Final weeks

The last week and a half has been filled with training, training and more training; perfectly interspersed with a mixture of reading, sleeping, exploring and eating.

Lizzie and I flew from Tallin to Milan, well not really Milan. It was actually Bergamo which is RyanAir's crappy version of Milan as an arrival destination. We were met by a smiling Toph who had the biggest pack I have laid eyes on yet. He had a tent stuffed in there along with numerous other useful things (pots, pans...as you do) so relatively justified. After showcasing our newly found Italian lining up skills (push, push, take the gap, do all it takes to get on; the line was drawn for the lady with the baby though) to get on the bus we arrived at the rental car depot. We had hired...a Fiat Panda. For those that aren't car savvy, which I am not, I got the giggles due to the debacle we were in, 3 huge packs plus another person and pack to be picked up. We would need rope to strap packs to the roof. After a bit of arguing we conceded that Lizzie had indeed ordered a midget car and loaded everything in. I jumped in the back seat to find (drumroll!) only seat belts for 2 in the back, we had definitely hired a 5 person car, back in arguing Italian business!
I dutifully waited with the packs in the sun and got my tan on whilst Lizzie and Toph went back to the airport to sort the paperwork, such a tough life I live. Then we were away to pick up Jas at the train station, a mere 3 hours late. Her phone had died and she couldn't get internet anyway so the look on her face when we rolled up yelling and tooting was sheer relief. To the mountains we headed.

The next 4 days were spent up around Asiago training on maps for WOC. We stayed in a little chalet thing which had a washing machine (for a girl with a pack full of dirty clothes it was bliss!) and allowed us to spread ourselves out, I even managed to show the village my entire wardrobe, including underwear, due to the lack of a clothes line. I was very proud of my improvisation!

I did a bit of exploring around and about, one morning on my wanders I could hear barking. One of my biggest fears of running alone, after getting attacked by creepy men, is to get attacked by a dog. The barking got closer and closer behind me so I started assuming the worst and figuring out the best escape route. The plan was to ditch the jandals and jump the fence into the nearest house. The closer it got the more my adrenaline started pumping and just as I was about to make a dash for it I turned around, to find the cutest little spaniel with the most ferocious look on its face. After telling him to go home I realised my imagination was getting away on me and sleep needed to become a bigger factor in my day.

We did one mountain explore while we were up there, Mt Cornetto, just above Folgaria which was a training map Lizzie and I went on when we first arrived in Europe. After a solid hike (I wouldn't call it running, hands on knees stuff) we approached the top to find the most incredible views down the valley. Poor Toph became designated camera man while we pranced along the trail, high on life and the lack of oxygen. As we approached the top there was a big group of 20 or so trampers coming towards us who started cheering and yelling for us as we ran towards them, what a reception. Unfortunate timing though as we'd been planning to turn around but couldn't exactly do that with all the whooping going on so kept going until we were out of sight. After admiring the views we turned back and got the same performance as we ran past them again, this time I couldn't help laughing as Jas muttered "shit I'd be walking if it wasn't for these guys".
A great day and good to have a break from orienteering, nice to feel speedy on the trails too.

After dropping Jas off in a tiny village by the side of the road we headed down towards Venice. Toph took off to Florence and we picked up Lachy, Tim and Laura for some sprint training.
I love Venice, it's just such a magic city, I could wander and get lost in those alleyways for days on end and still be smiling. There is just so much character.
We were staying in Mestre which is just out of Venice, while significantly cheaper it wasn't quite the same as being able to wander the streets in the early morning and at night sans tourists but still good. The first day we attempted to train at around midday in 30 degree heat, my body was not happy. Most of the map was using little back alleyways but as soon as I got close to the main drags the hordes of tourists would require some seriously skilful people dodging. People don't run in Venice and now I know why. We were so unexpected running around corners that I ended up just running along yelling "scusi, scusi!" continuously which seemed to help. Laura, Tim and I then went wandering, getting lost in the back streets while I played 'guide' with the scraps of info I knew for them.

Our second day there was quite a contrast. We left early hoping to beat some of the crowds, fail, Venice is still outrageously busy at 9am. We persisted though and it was a really good training, feeling much more confident about it all now which is nice. Then it rained and rained and rained. I was planning to head to the Peggy Guggenheim gallery but it'll have to wait. We got stuck in a coffee shop (oh so tough) before braving the thunderstorm and ending up absolutely drenched. Quite entertaining once you were wet and no longer cared. Also very colourful as the tourists wrapped up in their colourful poncho's and continued on their guided tours. A very squelchy bus ride back to Mestre ended this stint in Venice but I'll be back!
On Thursday actually, before the WOC sprint races on Saturday, countdown is on!

Tallinn, Estonia

Interesting facts/notes about Tallinn I have picked up along the way (this is for you Keithy):

- Tallinn has a population of just under 500,000, which is 33% of the Estonian population.
- All local Tallinnese (probably not a word but sounds good) enjoy the luxury of free public transport, Lizzie and I have utilised this during rush hour confusion, win!
- Tallinn is laid out with the Old Town being encircled by a big wall and then all the modern buildings spanning out from it. The Old Town is a UNESCO Heritage Site. It seems to sprawl out in all directions with the harbour on one side. Being typical tourists we have only really explored the Old Town which is filled with Australian and British travellers, along with a lot of people speaking indiscernible languages.

- It is cold in Tallinn. Apparently it isn't always like this but damn it's cold, and this is meant to be summer! I gave myself a tour of the Old Town and with a biting wind around every corner I had to buy some gloves and only just stopped at buying a hat, making do with my raincoat hood. Admittedly they are very cosy double wool, pretty patterned mittens which will no doubt come in handy either in the mountains in Italy (hopefully not) or once I head back to Scandinavia. Then it hailed on me while I took photos with the Chinese tourists.  

- Food is cheap, the supermarkets are a wonderland to me and I want to buy and try everything. The beer is also cheap, the local brand is Saku. We've gathered it's kind of like Tui and I drank a litre of it last night.
- Tallinn is the capital of the Republic of Estonia, Estonia has only been independent since 1991. There is a great little alleyway with the countries history in the flagstones but a concise version follows for you Dad. Quite an interesting history, I'm not sure what the economy is like but would be interesting to see the changes since 1991. Russian Rule (1710 - 1918), Republic of Estonia (1918 - 1940), Soviet Occupation (1940 - 1941), German Occupation (1941 - 1944), Soviet Occupation (1944 - 1991), Republic of Estonia (1991 - now).

- They have good shopping in Tallinn, yay for Zara and H&M. Not so ideal when you're sensible and know you have another 2 months of travelling around, a heavy pack is not appealing. Will have to contain myself until Stockholm.
- There is a really good little guide map made by locals for the Old Town area. It contains the perfect combination of activities, places to eat, sights to see and shopping tips. We met one of the guys who helped make it when we had pizza the other night. He was from further south, a country boy and had been living in Tallinn for 6 years. Nice guy.
- There are a lot of churches and cathedrals around. I visited most of them but the best one was up on the hill, Alexander Nevsky's Cathedral and had lots of beautiful gold gilded sculptures inside. I also quite liked St Olaf's Church which was up on the hill. There are very few tall buildings in Tallinn as it was forbidden to build anything higher than Olaf's spire, the boss apparently.

- There is only one airport in Tallinn and ferries to both Helsinki and Stockholm which are very frequent.
- They give good prizes at orienteering events. Should you ever want to attend Tallinn o-week make sure you win so you get free shoes/socks/running tops. Just what you always wanted.
- I gathered the below photo is for a play, it looks questionable...

Jukola!!

Jukola, where to begin!
This is one of the biggest (literally and figuratively!) races in the orienteering season, always in Finland and always on my to do list. This is the first year that I have been able to be in Europe early enough to make it to it and is one aspect of the trip that I was really looking forward to. This year it was based near Kuopio, about a 5 hour drive north of Helsinki.

The women's race is called Venla and started at 2pm on Saturday, it is a 4 women relay with the first leg being known as the most manic with 1200 women all starting on the cannon.
We arrived at the event nice and early so the first leg runners for Halden had plenty of time to get ready. I on the other hand did some exploring, the event was HUGE! Unfortunately it had rained the previous day so it was a bit of a mud bath getting around, my bright yellow running shoes will never be the same. But the whole event reminded me of Rhythm and Vines or some equally big music festival x 10 and filled with a ton of orienteers speaking all sorts of languages instead of drunk adolescents....so quite different to Rhythm and Vines but the mud was the same!

I managed to find Kate Morrison who is going to be my new flattie in Uppsala, having not seen her for 2 years it was a great reunion when I found her in the middle of the worst mud patch with a pack twice her size and arms full of bags. Getting to catch up with Matt, Ross and Hanna was also great and made me very excited for staying in Europe.

After a bit of trouble finding the team I was running for and getting numbers and emit cards (the little electronic timing chip) I headed into the start area along with 1200 other women. Jogging around I looked like a bit of a gimp. Everyone was wearing their club tops but Umea the team I ran for didn't have any spares so I was in my NZ top. Most people were jabbering away in Swedish/Norwegian/Finnish while I jogged around with a gigantic grin on my face, not quite believing that I was here. What an experience!

We were called into our assigned positions, I was team 344 and maps were handed out. Again I couldn't wipe the smile off my face and was having trouble keeping my head forward as I craned around to look at the  900 women behind me that were joining the 300 in front in the forest. Eventually the countdown began and the cannon sent us off into the forest.
The first 600m or so was just running to get to the start triangle. Having scoped out the start area I knew I had about 500m of open paddock before it narrowed and became more uneven with rocks as we entered the forest. So I utilised this and took off. Some great advice Lizzie had given me was to just run and get in a better position before looking at the map. Given the scale of the race and that they can only have so many splits it is just a matter of choosing the right train of girls and then reading ahead. By the time we had hit the forest I was up with the top 50 girls and hoping they weren't planning on maintaining this crazy pace!

I managed to only fall over once near the start and avoided getting trampled, given this was my biggest worry I reckon it was a successful race! After the first few controls I knew I was in a good group but decided to take a wider route choice, avoiding some thicker forest but hopefully being faster. Success! All of a sudden the troops dropped off and I hit the next control with what I knew must be the front of the field. The rest of the course was relatively uneventful until towards the end when I got tired and a bit messy and was caught by the chasing packs. I came into the finish in 26th place, not bad for a first Venla! Apparently I was even famous (briefly) at the event on the big screen tv's. To make the events more spectator friendly they have lots of tv camera's out in the forest and gps tracking on the top teams so they know where people are, what mistakes they're making and who to expect to the next camera. Standing out in my NZ top at the start worked in my favour as my team mates for the club and the Aussie/Kiwi contingent could very easily spot the silver fern racing around the forest. I'll happily take my 10 seconds of fame given the company I was keeping at the time!

The men's race, Jukola, is traditionally held through the night with 7 person relay teams. They started at 11pm. I thought I was getting ahead of the game lining up to watch the start at 10.30 but was already too slow, being fourth row back with a ton of others jostling behind me to see the stampede. Not exactly dark but as close as they get that far north in Finland. It was also FREEZING!! I was wearing all the warm clothes I took (thermal, cardigan, thick icebreaker, puffer jacket, raincoat and beanie) and was getting seriously cold at the end of the men's first leg, about 12.15am. Matt was running for the Linne 2 team (my new club in Uppsala) and did really well surviving his first Jukola.

Another highlight was I had my first Finnish sauna and the President of Finland did a speech! Those two events are not related I don't think, he was speaking Finnish but I don't imagine he was hugely interested in my sauna. At the event they had set up 2 sauna's in the shower area and by god it was good after the race. I have very quickly become comfortable with the Scandi way of all just getting naked together, it's slightly worrying how quickly but gotta get used to it at some point. It's also great for the self esteem at some of these club events, where not everyone has abs and toned bodies like at world champs.

Heading back to Helsinki on Sunday morning was a long drive, the views tend to be forest, forest, forest, lake, forest, forest; but sheesh bed was good that night. Lizzie and I had a night in Helsinki before catching the ferry to Tallinn, Estonia for some more casual races prior to heading back to Italy on Thursday. Not a bad life I reckon!

Halden, Norway

This past week Lizzie and I have been hanging with the Halden club in Norway.
For non-orienteers they are a very well known club in Norway that have a lot of good results in the past and tend to produce some pretty damn good orienteers (read: current world champion).

They were very welcoming and looked after us for the 2 days we were there. We stayed with Erik and Anna, a couple in the club, and did a couple of training sessions.
Clubs over here are VERY different to back home. Eva took us up to the club house in the forest where they have really nice changing rooms and showers (scandi style with completely communal). Then another big log building with a kitchen, lounge area and dining area where we got fed before a club meeting. The meeting was completely in norwegian but all about this weekend which is the Jukola relay in Finland. There was no old map for the athletes to review so the coaches had gone onto satellite sites and made a new map of the competition area for everyone to look at.
They have 3 coaches and the amount of preparation and being looked after the runners get is incredible. Makes sense why they are all so good.

We left bright and early at 5am (photo shows, daytime!! at 5am waiting for pick up) on Thursday to catch a flight from Oslo to Helsinki. This was followed by a 5 hour drive to get to Kuopio where Jukola is.

My impression of Finland so far is forest, lakes and mosquito's. Not particularly hot but probably quite good for running.
Last night we stayed at a very plush hotel near Kuopio (not very kiwi style, we would have been camping), that even had fluffy bath robes, I was impressed!

Today we moved to a slightly more interesting set up.
Apparently it is ok in Finland to have people staying in hospitals as accommodation.
We drove up to this place called "Neuron" and I thought we were doing a tour of some brain institute.
Nope, it's our accommodation for 2 nights and the orienteers are far outnumbered by the rehab patients who all appear to have had brain injuries of varying severity.
Quite bizarre really, I've had fun playing with my bed buttons and we've all accidentally given ourselves tours when trying to find rooms. According to the club this isn't the usual accommodation style, not quite sure who organised this one but it's definitely an experience!!

This weekend the race is a relay that is one of the biggest races for clubs in the orienteering calendar.
The women's race is called Venla and has 4 runners in each team. I'm running for a club called Umea which is Lara's Swedish club. I'll be running the first leg for their second team along with 1100 other women in the mass start tomorrow. Slightly apprehensive about it all but no pressure from the team so that's good. We start at 2pm so will be getting my elbows out around then.
Venla is known as a bit of a scrummage match, with so many people mass starting at once you can imagine the chaos when they get to controls so it'll be interesting!

Jukola is the men's race which has 10 people in the relay team and starts at 11pm. Known as a night relay, the sun doesn't set until 11.30pm so the race isn't exactly in the dark but as close to it as they can get. Will be a spectacle to watch I'm sure. Around 1600 teams are entered with a few kiwi's in the mix who I will be cheering on like crazy.

Bovallstrand

The last week has been fairly idyllic.
Wake up, eat breakfast, go training, eat lunch, read/explore/play with Mattias, eat, sleep.

Magnus, Lisa and Mattias were fantastic hosts for Lizzie, Lara and I.
Magnus' parents summer house is in Bovallstrand, just up the coast from Gothenburg. Most of the area is made up of people's summer houses. A good proportion of them were occupied with it being a long weekend in Sweden and we got to meet Magnus' brother and his family as well.

The area is where WOC 2016 is, this is crazily early for me to be on 'relevant terrain' but it was good to get back into the Scandi terrain before Jukola this weekend in Finland. There are a ton of rapidly sprouting blueberry/blackberry/some type of berry bushes all over the ground which makes it rather challenging to run. Each time I lifted my leg it felt like twice as much effort and invariably I ended up on the ground due to not trying hard enough.
The flies were also an issue for me, being my lovely sweaty self as soon as you stop they swarm you and some of them bite!! Apparently it's because of all the marshes but I was not a fan after falling over yet again. All good experience and means stopping to look at the scenery is not an option.

We had a few touristy excursions during the week.
First to some rock carvings from a REALLY long time ago. I did take a photo of the information board to sound really impressive with all my knowledge but it seems to have gone wayward, older than normal old stuff at least. They were pretty cool and showed how much history people have in the area compared to little new New Zealand.

We did a day trip out to the local zoo with arctic animals. Lisa and I seemed to zoom ahead of everyone, turns out birds and otters aren't all that interesting to either of us. We did get to see some very fluffy snow leopards, a creepy owl, wolves and another leopard. There was a sleepy tiger who didn't even wake up when we knocked on the glass (sorry can't read the sign, don't speak Swedish).
I tend to get a little concerned with all the wildlife out here as it's pretty extreme compared to NZ. Magnus has said that very few people actually see snakes while orienteering and the stripy ones are bad but won't kill you. And if I see a moose, don't get between baby and mum and make lots of noise, apparently all the other  creatures will stay away from me, fingers crossed!

Our last full day there we went crab catching!! This is a long held family tradition that Magnus and his brother used to do every summer. Literally catching a crab than have a race with them once we had had enough. Turns out I'm quite talented at this and managed to reel them in pretty quickly.I don't   think any of mine won the race but was good fun.

Before we got dropped back at the border to meet up with Eva we went back to the lolly shop, literally heaven. Row upon row of pick n mix, mmmmmmm.

Sverige

The morning started early with a bus over the border to Sweden to meet Magnus and Lara for some training. Eva again came to our rescue when no cards would work and we hadn't had time to get out any cash for the bus.
Crossing into Sweden felt rather momentous as my new home for the next year and a bit.
We were met by Magnus who is a Swedish orienteer living in Wellington with his kiwi wife Lisa and incredibly cute wee boy Mattias. Lara has been doing a school exchange further north in Sweden since February and came down for some kiwi time.
Following some running around in the forest we went to what can only be described as heaven. A lolly shop that had row upon row of pick n mix!!!!
I managed to show a tiny bit of self restraint in the choosing process, not so much in the eating with my whole bag being finished within 48 hours. There is a compulsory stop there on the way back to Norway so that's keeping me going through the week.

We're staying at Magnus' parents summer house just near Dingle (good name right?!) on the coast. It's been complete bliss to be able to stop and absorb Europe and Scandinavia for the week. The days so far have consisted of training, eating, reading and finally catching up on sleep, my kind of week really!

Ciao Italia!

Time flies when you're having fun!!

The remainder of our first week in Italy was spent exploring and racing.
Friday morning we headed to Riva del Garda, a lovely lake just over the range from Rovereto. What a contrast!
From the lovely quaint and quiet back streets of Rovereto, to a mini tourist resort. Within 1k we had gone from being quite obviously the only tourists to being surrounded by German hikers and holiday makers. It was a bit of a welcome change to be easily understood by the locals but we quickly escaped up the hill to the Bastione.
There was talk of heading further up the hill to the Santa Barbara church but the turn off at the Bastione indicated another 2k with 500m climb. With a weekend of racing ahead of us we decided to call it a day.

We treated ourselves to a lunch in a little cafe, typical Italian time meant that we were left sitting for a good 45mins before any action happened as we told them we needed to leave in 10 minutes to catch our bus. Following our speed eating and a sprint through the back streets we headed back up to the mountains and friends!

Meeting up with Alex, Ness and Lachy was great to have a bit more company for a weekend of racing up around Asiago.
We were staying in a lovely big chalet building right up where the middle race was on the Saturday.
Asiago was just as I remembered it from 2009 albeit a lot colder, my well planned packing meant I was prepared though!
The races themselves were pretty average on my part but good to get some under the belt and remember that I'm not just here for a holiday. The addition of hail as I started the long distance was not so ideal but the delish pasta at the end made it all worthwhile.

Our last day in Italy was spent as tourists. After a much needed sleep at Alex's friend Giovanni's Dad's house (slightly convoluted) in Trento we headed down to Venice and walked and walked and walked. Such a magical city it never loses it's appeal.

With sore feet and feeling slightly argumentative post bag pick up (12 until 5pm is most definitely 5 hours, NOT 6 hours and definitely NOT 7 hours, 5 Italians at the train station still couldn't work it out) we headed to the airport.

Our initial plan was to sleep at the airport in Moss (just south of Oslo) as getting to accommodation and a bed for 6 hours was going to cost us at least $100nz each, Norway living up to it's hellishly expensive reputation. However as luck would have it we bumped into a group of orienteers from Halden who had been in Italy for the races.
They couldn't believe our plan and in typical orienteering fashion herded us back to Halden and a mattress on the floor, thanks Eva!