Each team was assigned a day and hour to practice, and ours was Wednesday. It was our first time riding the festival bus,which was stiflingly hot, and our first time seeing the festival grounds, which was so exciting. There are tents for every team, with enough chairs in the tent for every paddler. Some teams walked around visiting other teams, asking if they wanted to trade pins – most teams have pins that they bring to races and trade – or trade race jerseys. Yesterday a teammate and I went looking for the African teams to see if they wanted to trade pins, but we never got there because we would pass other tents and start talking with whoever was there about where they are from and where we are from. I bought 10 pins to trade. I’ve traded 2 and then I gave one away to a woman who really liked our pin but didn’t have one to trade. I have to not do that anymore, because my teammates have some beautiful pins that I covet. This is funny, because the whole pin trading thing didn’t really make much sense to me prior to coming here and now I’m totally into it.
We have two boats competing here, Team Oregon and Team Portland. I’m on Team Portland and we got out on the lake first. The lake is so beautiful. The water is so much clearer than the Willamette where we practice, and also warmer. I had figured since we were in the alps it would be colder, but it’s the perfect temperature. There is a swimming area that is pretty close to the racecourse, with tons of locals playing in the water, and I plan to be in the water to watch Team Oregon race tomorrow.
The boats are brand new boats bought specially for this festival. They’re very different than the boats we practice in. I like that they are roomier than our boats, and there is more room for my feet, but they were very tippy. A few of us thought we were going to capsize at the dock before we even got moving. We paddled out to the start of the race course and did a practice 500 meter race. It felt very difficult and we didn’t seem to be in sync either. We returned to the dock, where two paddlers got out and another got in (there are 22 paddlers on our team and only 20 spots in the boat) and we paddled back to the start. I was dreading doing another 500 meter race because we had barely warmed up and because I hadn’t paddled in a week and a half, but the second time we just practiced our start and then paddled at a reasonable pace back to the dock. This time I got off, along with a teammate. One of the officials asked us how the boat felt and we said, “very tippy.” She looked worried and said, “Oh, that’s what we’re hearing from everyone today,”
We told the coaches who were on the dock that the boats felt tippy. They said we were very tense and we needed to relax – that our tension was fighting the boat. I said I was afraid I was going to fall out and our head coach said, “You’re not going to fall out of the boat. You KNOW that.”
Because I didn’t feel like we had enough practice in the boats, I was really glad I got to paddle again yesterday. I think I was more relaxed and I decided if I fell out of the boat, at least I was doing what I was told. Our tiller said the water felt so much better than the day before and I think most of us found the paddling much easier.
That was Wednesday. Tuesday quite a few of us took a bus tour to a winery for a wine tasting. I didn’t drink any wine because I need to avoid any sugar before a race – I find it very energy zapping. Mary ended up not drinking any wine either because she got carsick on the drive to the winery. I had pictured us gathering outside at a vineyard, but we all piled into one room and the owner or former owner of the winery speechified for the entire time we were there. He spoke in French and had a translator. I later remarked to a teammate that he liked to talk. She nodded and said, “If he had been able to speak English, he probably never would have stopped talking.”
A lot of what he said was interesting. He made it very clear he is not happy with the current U.S. government. The tariffs mean they can’t export wine to the U.S. anymore, which is a huge part of their business. In addition to that, climate change and the recent heat waves are not good for the grapes. There is also some rule or law that wineries in France, or wineries in France who want a certain designation, can’t irrigate the crops, and that is making things very difficult.
In addition to the wine, there was a beautiful food spread – bread, local cheeses and charcuterie, mini quiches, and the pate in pastry delicacy which I was afraid of when Mary and I bought it a a charcuterie, but which was pretty tasty at the winery.
One of my teammates gave Mary a Dramamine, which helped Mary’s nausea. At one point I went outside to go to the bathroom and then decided to stay out there. I didn’t know where Mary was – not in the tasting room, and if she was in the bathroom she never came back – but I didn’t worry about it. When it was time to go, I found her around the corner sitting at table holding court with a bunch of my teammates, which made me smile because she can generally be kind of quiet and socially anxious around new people, but the Dramamine did the trick. (Mary says she wasn’t holding court. She was talking when I showed up but was mostly just sitting there, but, she acknowledged, my impression makes for a good story.)
The next day I thanked my teammate for the Dramamine and told her about Mary’s newfound sociability, and my teammate laughed and said, “I said it was Dramamine, but maybe it wasn’t. . .” She is the same person who suggested, when I was drinking water from a wine glass, that I tell everyone I was drinking tequila.
The wine tasting wasn’t what I expected but it was a nice scenic drive and I really enjoyed the charcuterie and the company.
It is now 9:25 pm on Friday and I need to be up bright and early so I will end this for now. I can’t believe we’ve been away from home for 10 days already. It feels like the time is flying by. My life always feels like that.
