WG2015 - #1

So i've been in Helsinki for a few days now. When i got here on the ferry i had to wait a while before i could check into the hotel so i hit the grocery store for some breakfast then just chilled while i waited for my family and the rest of my team to arrive. They should have just been an hour or so behind me but they had some difficulties at the airport. I got to the hotel around 9:30, everyone else showed up after 1pm. It didn't really matter because we couldn't check in to the hotel until 3.

After checking in we sat around for a while waiting for dinner time. All 25 or so of our team invaded a nearby pasta/pizza restaurant, Vapiano's. I hear they have locations in the US. It was pretty good and pretty fun. Everyone was pretty tired for the journey so it was a pretty early night for everyone.

The next day, Saturday, we had breakfast in the hotel then had a small practice to learn the choreography for the closing piece of a performance Thursday night. This was the first bit of dancing i've had to learn since the last WG and it was a little rough at first. It's a really easy piece, there are only 8 moves to it, but i'm an idiot and can't dance so it's not easy for me. We practiced for 2 hours or so then headed back to the hotel. We all went our separate ways for the afternoon then were going to meet up in the evening for a team dinner.

I went around town with my parents. They enjoy geocaching so we took some time to locate some caches along the way to some of the different WG venues. We were able to find 4 or 5, actually, my mom actually found most of them; I found 2. We made our way from Senate Square up to the Olympic Stadium.

The seagulls all took turns sitting on the guy's head.

Our family restaurant

We found a pair of our teammates and grabbed a margarita and some nachos at a nearby restaurant to hold us over until dinner.

Dinner was at a rather nice 10th story restaurant, Ravintola Loiste (http://www.raflaamo.fi/helsinki/ravintola-loiste). The food was expensive, but great. I think the whole team had a fun time, except for Kayla who's meal got forgotten in the rush. It took forever to get out of there so we all pretty much headed to be afterwards.

Sunday was the opening ceremonies for the World Gymnaestrada. In the morning the USA teams had a group photo down at Senate Square in the morning,

then we had a couple hours break before we needed to head up to the performance halls for lunch.

We met outside the hotel at noon to take the train one stop to the hall, that's where the full force of the World Gymnaestrada first hit us. All of the participants needed to be there for lunch, and we all seemed to be there at the same time. Our first stop at the hall was to get our water bottles. I was sent in ahead to scout out exactly where we were supposed to do that. When i entered the building it was indescribable. THOUSANDS of people. I tried to make my way through the building to where the water bottles were supposed to be but it was very slow going, even with my superb crowd-traversing skills. I eventually found where to go and made my way back to the group to lead the whole team. We got our water bottles then got our lunch, which turned out to be less of a hassle than i expected. After eating we waited a few minutes in the hall for the rain to hopefully stop. When it let up a bit we headed to our staging are for the opening ceremonies walk-in.

It might be hard to tell exactly what's going on there, but the USA along with Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Finland, and a couple others were waiting for the ceremony to start and to get lined up for the walk-in. All those red jackets are the Swiss contingency, 7 people wide, lined up across the field  and around the track, with many still sitting in the stands. And that's not counting the other 2/3 of the group that had already exited the staging area. There are 22,000 participants in the World Gymnaestrada and Switzerland has, by far, the biggest showing with 3,800 participants. If there was ever going to be  a good time to invade Switzerland it's now, because most of the country seems to be here.

Once all the countries made their entrance and found their way to their seats the official announcements were made and then a few performances by some, presumably, Finnish groups.

All of the Swiss were sitting behind us...

This is my third WG and it's still amazing to see how big this thing is, and surprising how virtually no Americans have any idea it exists. The real fun starts tomorrow. My team doesn't perform until Tuesday so tomorrow is a full day where all i have to do is enjoy other groups performing.