Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Ingls, Austria Update

January 18, 2010



Guten Tag, aus Austria,



On January 9th we arrived in Ingls, Austria for our first World Cup Race of the second half of tour. We flew into the Munich airport in Germany where we spent the night a Holiday Inn Express. In the morning we drove our rental cars and large rental trucks over to the storage warehouse where our bobsleds were shipped. We loaded up seven bobsleds five 2-man’s and two 4-man’s, along with our luggage, weights, tools and our sports medicine supplies and were off into the deep dark world known as Europa!!! A Warning for those meek at heart! Oh yes many a men have made such a trek all have come back from……but not all have come back alive……nor sane! BEWARE!!BEWARE!! My bag I am watching movies and typing again, that’s never a good combination! Lol In Ingls we stayed at the Sportshotel that was about ten minutes away from the bobsled track.

It is now January 17, 2011 and we have completed our first race in Ingls, Austria. It was a rough week to say the least, the Sled I race on USA 2 finished outside of the top ten in both two-man and four-man. My driver is still getting his feel and strength back up since before he left to help fight the War in Afghanistan. It seems that we are still shaking the rust off in terms of driving and pushing but the overall goal is to be strong five weeks from now as we head into Konigesse, Germany for World Championships. After the 4-man race in Ingls we went back to the hotel ate lunch, then jumped in the rentals making an eight our drive to the next race venue located here in Winterberg, Germany. While in Winterberg the USA team enjoys the comforts of the Avital Hotel. J As the City Planner side of me comes out I was in awe at the fact that this hotel is in the middle of single family residential with a small hint of multi-family residential. Now using most city designs and planning laws that I know about this hotel is in the wrong place along with the other spot zoning surrounding this place. However they did do a great job matching the hotel façade with the façade on residential structures making for a smoother transition between two distinctive uses. Ok enough of that….Ouch my brain hurts now, just messing it hurts because earlier today I figured out the meaning of life and have been creating the calculations that explain my discovery in laymen terms. Now where was I, oh yes bobsled.

As we went on strolls around Austria I have had about six different collisions with people walking. Either I or the other people have come around the corner too fast along with their perspective group and I have almost run them over! Immediately upon seeing me before they even get a chance to take another breath they quickly say Entschuldigung! Entschuldigung! Entschuldigung! with a look like they have just saw their life flash in front of their eyes, while their friends either are laughing or fearful for them. Oh and Entschuldigung! means excuse me! A couple of other times as we walk away you hear them speaking in German saying that was a big guy. My group and I found it pretty amusing.

Oh!!! And I am not sure how many of you all know it but I have an extraordinarily huge sweet tooth!!! They have this chocolate over here by Milka that is amazingly good!!! Now they sell Milka in the states but it tastes nothing like the Milka in Europe! The chocolate here is very smooth and rich, it makes Hershey taste like you brought it out of a gum ball machine. To my delight they have two different sizes of Milka one is the normal candy bar size and the other is about three times the size of a normal candy bar!! So you know what I did, yeah I have already brought about 14 of the large bars 8 small bars and about 6 other different types of chocolate bars. I brought this one bar that was pear/Carmel flavor it was all types of awesome. And don’t worry I have included pictures of everything on my web page. www.jessebeckom3.com so enjoy but unfortunately not as much as I will!!



God Bless

Jesse