Life in the Berg of Kirch (Church Mountain?)

We're back training on the "Gaisberg" in Kirchberg!

It's been pretty chilly over the last two days, so there have been moments like this: where we are all huddled around the little fire in the lodge!

 :)

 strike a pose!

 ICY icicles........looming over Kirchberg

 And our start! 

 I had to warm my ruined-by-nakiska feet.... I was pretty much in the fire along with my boots trying to thaw my toes.

looking up at the roof of the Gaisberg-stubl (the name of the lodge)

EVEN Jenny was cold!!! mmmmmm coffeeeeeeee

And then, after skiing and some afternoon yoga, Erin and I made DINKEL BROT!! a.k.a. spelt bread!

With only a few ingredients!!

Spelt Flour (as much as needed for the perfect texture), 500ml warm water, tbsp of salt, 2 tbsp of olive oil, tbsp of Yeast, 1/2 tbsp of sugar, and some olives combined with AGGRESSIVE KNEADING! sooo delicious and totally worth the bicep workout!

Thanks to Marcel's teaching and patience!! Delicious loaves we're had by all.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm i love bread.

KIRCHBERG! the beginning.....

We arrived in Europe 2 days ago but our bags did NOT.

It's slightly frustrating not to have any clothes, let alone any clothes to SKI in, and despite having carried our boots onto the airplane (which makes our carry-on's weigh A MILLION POUNDS...) we still could not ski since 3/4 of us had no gear.

So, keeping up with the Christmas spirit, Eve, Britt and I hit town yesterday in our beautiful XL Lufthansa exclusive white t-shirts,  and bought a do-it-yourself Christmas Village!

 While Erin was skiing and Britt was drinking coffee and nursing her forever damaged thumbs, Eve and I got some glue and built this beautiful MASTERPIECE! We are super proud of it!!! haha!  And it was an amazing way to kill some time and forget that we were wearing ugly t-shirts and had no clean clothes!

Our bags did eventually arrive, and today we headed over to Maria-Alm and skied at Hinterreit with the Americans!  It felt good to get back on skis and feel some ICE under my feet!

 North America/Austria.  Here's what the training hill looks like with a north american course beside an austrian course!  Good times.  It's actually a decently steep and icy pitch, although it's hard to tell from this picture.

 Tim was teaching us something!  And I was posing! haha.  too cool for school!

Just joking, he was actually drawing some crazy map and we were all confused.

At one point I was like, I'm gonna take a picture of one of the Austrians, as my camera was pointed up the hill at one of the racer girls, but Jay or Tim (both SO "HILARIOUS"....) we're like "there's one right in front of you!!!" pointing at my technician Martin.

ha.

So, here's an Austrian mountain in maria-alm, and an Austrian human from maria alm.

such crazy amazing connections.

 Anyway, that's enough blabbing for now....

The day ended after a successful and funny-at-times training session! Here are my skis!  GO HEAD!

and my teammates! GO TEAM!

The coaches ICED Kirchberg so it should be nice and ICY for some more training tomorrow!

one last glimpse of home before three months on the ROAD!

I love Tremblant! Every time I look out at the same view I see from my window all the time, I always notice new and beautiful details that nature somehow seems to conjure up!!

Like this morning, I had to do a double take when I noticed that the lake was so lit up at the other end by the clouded sunshine; I thought it looked really cool!  Like a  SWEET beam of sunny light directed only onto that little portion of the lake!

 SO..... i put on my snow boots and trudged outside to get a better look.

BAM!  Frozen lake, frozen sunshine.

Since the -20C weather seems to be following me, I hurried inside out of the biting cold weather to some of the comforts of home that I will be missing for the next three months!!!!

I've decided to stay in Europe for the whole season this winter with Marco!  So the next three months are going to be a whole new and fun EURO adventure!!!  I'll get one last good look of the amazing view here tomorrow morning and then head back to the city for my afternoon flight, and the beginning of the next chapter of this season!  I feel like with one more good training block and all the upcoming races, I should be in a good position to take a few more steps in a positive direction getting back to where I left off before tearing my knee!

PS Check out my latest SkiPresse magazine article! "alors on danse..."

MONTREAL SNOW STORM!!!!!!!!!

When I landed two nights ago I was shocked to see that there was NO snow on the ground!! 

But suddenly, yesterday, a HUGE snowstorm arrived in Montreal and covered the city in at least 2 feet of snow!

PLUS the plow decided to dump a huge pile of snow right in the path to the car, so at one point I had about 6 feet of snow to shovel just to get to my car.  It was a long and aggressive-shovelling morning!!!

 Luckily my parents came to the rescue with their amazing shovelling skillz.

 It's crazy to see what has accumulated in the last 24 hours!! I bet Tremblant has some EPIC POW POW! hahaha. probably not, but it could happen!

the marco sullivan fan club!

The sun and the crowds came out this weekend for the BEAVER CREEK World Cup!!

I was lucky enough to have a few days off and so I joined up with the MARCO SULLIVAN FAN CLUB a.k.a the sweetest craziest most fun fan club that ever existed. WE OWNED the jumbotron!!

 I was a "north-american" cheerer this weekend!! Rooting for the americans who always welcome me when I get a chance to visit marco; and of course my fellow CANUCKS!! The Canadians fared better than the Americans during the Super-G, but we were cheering for everyone no matter what.  That's what makes Marco's fanclub the coolest.

 We even had such celebrities as Shannon Bahrke! Fanclub ROOKIE OF THE YEAR!! 

 Chelsea and I ready to CHEER.  Hats and foam fingers made us look super cool.

 Marco = USA  Americans are truly patriotic!! 

 This beautiful sculpture was designed by Keelan (former "beaverfest" MVP) and this year it went to CHELSEA!!!!!!!!  But this is me posing with it.... but yay chelsea! (I totally voted for her.)

 Keelen, Chelsea and Rena making it happen.

 Apparently the fanclub is FAMOUS!

 Motivation to cheer at the entrance of the Marco Sullivan Fan Club Headquarters.

 Craftily saving some seats in the stands.

 Rena, Marco and Paul.....and 1/8th of Chelsea's face.  (I couldn't back up enough to fit her!! SORRY!!!) but these are the sullivans!   Thanks to them for a great weekend!

 And a collage of ridiculous Marco Sullivan Fan Club outfits!!!!! The crazier the better!

It was really fun to hang out this weekend in Beaver Creek and catch some speed races!  I have a short break at home now (the last of the season!!) and then back to my Austrian home of KIRCHBERG.

Thanks Chelsea and the crew for an awesome weekend!

BEAVER CREEK INSPECTION!!!!!

Here we are in Loveland the second day of slaloM!  I had a pretty good first run, and in the second run I was going for it like crazy and I STRADDLED!! But, I'm pumped that I went for it and charged and didn't HESITATE. hesitating is not cool or fast!

MP, Britt and I (ps congrats to both of them on their noram podiums this week!!!) headed up the chair to help with "tear-down" after the race.   Basically we pull out and roll all the fencing!

 She's got SWAGG!!!!

 Entertaining ourselves on the chair! hahaha.

 Tear down!!!! Pulling, rolling and carrying these lovely fences!

AFter the Loveland norams I headed to BEAVER CREEK to hang out and cheer on Marco!!

Today Todd Brooker was nice enough to take me through the inspection of the downhill!! ITS CRAZY!

 It was cool to see how intense this downhill is because sometimes on TV it's hard to really tell what's steep or flat.  ITS STEEP. trust me.

 I was creeping on Manny during inspection! hahaha/

 And then I creeped on Michael Walchofer..... ha

Todd took a picture of me in the "pete's arena" tourist style!!

 This is an overexposed view looking at GOLDEN EAGLE jump!! The backdrop is pretty sweet!

 ALMOST THERE!! just a few more crazy turns and jumps left!

 And finally, the RED TAIL jump!! Just before the finish line!! The leg burning area.

 Posing on golden eagle!

MARCO's cloud of snow through the finish line!

 :)  

The "BEAVERFEST" cheering crew arrives today!!! It should be an exciting and entertaining few days here!! I can't wait!
THanks again to Todd Brooker for giving me the tour of "Birds of Prey"!!!