Stage 7 - Poland!

I finally packed up and left Kitzbuhel, Austria yesterday. It was hard to say goodbye as I had such a wonderful 8 days there. My homestay was awesome and the small town nestled between the towering mountains is so picturesque. Aside from the constant rain (the last two days were beautiful) the trip could not have been better.

My flight left from Munich airport. What an incredible airport! We drove in and there was no traffic and barely any people inside. I walked right up and checked in and the guy working the counter was so kind and helpful. He even let my bag through at 23kgs when the limit was 20!! No wonder it was rated the 5th best airport in the world. I would fly through there again in a heartbeat.

The plane was a very small Lufthansa jet. So small that my carry on bag, (okay, it is arguably rather large), had to be taken from me at boarding. I was shocked when they served us food on such a short flight. Most American domestic flights don't even really serve food on cross country trips and yet here we were on a 90 minute flight being served a proper meal.

Arriving at the Poznan Lawica airport was great. We walked off the plane and our bags were delivered within 10 minutes. However, we then had to wait about an hour for the bus to come fetch us. I exchanged some Euro into Polish currency. It is always nice when you give them 30 and get back almost 3x as much. The bus that picked us up was quite humorous as it was a regular city bus that they had hired for 3 of us and our luggage. Our drive to the hotel was all I have really seen of Poland so far and it is quite different than Austria for sure.

Today was just the usual pre-race training. I visited the race site which is pretty awesome. We swim in a crew racing lake (photos to come) and then bike out on a basically flat course for 8 laps before running along the shores of the lake again. It is supposed to be about 27c here tomorrow... ie. HOT which will be a big change from the 2 weeks of rain and 18c weather I have been in. But I'm super excited to have another go and to get a little revenge for missed opportunities last weekend.

My race starts at 10:30 tomorrow and I will be wearing my lucky number, 9, in a field of about 25 women.