Greetings from Austria!
It is time for the international
rowing season to begin and with everyone shooting for Olympic qualification, the World Cup series of 2007 is bound to be dynamic. First stop, Ottensheim, Austria.
Our team is staying in the classic
city of Linz. The city has much to
offer, including being the home of the ‘Linzer Torte’ (which I can’t wait to have an original taste), the renowned organist
Anton Bruckner who served the Old Cathedral from 1856-1868, and Linz
is also where Mozart composed his “Linz Symphony” in 1783. As you can imagine
there are so many fantastic old churches all around. These cathedrals and churches
date from 799, 1236, 1669, 1736, and 1862 (as does the ‘Newer Dom’, which doesn’t seem new to me). There are even guided boat tours along the Danube.
Now, I have done not even a hint
of touring the above mentioned city. However, each day, I take a tour - Rowing
World Cup style. I first begin with eating the local breakfast lore: fresh breads,
jam, butter, boiled eggs, bowls of yoghurt, nutty cereals. I take my Starbucks
travel mug filled with coffee and hop on the tour bus. With South
Africa and Mexico at our
same hotel and Romania and Portugal
just down the road, the bus is filled with different languages, styles, and of course, smells.
We drive down the rolling hills,
through the city catching glimpses of the fantastic pastel colored buildings, and across the flower laden bridge over the
Danube. Now to my favorite part, we wind along the river
and gaze out at the lush green trees. There are a few places where steeples and
castles sometimes peak through and a few dark tunnels through the steep rock. Now
that I have done the tour a few times, I begin to multi task and involve more than just my vision. I give the scenery a soundtrack from my ipod or delve into my book.
We then finish our thirty minute tour with speeding down tiny roads playing chicken with any small car that wishes
to tempt our crazy drivers.
This is where our business work comes
in. We get hands on the boats, and do our own tour of water. The course draws its’ water from the river and seems to be built out of a rock quarry. There are eight lanes as well as a warm up area off to the side.
From where our boats are on the hill, it doesn’t seem too impressive, but as you row away from the dock, the view the
rowers have is extraordinary. Above the finish line and hundreds of racing shells,
is a castle peaking out above the trees. This great building is then dwarfed
by steep rolling hills squared off with bright green corn and golden wheat. If
the Alps were above that, this course would rival Lucerne
in beauty. Even on the drizzly grey days we have had thus far, I can’t help but
marvel at the beauty that surrounds me.
As for rowing, we are so ready to
race. Yesterday, we did practice pieces to get our bodies moving at race pace. It was very painful, but at least it is over.
It is great because the races are never as painful as our first hard work in a new time zone. It must be that during a race there is someone else to focus on and not so much one’s own burning lungs.
After our row, we catch the next tour home
to our hotel for lunch. We repeat the tour one more time each day before heading
to bed. Such is the unique experience of a World Cup tour that most people don’t
take advantage of when they visit Europe.
