Igls Austria - Days 2 & 3

Day 2 sliding was a little rough - my first run felt like everything was coming together, but my second run was a train wreck that left me wondering if I would be able to figure everything out in time for the races this coming weekend. Sigh.

After sliding, we had planned on visiting the Neuschwanstein Castle, about an hour and a half drive from here, which is the castle that Disneyland's castle is based on. At the last minute, we decided to go online and check the hours of operation; it's a good thing, since we would have just made it in time for the castle to close, at 3:00pm!!!! Seriously? 3pm? I'm super disappointed, since with our sliding schedule we won't be able to make it at all.

Instead, Cassie and I went down to Innsbruck for the afternoon. We didn't want to sit around and waste the rare free time we had.

After bumbling our way into a parking garage (which later took us twenty minutes to get out of thanks to a malfunctioning ticket stub), we walked to the old-town district. I ran into an interesting statue.


Notice the coin box at his feet...I threw in a coin and...








Walking on.


We went into the Swarovsky store. And marveled at the crystals. The whole place was decked out for the holidays.


After ogling the $4500 and other expensive jewels, I ended up treating myself to a little something-something from the "these are so cheap we tuck them in the back with only a few employees standing guard and really go ahead and touch them" wall. Not very pricey but really pretty, and best of all it matches the fabulous earrings Brad gave me a few years ago.


We had a good time, and also went to the grocery store to buy various chocolates to bring home. Mmmm. Then we went home, and I spent about half an hour laying on my sled trying to re-train my body to relax.


Day 3 arrived, and it was deja vu! Wait, didn't we leave Altenberg???


Foggy and snowy, and 76 athletes sliding in one session. Blech! We were in the 20s, and after getting to the top after our first run, we realized that there were about 57 sliders to go until our next run. Hmm, 57 sliders, down times of around a minute, plus the countdown clock for each slider to start, well! We've got an hour or more. We changed our shoes and threw on warm outerwear, and walked down to watch some lines. Daly decided to goof off with his suspenders...why I can't tell you.


He also made a snow angel when he quasi-intentionally fell on the slick ice hidden beneath the snow.


We even had time to grab coffee at the bottom before we had to catch the truck up and get ready for our second runs! Whose idea was it to stuff all 74 of us into one session??? Between runs 2 and 3 I chilled on a bench listening to music since it started snowing harder.

Oh yeah, how were my runs you wonder? Ok overall - not as fast as i'd like but I'm running between 6-8 and if I can just fix a couple curves that are just bothersome, I might MIGHT maybe POSSIBLY move up a spot or two. And if I don't do something stupid like flip out of 2 again...

After our third runs, Cassie and I hung out in the bob cafe waiting for the session to
end so we could grab timesheets. Her cocoa was so hot...