesome cook.
So all is going really well.
Adioss

Another long day

Wow. Where to start... today has been a real mixture of emotions. After going for a run this morning Luuka and I were dropped at the Main road by the British head Coach, our journey back to the broken down car was to begin here. Only moments later we were approached by a Spanish Man and his dog, the man (Andreus) had a kayaking t-shirt on but did not speak much English...Andreus and his friend then took us all the way to Luuka’s broken down car. Last night Eurg(The British Coach) had very kindly used his French skills to converse with our mechanic and we had arranged to pick up the ‘fixed’ car today. However when we arrived with Andreus today we found no mechanic and a still very broken down car! I was so gutted...soooo gutted! So we decided to take our kayaks and gear back with Andreas to Seu, another 1hour 30min of driving! When we arrived back in La Seu Andreu very kindly offered us to stay in his place in town! We were bought in and sat down and had various dishes of cheese, chocolate, bread, fruit, carrots and custard presented to us!!Wow! We were a bit overwhelmed and in disbelief of how lucky we are right now and just how kind Andreu is. Although the last few weeks have been a bit stressful and not easy we have been amazed at how generous people can be. The British have been really helpful as well with words of encouragement and letting us borrow their boats on the flatwater (Thanks esp. To Lizzie, I used her kayak). So our situation here has not turned out too badly! We are staying with some friendly people in the middle of town, have our kayaks so will be able to join into one of the white water sessions of either Czech, Slovak, British or French. And the next plan of attack is to train here on the course for the next few days and then on Thursday we will fly back to Prague, this is where the other Kiwis will be too.
I am sitting here now and still can’t quite believe how well it all turned out for us. Although it is really unfortunate about the car it has still all worked out pretty well. I think we have come out of the situation with luck on our side! I definitely think that there are some people in the world that are really sooo nice and will go so far out of their way to help other people.