Tere from Estonia!

Tere (TEHR-reh), or "hello" from Estonia! 

After a VERY long trip getting here, I've been training for three short days before our first IBU Cup race tomorrow. My trip, which started on December 30th from Fort Kent, lasted almost three days! 

First I drove from Fort Kent down to Portland, which should have taken about five hours. Due to heavy snow falling just south of Bangor it took me closer to six hours. The following day I flew from Portland to Dulles but because my flight out of Portland was delayed I missed my connection at Dulles and had to switch my trans Atlantic flight. Instead of flying directly to Munich as planned I flew to Manchester, England and then caught a connecting flight to Munich. Again, this switch made me miss a connecting flight, this time from Munich to Helsinki, Finland. Instead I hung out in the Munich Aiport for much of the day (from about 10 am till 6:40 pm) and caught a much later flight to Helsinki. Then I had to spend the night in Helsinki and catch an early morning flight to Tallinn, Estonia where we were picked up by a shuttle organized by the hosts of the races in Otepaa. 

It turned out to be a good thing that I had to wait in the Munich Airport all day because of my check bags, the one with my biathlon rifle in it, never made in on my plane at Dulles. They figured it out pretty fast and were able to get it rerouted through Frankfurt, Germany and it arrived in Munich in time to get put on my evening flight to Helsinki with me! 

Another upside to missing my Dulles flight was that my teammate Hannah also missed her flight so we got to travel together after that. 

Here's Hannah after 24+ hours awake. We were pretty excited to finally have beds for a few hours in Helsinki, Finland. As we were landing in Finland we got to watch some New Years Eve fireworks from the plane...kind of neat!

This is the xc ski stadium in Otepaa. 

And another view of the xc stadium...

And the biathlon stadium!

Looking back toward the xc stadium and wax building from near the biathlon stadium. 

The whole competition complex is called Tehvandi Staadion. They like their double letters here: consonants or vowels, doesn't matter. 

Flags of all the nations competing here...

Our hotel, right across the parking lot from Tehvandi. 

View from our hotel back toward Tehvandi. 

My messy half of the room.

And Hannah's half. 

That's all for now. Tomorrow is our first race: and individual. Four shootings. No skied penalty laps, just a minute added to your ski time for each miss. Oh, and unlike every other biathlon race, the individual is prone, standing, prone, standing instead of PPSS. Hopefully I don't forget that mid-race! 

Wish me luck!

Snowstorms do NOT yield smooth travel.

As I write this I’m sitting in the Munich Airport waiting for my teammate Hannah to (hopefully) find her rifle bag and then collect her ski bag in the baggage claim area. We’ve already been here in Munich for over four hours but two of our four bags (between us) didn’t make it on the same flight with us.

My adventure started with what should have been a five hour drive from Fort Kent down to Portland on Saturday. I made it as far as Bangor before the skies let loose with blowing snow. I think it took me twice as long as it should have to finish the drive as I went between 40-45 mph on the highway for the remainder. Yesterday morning in Portland I watched as my flight from Portland Jetport to Dulles Airport went from delayed and then back to being on time. When I checked in the flight was “on schedule” but shortly before we were supposed to board that changed and I ended up missing my connection from Dulles to Munich. Luckily I was able to rebook quickly and managed to land a seat first on a flight from Dulles to Manchester, England and then from England to Munich, putting me into Munich just two hours later than I was originally scheduled to arrive. 

Unfortunately that two hours was enough to make me miss yet another connection. From Munich we are traveling on via Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn, Estonia where we will be picked up by the host organization from our first week of competition in Otepaa. So here I sit, waiting for the last of our missing baggage and then waiting some more before we get on yet another re-routed flight. Luckily FinnAir has another flight to Helsinki tonight so Hannah and I will spend the night in Helsinki before finishing the final flight (Helsinki to Tallinn) of our journey tomorrow. 

Turns out we weren’t the only ones with travel problems: Susan nearly missed participating in Schalke (giant indoor biathlon competition in a soccer stadium here in Germany this past weekend), Bill didn’t get any of his bags, and Sarah (one of our coaches for this trip) never made it onto the plane before her flight got canceled. Hopefully everything gets sorted out easily enough and our competitions can get underway smoothly. 

I hope that wasn’t too difficult to read. I’m really tired and writing clearly is not coming easily right now! 

Highlights of the trip so far: An awesome stay with MWSC executive director Andy and his wife, Betsy, the night before I left Maine, free bags thanks to United Airline’s support of the US Biathlon Team, a brief trip through the Manchester, England Airport (certainly the strangest airport I think I’ve ever been in...more on that another time), and second Christmas when we met Bernd here in Munich and got lots of fun new USBA Adidas gear! 

Don’t know when I’ll be able to post this...I’m guessing I”ll fall asleep as soon as we get to our hotel in Helsinki tonight but if not, maybe then.