Our Side Trip To Annecy.

Last night we went to Annecy because the sports scientist who made our dryland program suggested that we go to a lower elevation to rest our bodies. Annecy is a really cute little city and so we took lots of pictures. The drive there was really pretty as well. Also it snowed in Tignes and now it feels like wintertime! We (Hansi especially) got excited. On Saturday morning Tignes looked like this:

Now it looks like this:














I took a picture of Hansi taking a picture of me before we left on Sunday:



I also took a picture of Mike's banana on the dashboard. There is some backstory to the banana...




We spent a good portion of the ride over taking pictures from the car of the Alps as they went by.



And then finally we got to Annecy!



In Annecy we were going to stay in a Hostle but then we found a little hotel right in the middle of the old town that was pretty much the same price and so we stayed there instead. The hotel felt more like a house than a hotel and according to Kali we had a lovely view:







In Annecy there is a beautiful canal that goes through the middle. In the canal were some swans and these black birds that we don't have in Canada










Everywhere we went there was really tastey looking dessert on display.

We ate crepes for lunch (not dessert crepes) and then we had italian food for dinner in France... However I didn't take any picture of our lunch or dinner.
At night we walked around town and had a bit of a team photoshoot. Hansi is really good at putting on the self timer and running like crazy to get in the shot.

 

He also climbed a flag pole, multiple times. He didn't make it to the top but he got about 3/4 of the way.

We walked along the lake for a bit which was also beautiful (how many times have I used the word beautiful this post?) and Mike tried to provoke a pair of swans. Luckly he was unsucessful.
 


Because it was a Sunday most of the stores were closed so Kali and I decided that we would go shopping this morning. We ended up having about 2 hours to shop, so we decided to "power shop". Basically we speed walked like crazy to the first store and then slowed down to a normal pace. We didn't buy much in the end but we did end up buying a pair of jeans each and and a sweater each. Hansi tried on a lot of hats along the way but didn't actually buy any.














 

 Then we bought a lot of chocolate.
A lot.



We also found this giant twix bar that was too heavy to bring home (sorry Aanika).



And then finally we came back to Tignes! It's still snowy up here and the mini-vacation to Annecy was really lovely but I am really excited to ski again, it's been 2 whole days! Annecy was really good for my french in Tignes we don't have many oppotunities to use french and after a while I was able to buy pastries entierly in french! If we spent 3 weeks in the city it would probably get a whole lot better but we haven't so my french is going to continue to be horrible it seems.

On a non-Annecy related note, I'm going to recap last week quickly. On Tuesday we got into gates for the first time. We did 2 days of slalom and 3 days of GS. During the slalom days we trained with a team that only had 2 athletes from England but were based out of Meribel. The coach's name was Alex and his english wasn't the best but he was nice. After that we did one day of GS on our own and then for the last 2 GS days we teamed up with a coach who Mike was good friends with already named Aleks, he had 3 athletes. He was Macedonian and he spoke Croatian so that was pretty cool. I got to brush up on my Croatian as well this trip! Tomorrow we're supposed to be working with Aleks again and maybe with another coach named Aleks that Mike knows who coaches a team of Serbians. It's been really confusing trying to distinguish the difference Alex, Aleks and Aleks (all pronounced the same way) when we're talking. None the less everyone who we've trained with has been nice and I look forward to training with them again tomorrow!

 And to finish off some pictures:

 

 

 

 PS. People other than Aanika are welcome to comment. (That's not to say that I don't want you to comment though Aanika I appreciate it =] )