Snow Report: Ushuaia, Argentina

Once again following the policy of better late than never...

About three weeks ago I finally took advantage of the fact that it is winter in Argentina and got in some very ski-specific summer training:

The glacier.

"If you're a beginner, turn here."



The Beagle Channel.



Snowing too hard to see the mountains.

Turns out a Bates skier, Sam Evans-Brown, had been hanging out in Ushuaia training, but left the day before I got there. I did manage to end up on a shuttle with the Canadian men's alpine team though.

¿y vos? ¿de donde sos?

So, I'm not exactly a city person. Put me in Boston for a few months and I'm okay. Put me in New York for more than a few days and, well, yeah. There are about 13 million people in the greater Buenos Aires.

Now, the fact that I spend a good deal of my time during the week in lab (and say what you will, I really like the lab, so since I had to work for the summer one way or the other...) helps a bit. But I needed a little bit of time away from the busy, never ever ever resting craziness that is la Capital Federal. Solution: about three weeks ago (I'm a little behind), I flew out to the Iguazú Falls in the northern part of the country.

Iguazú Falls (las Cataratas) are on the river between Argentina and Brazil, a couple miles from where the borders also meet the border with Paraguay. If anyone has seen the new Indiana Jones movie (I haven't), they're supposedly featured. I've heard that the view of one of the biggest falls, Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat) is better from the Brazilian side, but I didn't really feel like spending the time and money to get a Brazilian visa. Apparently at some point in the last few years, the US started requiring Brazilians to have a visa to even set foot in the US, and Brazil responded in kind. Iguazú means "big water" (i- water, guazú- big) in Guaraní, the language of the indigenous people in the border region.

Big water is an accurate description. Amazing, gorgeous, unbelievable also work. Here:




The falls are one of the larger tourist attractions in Argentina. While most of the people there were Argentine or Brazilian, almost everyone was a tourist. And while most of the people there were Argentine or Brazilian, here "most" does not mean nearly all. At dinner on Friday night I spent about an hour talking to two Australian women, one of whom lives in Hong Kong. I spent Saturday morning wandering around the falls with two college students from Scotland and Australia, respectively. I went hiking that afternoon with an Aussie and two Canadians and then had dinner with two Argentines and three British women. Later in the evening I went exploring the town with a group from Holland. Sunday afternoon, along with two of the Dutch guys, I hung out with three Spaniards and two Israelis. My seat on the plane back to Buenos Aires was in the middle of a French family. How did I meet these people? Some of them were at the same hostel. Otherwise, I took to turning around and asking where people were from (hence the title of this post) every time I heard English. Because everyone was a tourist, it was not nearly as creepy and awkward as it would normally be. Or at least so I thought.

Last week I went to Uruguay for a little bit. Really cool colonial city named Colonia (who would have imagined, I know?)

Oh! Also, something really cool happened here the other day. I was wandering around about three blocks from where I live here when...wait...squint...yup...that sweatshirt looks familiar! In the middle of Buenos Aires, I managed to find someone wearing a 2006 Eastern Nordic Championships sweatshirt. A girl from western Mass. Someone here who has raced at Weston!

And on the topic of skiing, I'm going to get in some very ski specific summer training. I'm not going to the famous Bariloche, which while beautiful, is almost entirely alpine. Instead, I'm heading to Ushuaia for a few days, which is apparently the best place on this continent to go nordic skiing. The city is in Tierra del Fuego and is supposed to be the southernmost city in the world. Yes, I'm going skiing in August. On Wednesday. Hah!

More to come (don't worry, I'll rub in the I'M GOING SKIING part plenty more).
-KEC

The Cobra

Dear Blog Readers:

I know what you're thinking. Right off the bat. Why is this post titled, "The Cobra"? Easy. You're naturally thinking it could be for one of two possible reasons. Possibly it's a vague allusion to "The Python", a highly sophisticated retail technique used by Bill Schneider of Placid Planet Bicycles. If you're thinking this, I commend you for your out-of-the-box effort, but you're just plain wrong. Ollie has surely guessed it by now, and it's true. "The Cobra" is the name of the new local road ride with a near cult-like following.

If you're really confused at this point, relax. "The Cobra" is simply the nickname of cycling phenom/ savage doper Ricardo Ricco. Here's a nice photo of Ricardo himself being led away by the police. Smile, Ricardo!

It's time to kick the mid/late-summer training blues and turn things up a notch, just like Matthew McConaughey would. In honor of Billy Demong's assault on the Tour of Utah, here are some rants about local cycling routes, in particular super hilly ones where you won't be in constant danger of being t-boned by aerobars or being reduced to nausea by copious, poorly inked M-Dot tattoos.


Anyhow, last year, the hot local road ride which was simply saturated with vicious climbs became affectionately known as "The Michael Rasmussen Route". However, Ollie and I have found it imperative to include the recently paved Schaeffer road into the mix, as it's... well... recently paved. Duh. So now, the once glorious Michael Rasmussen Route has faded into obscurity faster than last year's Hoops Prize winners, and it's been replaced by the two-fanged and incredibly dangerous Cobra Route. Just swing by your local bike shop, pop your head in the door, and loudly shout, "Hey! I'm off to do the Cobra! See you poor saps in 3 hours!" When all you receive are awkward glances or hushed whispers to quietly leave the store, just shout even louder, "I'm off to ride the snake! I'm gonna live forever!" If at this point you're not in handcuffs, just like Ricardo Ricco is now, go out and enjoy the ride. Bring lots of food and water.



Be sure and click "show elevation", that's important.

Lastly, The Cobra has a european counterpart which can also be viewed on mapmyride.com:



Enough ranting. Go and do something fun. Preferably outdoors.

-DMac

Updates from North Elba

Greetings fellow Blog readers from the quiet hills of the Adirondacks.

Much is happening in the world these days. Michael Phelps is swimming like a fish, John Edwards is lying like a rug, and several members of Harvard Nordic's elite are training like... emm... wild dogs. Yes, wild dogs.

It's been a great summer so far, despite being stuck in the nagging clutches of Tropical Strom Lake Placid. That hasn't stopped us from logging the hours, ticking away at the threshold sessions, bagging serious peaks, endlessly double-poling Bear Cub, and eating cookies that Anna and Audrey bake at a frantic pace.

Time in the weight room from our girls is already paying off, and I managed to squeeze off this photo of Meri Burruss' calves during the last of her stellar performances in the local Mini Triathlon. She and Audrey have been using the races as some bonus cross-training intensity to nicely pad the training log.

This past Saturday, Harvard Skiing Fan #1 Matt Delaney and myself travelled to Jericho VT, via Burlington Regional Airport*, to partake in the annual Jericho Range Roll. After being denied access to the much touted evenly matched NENSA v2 Rollerskis, probably because of the color of our skin, Matt and I simply took two pairs of his own V2 boards. We set 'em up on a waxing bench, donned our respirators, and greased the bearings with EPO, then attached rocket boosters to both pairs. This alerted race officials, who disqualified us from the "offical" podium after Matt placed a strong 2nd behind Bill Bowler and I rounded off the podium. I knew it was a stupid idea, Matt! Damn. That prize money could have paid my gas bill, my houseboat bill, and probably three months of child support.

Link to story and results: http://www.nensa.net/news/news_more.php?id=2776

So thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more updates, but take solace in the fact that Harvard Nordic is busily gearing up for it's fastest season yet.

See you out there--


Dave

*Denotes a funny detour/story.

Anna and I must be really really ridiculously good looking

Because Lowell Bailey stopped us on Averyville Road to introduce himself. Okay, so we were rollerskiing, and he did start talking about skiing at first, but the conversation did turn itself to the scintillating topics of: his music at the recent BarbecueFest and his possibly failed engagement to one of Anna and Ollie's buddies from last summer. Unfortunately, we were too starstruck to tell him how much we love our team's adopted anthem, Fire Them Down. And he was too awed by our sweaty and rain-drenched good looks to ask for our numbers.

To finish, check us out on the fourth:
yeah, i made both those shirts.

What season is it?

Winter. Again. No summer for me this year. Not that winter in Buenos Aires is really winter. And it has been really cold a few days. I mean, who in their right mind would consider wearing less than a sweater, jacket, scarf, and hat when it is only 10C (50F) outside? I have started getting used to the mumbles when I go running in shorts ("crazy girl's gonna die, it's freezing"). I think my personal favorite was one I heard this morning: "So what, you gonna wear a jacket in the middle of the summer then?"

The city itself is HUGE. There are quite literally 500 bus lines and your standard avenida has no fewer than 8 lanes in one direction. Not that anyone actually pays attention to lanes. I was prepared for the Spanish to be spoken fairly quickly, but not for the accent, which replaces anything that would normally sound like "y" in Spanish (including "ll") with something more like "sh" or "shj." The end result was that the first few days were rather like being in the middle of NYC at rush hour and only understanding every third word.

I'm staying in a residencia, which is kinda like living in the dorms again, except with 4 people sharing a room the size of your average single. So far, there are or have been kids here from the US, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Spain, France, and South Africa. Right now I'm the only American and would be the only English-speaker if not for the South African guys (who might as well speak a different language because while fluent, their Afrikaner accent is strong enough that I have problems understanding them). I end up playing translator for those three, which has had its entertaining moments.

Because my naturally blonde hair makes it 95% certain I'm a foreigner before I open my mouth, I've been carefully studying other ways of seeming less like a gringa. For the fashion minded, a few tips on how to dress like an Argentinian:

- Wear layers. Lots of them. Preferably of mismatched color and print.

- Cover your neck. This means either a scarf or a turtleneck. Yes, turtleneck.

- Roll up your jeans. This one is actually sensible- they shouldn't drag.

- Converse Allstars. Mandatory. May be occasionally substitute knee high leather boots if female.

- Obviously attended-to hair. For women, this means lots of layers, side part, half up, well-concealed bobby pins. For guys, this means more hair gel than I used in my last ballet performance when my hair stayed in a French twist on its own, without pins.

The end result of this careful study is that I have occasionally been asked for directions by random people on the street. Of course, the entire illusion falls apart the instant I open my mouth. Oops. It was kinda funny though to let an American guy on the bus struggle through an entire explanation of how lost he was and where he needed to go in (interesting) Spanish before I responded in English.

Speaking of random people on the street... So it turns out that Argentinian guys are much more aggressive when it comes to persuing women. Example: while walking down the street on a holiday Monday morning, I was approached by a man in business dress who appeared to be about 30. He explained that he never does this sort of thing, but that I am the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, and he just had to tell me that, and would I like to go get coffee? Not the only time here I have been asked out to coffee by a random guy while waiting to cross the street. The starring, whistling, and side comments have led to plenty of awkward moments. Including when I was discussing sports related scars with one of the guys at the residencia and rolled up my pant leg to show off a particularly impressive rollerskiing scar (for reference, see "my ass looks like hamburger" from sometime in the end of March), only to discover that the Colombian guy I was talking to has a calf fetish. Um, yeah... On the bright side, I've discovered that when I get dressed up, I can get on the subway for free.


Lab is great. It's mostly guys and they are generally younger than the ones in my lab at home, and therefore a little less serious about life in general. We speak a mix of Spanish and English because they want to improve their English and I want to speak Spanish. I've decided that it's harder to switch back and forth than to just pick one and stick to it, but oh well. A few of them were really concerned that I would be bothered by the fact that I don't always understand what's going on when they start talking really fast with slang (can you imagine someone trying to understand the way some of the people on our team talk?). I explained that no, it doesn't bother me, at least the dominant language is Spanish, which I generally understand, instead of Chinese like in lab at home. Kinda strange to understand more in a lab in a different country...

The food here is clog-your-arteries-and-give-you-a-heart-attack-by-age-25 amazing. I think I have had 2 salads the entire time I've been here. Oops. But really, people just don't eat healthy here. There's milanesa (thin breaded steak), empanadas (think hot pocket), and alfajors (two or three layers of dulce de leche, a caramel-like substance, between soft cookie-ish things, all covered in chocolate). Aside from being used in alfajors, dulce de leche can also be put on crapes for breakfast, made into an incredible ice cream flavor, and baked into the middle of muffins.

Okay folks, I finally posted. That means it's your turn. I love hearing from you!

Coil(s)

Updates from the land where rollerblading is still considered to be a major form of personal transport

Greetings team members and team member supporters!

As some of you may know, my access to internet is rather limited, but that hasn’t slowed down my personal LAN capabilities, and I’ve been good and busy. And I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, but this year’s edition of Let’s Go: Rural Austria is going to be spicier than ever.

Now that a dismal, nagging case of low pressure has been blasted out of the Tirol by some high pressure straight from the sands of Africa, we’ve been blessed with outrageously gorgeous weather. It’s been nice, so I’ve been doing a fair amount of traveling. That’s been nice, too. Here’s a brief recount of the adventures thus far:

Two weekends ago, I snagged a spot onto a bus headed South with several of my classmates from last semester, and we enjoyed a glorious weekend in a region known as “Süd Tirol”, which once denoted the Southern border of the once infamous Austrian empire, but which was divvied up by President Woodrow Wilson and given to Italy in 1914. Training was sparce this weekend and we passed the time exploring the famous Neustift Monastery, touring five illustrious Tirolean castles, including Schloß Tirol- the former epicenter of Tirol, imbibing heartily during a decadent wine tasting led by Count Siegfried de Rachewilz and getting a rad demonstration on the art of falconry. Incredible! Got a “buzzing the tower” flyby from a huge horned Owl with a 2.5 meter wingspan, his talons grazed my scalp as he cruised over! The staff did not take kindly to my suggestion on changing his name to Maverick.

After a speedy and busy week spent getting ahead on some research, lounging with my hosts here in Lans, Familie Stöger and logged some of those monotonous sustained threshold hours. I packed up shop on Saturday and headed to a tiny village called Kuchl, just south of Salzburg, for the Salzburger Triathlon. What an incredible site- hands down the most beautiful race venue I’ve been to, the swim took place in a pristine little lagoon complete with what I called “Pleasue Island”, for no real reason, and the 40km bike ride spun us out through windy single-lane downtown streets packed with cheering fans, and up into the mountains South of town. The field was really strong, with nearly 550 athletes present, including Austrian Phenom Frederic Kohl who wound up 3^rd, a renowned pro who finished 4^th at the famous race in Kona a couple years back.

After returning to my cozy home in Lans and enjoying a nice day of recovery, I headed West for my inaugural trip to Voralberg, the western-most region of Austria, to meet with Paul Ammann, the mayor of a small village called Ludesch. Paul was one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met, and explained to me how he’d spent the first 30 years of his life as a baker, waking up at 4 every morning to bake fresh loaves. The citizens of Ludesch elected him mayor in 1984, and since then he’s revolutionized the once-sleepy town into the headquarters of the environmental movement in Austria. The details are unreal- The town now boasts an average of 1.5 meters of solar panel/ citizen, and is kept warm via a brand new underground biomass plant which burns the “Hackenschnitzel”, or wood chips, left over from the town’s extensive forestry projects. Paul, however, was most proud of the new village community center which houses the post office, town offices, a stunning café and book store, all under a roof made of local white fir beams combined with revolutionary solar paneling which provide all the necessary electricity for the facility. Such a beautiful yet functional community space! Should make for some interesting writing!

So things are beginning to wind down, and I’ll be gearing up for my last of the Austrian Cup Triathlon events, the Innsbrucker Classic right here in, well, Innsbruck, on July 6^th. I’m planning a little trip to Croatia with some friends afterwards, and then it’s back to the Olympic Village to combine forces with the Ladies’ Team, and log some hours with whatever recent graduates happen to be bumming around town at that point. Can’t wait to be back, and see what kind of “nails” shape all of you are in upon my return.

I’ll borrow a classic line which some of you might recognize that dutifully announces the inevitable end to every trip:

“Geeeeeeet totheyellowlineandmovetotherightquicklyplease…”

DMac