Greetings From Hambugh Germany!

Good evening from Hamburg Germany, home of the 2007 ITU Triathlon World Championships! Curt and I touched down in Germany this morning at 8am. Which for us was 2am! A long flight and small airplane gave way to a 60 minute trek through a bus station, train station and through the streets of Hamburg with a bike box and luggage!

We settled in to our beautiful hotel right in the heart of Hamburg, and resisted the overwhelming urge to sleep.

First order of buisiness was to swim. Without any difficulty we took the U1 train over to the pool. A 50 meter indoor pool with free access to athletes all weekend. We found ourselves swimming with some of the under 23 kiddos from Venesuala. They were all geared up in their ITU suits and ready to race this weekend.

While it was the worst swim of my life, 50 meters with no lane lines and hour 30 without sleep will make things interesting indeed! After our swim and crashing for a nap, we went accross the street to run. Right accross from our hotel is a neat park, almost like Central Park, and it is full of running trails and pathways.

There are billons of poeple out and about here. And while there are quite a lot of smokers, I have to give them credit where credit is due. They are out walking.

We have had some trouble communicating as our German is horrid and all the Germans speak very good English, but at times there are the words that just get mixed up. The train system is fabulous and easy and the food is outstanding. I just never know what on earth I was ordering!

The race site is simply gorgeous, and we are in for an amazing weekend for certain. We get to open water swim tomorrow and we will attempt an early morning bike.

Our greatest challange will be biking, as the streets are crowded and there are no clear places to get out to the country. But we will find it!

More to come tomorrow!