A week in Göteborg

We've been pretty busy all week training on new maps, so we're a bit out of date with the blog, but now its time to catch up...

We've done some awesome training at some cool maps, including Björnbergen, and the trial race maps that Georgia ran against the Swedes on a few weeks ago. We're all getting more used to the mapping of bare rock as clearings, and mossed over rock as just normal forest and knolls. We did a bit of relay training with the Aussies, and discovered that they're almost all sick, including Ollie, who had fainted at breakfast that morning - luckily we don't seem to have caught anything. Sprint training at Eriksberg was pretty cool, and the course had about the same ratio of forest to urban that is going to be in the race on Monday (20:80). Ross rejoined the team for a little while, and is helping out a bit with our training. Angela's back is getting better - she's jogging quite a bit now, and Todd's physio seems to be working, but Tessa's leg has gone downhill a little bit, so she's been taking it easy the last few days, and hopefully it will improve. Greta's calves are tight and a few others have got niggles, but nothing too serious we hope.

On Friday we visited Rannebergen, and did some control picking at 1:15000, sorting out some more marshes and working on our compass bearings. Greta and Georgia are getting pretty good at Nana-napping in the afternoons, but tea at 4pm puts a bit of time pressure on things. After tea we went to the Göteborg O shop (open Fridays, 5-6pm, in the owner's basement), where a few people got shoes that are more appropriate to Swedish terrain. We also discovered that we've been driving through part of the sprint map everyday - its that close to where we are staying.

Today we had a rest day, which involved the girls tramming it into town to find a party uniform, and the boys chilling out at the base watching movies. Greta and Kate discovered that their sense of direction was not what they thought when they sat at the wrong tram stop for an hour, but we eventually got them back (lets hope the fashion for tie-dyed stuff hits New Zealand soon though, after their shopping spree). Lizzie is also the proud new owner of a moose shaped hat.

Most of the army people have left now, which means they're not attempting to assimilate us to their rules, but its also a lot noiser, and the computers are always busy! We've got the Irish and the Germans on our floor, the Hong Kong and Hungary teams above us, and Spain and a few others below us, all sharing the one wahing machine in the basement and the three showers on two of the floors. The boys were disgusted to find the other day that a sign on our floor has gone up telling us that our showers are 'women only' - a rule which has already been flouted several times, and doesn't make much sense, as the room doesn't have a door anyway.

Norm has done an awesome job sorting out stuff for us, sourcing the weirdest things, including a blind for one of the windows, some washing powder, and a kettle...and the boys have just commandeered a couch from somewhere for movie-watching purposes. We're hoping Sweden will discover some new music soon, as 'the Voice of Hiphop and R and Bay' doesn't seem to have much of a play list, but the weather's warming up, so its all looking good for the week ahead.

We should be updating this every day now, so keep checking on us...

Tessa