Altenberg - after party

The afterparty is the best part of these races - it's the one time when everyone is friendly and supportive of each other, since the race is over and the next one is a week away. We can chat and hang together, toast the successes and failures, laugh at the worst crashes (w/o injuries of course), and make friends. There is a lot of drinking that goes on, so some pictures remain classified, but overall it's a good time. It's also a good excuse to cutify ourselves, after living in training gear and sweats and headbands and messy hair all week!

Cassie and I early in the evening:


Me chatting with the bartender, trying to use my very limited German to explain the hole in my elbow and how I really (yes, really, I had to repeat it to him 4 times) crashed out of curve 2:


Talking to a jury and materials member:


I get really friendly and chatty when, um, imbibing, so there are lots of pictures of me chatting and gesturing and, of course, my German got better as the night went on (or so I thought...hah), but I won't post all of those.

The Altenberger - it's a shot of a liquor named after the area, and the lore is that if you DON'T take a shot after the race, the next time you come back, you'll do terribly. Well, Daly kept buying rounds and we drank the place out of Altenberger...


Cassie wore her cute shoes, but that meant she couldn't walk in the snow. Here is the nice Canadian, Charles, helping her out:


The trip home was, well, a trip! Driving up the narrow winding road to our hotel, we saw a shortcut.

Or, well, Daly saw a shortcut...
Through a snowbank...
And egged on Cassie, the sober driver, to take a run at it...
With him on the roof...
With me in the passenger seat yelling and laughing no, I need to get back to the room to call Brad, not spend the night stuck in a snowbank....

He's climbing on the roof...


Cassie is arguing with him but can't help laughing...


Emma joins in to the arguing, but also can't help laughing...


And in the end, we didn't drive through the snowbank covered 4-wheel-track, though Daly is still "mad" that we wouldn't let him ride the little Fiat Punto. Phew...I got home to call Brad. And that's the short version of the Altenberg afterparty.