27 August 2016

Preparation days for the Pre-Worlds 2016!


There´s a lot to do if you have a few days between two major competitions: Looking after all the instruments, cameras, trackers and back-ups, washing clothes, register for the new competition, get the new waypoints on your vario, log the new retrieve driver and team, try to help the newly arrived pilots to settle in, go shopping, cook some healthy food for a great night with friends, ... in short, it was not boring!
Also I had been invited to the media conference for the Pre-Worlds, together with Brazilian Champion Nene Rotor and winner of the Open Brazilian Nationals, Jonny Durand. We thought we would speak English during the interviews, but shortly before we were both told that it would be much nicer for the whole audience if we speak Portuguese. Jonny and I smirking at each other - right! That makes it a bit more challenging, with Jonny´s vocabulary mainly to chat with cute Brazilian girls, and my vocabulary mainly to sweet-talk some guys to help me shift my glider around ;) Luckily the organizer Beto Schmitz was sitting in the middle between us and helped out with words and understanding of the questions, so in the end the journalists seemed to take it as a given that these Australian and German hang glider pilots all speak some Portuguese. Well, luckily I had my daily training with my friend Claudinha´s mother who even made me read recipes early in the morning as a test for my pronunciation ;) very cool lady!In the evening, we were rewarded with a nice get together in a super nice location on the lake, the Mormaii Surf Bar. So nice to meet lots of friends from the international flying circuit!
Tonight we are going for the opening ceremony, and a safety conference afterwards.




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