This
morning was the warmest, brightest and earliest morning we have had on the trip
thus far. We set off earlier because, even though we only had one row scheduled
for today, we also had volunteered to put in a couple hours of work around the
rowing club – similar to last year except for we hoped for no black widows (or
‘y’all aren’t afraid of black widows are you’ sort of jobs). When we started doing the work, I was at first
made a bit of fun of for bringing out some rubber gloves, shortly after we
started doing the work, that ended. We had the joy of reaching into the water
and fishing out logs, then lifting them up and making a big wood pile. This
resulted in some ‘gondolaing’ of one of the docks to ferry logs to an easier
location for pickup. That was actually quite fun. After that took place, we
somehow ended up moving the swimming lanes again. I say again, because those of
us who were on the trip last year got a strange sense of deja-vu while
performing this task. The sense of deja-vu was heightened by the fact that the
swim ropes were fairly clearly in the exact same arrangement that we put them
in last year during our training camp. Oh well, we got it done.
After
that, we headed back to the hotel to change quickly before lunch. A quick lunch
and eight of us found ourselves on the way into Atlanta, either to the
aquarium, or to simply explore the city downtown. The aquarium trip was, as
with last year – awesome. This year we also indulged in the dolphin show at the
aquarium. It was entertaining, and the dolphins were very talented. However,
the story that went along with the show was a touch too kiddy for most of us –
Matt really enjoyed it though.
Jill,
Alex and Lenore went on a little walking tour/expedition around downtown
Atlanta while Matt, Kat, Maria, Andre and I were at the aquarium. Fortunately,
they managed to safely make it back to the car without anything happening to
them. They did admit to happening upon a street/neighbourhood which was ‘less
than friendly’. They also managed to
find a picture of Volker’s Olympic team from 1996, which is pretty cool.
This
evening we went out to the ‘2 Dogs’ restaurant for a team dinner. The food was
quite good, Mark managed to win the coolest looking dinner award because he
ordered an entire cooked flounder stuffed with crab cakes. It was a pretty nice
dinner and resulted in us getting back to the hotel slightly later than usual.
Oh well, we don’t start until 9 am tomorrow and besides, is there really a
better way to prepare for 2x2km than a nice pre-race beer (we walked to the
restaurant) or two? Maybe I’ll go crush some leg weights after this as well.
Tomorrow
is our last day here in Georgia, I only have one more athlete bio to complete!
I hope I will be able to get this done tomorrow afternoon. Worst case I will
post one shortly after we return to London.
Did I
mention, on the way back from the aquarium Jill was very not impressed to be
woken up to the fairly loudly played musical notes of her favorite song – Call
Me Maybe.
May all
your seas be smooth and all your starlit voyages end happily!
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