Monday was the first day of the performances, and my team didn't perform so i was able to watch whatever i wanted. I had tried to go through the guide book the night before to pick some groups that seemed like they might be good. I got to the Herning hall a few minutes after the first group started at 9am. The first group was from the Netherlands and pretty awesome act with what i call "wall tramp", where they bounce on their backs on the trampolines and run up a wall.
I watched 9 performances in this hall before moving to Zurich at noon. It's a good thing i had a decent breakfast because once i started watching i didn't want to stop and missed lunch! I probably looked pretty silly watching these shows. I'd have a GoPro on a tripod, with another in my left hand and my phone in my right to take pictures. I have over 1,500 pictures to go through. Here are a few from the first day:
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| Norway 11 - Team Kangaroos |
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| Denmark 20 - Talent Team Greve |
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| Germany 17 - TV Ludwigshafen-Bodensee / SFN Vechta |
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| Mexico 12 - UNAM Team |
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| Germany 11 - SC Melle and stedinger Turnerverein |
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| Canada 18 - Toronto Gymnastics International |
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| Netherlands 17 - Apeldoorn, Ruurlo, Ermelo |
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| Switzerland 18 - Dock's Alive |
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| Switzerland 18 - Dock's Alive |
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| Denmark 19 - Ringsted Boys DK |
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| ?? |
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| Austria 25 - Tecnoplast TS Hoechst |
The next day, Tuesday, the team had a performance at 2:00 and another at 3:40. I was able to watch some performances in the morning but i must have slept in because the first one i saw was Mexico 12 at 11:00, which i had seen the day before. The performances seemed to go pretty well. I had never seen them before but with having to help with the equipment i wasn't able to record it. The second performance didn't have any equipment so i got that one! (when i post it on YouTube i'll add a link here!)
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| USA 18 - Columbia (i had another camera in the other hand so the framing is terrible) |
Tuesday evening was the Nordic Countries National Evening, where the best of the best perform in an arena with lights and stuff. It was a great show, and you can watch it here! (there were some copyright issues with the music (as in almost all of the WG2015 videos) so sorry for the ads, and if there are silent bits).
Wednesday was even more hectic than Tuesday. The team had three performances, with two of them being an hour apart and 30 minutes away. USAG was great and found us big van taxis to get the team from the Messukeskus halls to Paavo Nurmi Square for the outdoor stage show. Once we got there we had to wait for a while before going on, but if we had to walk it'd would have been a lot more stressful and tiring. Wednesday evening was the "Midnight Sun Special" which was new for the WG and had large groups (over 200 people) from 6 countries and a piece from people all over the world. Here's a video of the group from Switzerland (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ni3m7j_NFU). It's amazing how they get so many people to move so synchronized. It's no surprise they're skilled at making time pieces.
I have no idea what happened on Thursday. We didn't have any performances, but i didn't manage to watch... oh.. no. I remember now. Thursday evening was the Pan-American evening performance! My team was performing in it so we had rehearsal starting at 1:00. There was a closing dance that i was going to be in so i needed to be there too. We were supposed to be at the Ice Hall at 12:30 but i went to Messukeskus at 11:30 or so for lunch. We were at the Ice Hall from 12:30 until after the performance (it started at 6pm). I video taped the Skyview part of the performance but had GoPro issues after that so all i got of the rest is a time lapse video (which honestly might be the best way to watch it since our show was nowhere near the amazingness of the Nordic evening). If it looks watchable i may post it to YouTube.
Friday was the last day of the group performances. Again, my team again had three shows but they were more spread out than on Tuesday. That's great for resting and moving between venues, but it made it hard to watch anything else. Friday evening was the FIG Gala evening performance, which is the best of the best of the best. I have that recorded and will put it on YouTube eventually. Suffice it to say, it was obviously amazing, especially the final act.
Saturday was the closing ceremonies. It was boring. Super boring. From beginning to end; boring. Usually after the closing ceremonies there's a huge party where everyone celebrates how fun the week was. There's music and dancing, drinking, showing off, trading clothes and hats and bags with people from other countries. This time, it started to rain right after the closing. Maybe there was still a party, but it hadn't started by the time we gave up and headed to the hotel. My family went out for dinner at an asian restaurant. I'm not sure if it was because i was starving but the food was FANTASTIC. Everything from the wonton soup to the weird thing my dad ordered was amazing, and it wasn't expensive either. If you're ever in Helsinki and want Chinese food, go to Basilika. It's right next to Vapiano's.
My family was flying out the next morning, very early in the morning. Actually, their flight was at 9:30 or something, but for some reason there was a bus picking them up at the airport at 4:05am. Seemed pretty silly since we had free access to the trains and one left for the airport every 20 minutes from the train station that was about 5 minutes walk from the hotel. But whatever. I wasn't flying home until Monday so i got to sleep in. I got out of bed around 9 and finished packing up my things. I had a nice breakfast at the hotel and then checked out. It was somewhat of a pain carrying my bicycle across town to the hostel but it really wasn't that far, and it wasn't raining.
I was able to check into the hostel earlier than i should have so i started walking around, seeing parts of town i hadn't seen yet. I took a trolley over to this bar, Sivu Kirjasto (http://www.sivukirjasto.fi/), where i am RIGHT NOW. It's a pretty cool place. Relaxed. As i got off the trolley it started raining and i just now remembered that my bike is outside. It didn't rain a lot, but i'm pretty worried that my box is ruined, or is at least unsuitable for air travel. Oh well. If it is messed up hopefully i'll have time tomorrow morning to find another one! My flight isn't until 3:30pm so i'll have all morning if i need it.
A bunch of drag queens just walked into the bar.
Anway, WG. There were so many good acts throughout the week. I don't want to bore you here with more pictures so I'll be posting a link to a Google Photos album with the ones worth seeing. For videos check out my youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/j0nthegreat/videos). It takes time to process them so it'll be a little while before i get all of them up there, be patient. i may be reposting them to the JTG Tours channel, but i'm not sure yet. The week went by so fast. I feel like i didn't get to see as many performances as i wanted to but it must have been about the same as the previous WGs. The 2019 World Gymnaestrada is going to be back in Dornbirn, Austria (where it was during the 2007 flashback story) so i'll need to do some thinking about how i can get to new countries or do something new to get there (maybe a motorcycle trip from Greece?) Who knows!
I'll leave you with this, a picture from one of the most entertaining performances of the week.
:)
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