Two Days in Poland

We arrived in Poznan, Poland yesterday around lunch time. It was a bit bizarre as we flew into Warsaw from Milan and then caught a connecting flight to Poznan with LOT airlines, the official airline of Poland. At no time did anyone ask for our passport or did we go through customs! Just think what we could have brought into the country! We were on very small planes, the first one with three seats in each row and only 17 rows. The second plane even had the engines on the wings!

We gathered our luggage in Poznan and walked through the “nothing to declare” aisle into a throng of reporters and photographers! We thought that maybe we were to be the stars of the day…little did we know that the German soccer team was arriving to play Poland that night! Oh well we were superstars for a moment (at least in our own brains!).

We were picked up by the organizing committee in a minivan and transported to our hotel.

My first impressions of Poland were that there is no middle class. You either have money or you don’t. I am not sure what I expected here, but the land is very flat, not even a hill anywhere in the city (so far). There are some amazing old buildings that have stood the test of time and war. But they have obviously built accommodation in a hurry to house a lot of people and it is in that 70’s style of square boxes, it almost looks like tenements. A lot of the apartment blocks look on the outside very dirty, some are painted lovely colours, but the grass around them is uncut, which makes it look even more untidy.

This is one of the nicer apartment complexes.

That is not to say that the city isn’t interesting! We have noticed a number of universities such as separate uni’s for Technology, Economics and Medicine. There are also some amazing shopping centres, one which just happens to be across from our hotel! This shopping centre I will write about more once I pay it a visit.

We headed to the rowing course in the afternoon that we arrived and to say I was impressed is an understatement. Although they are still doing some setting up, with landscaping, putting up tents and electronics throughout the course. The Adaptive rowers have their own area for our boats and even our own pontoons to launch from and return to. We were just about to go out for a paddle and the Canadian LTA4+ arrived. Now some of you may know that I have been a “pen pal” via the Internet with a fellow Canadian, a member of their LTA team, Tony, but we had never met. So we saw each other, had a hug and had to say good-bye as we had our respective rows to do! We will catch up more formally after the racing is over.

We had a pretty good steady paddle, just one lap up and down of the 2km course. It was good to get back out in the boat as we have had 2 days off. Seems like a hell of a lot more, but at least we got the feel back.

Today at the rowing course there was evidence of more and more countries arriving. It is amazing hearing all the different languages spoken by not only the coxes but also the coaches on the bank of the course. It is amazing to see so many tall people in one place! Some of the rowers are huge! The boat racks are starting to fill up as well and it is amazing to see some of the very expensive boats.

We had two more rows today, just a steady state row this morning and then this afternoon we had to do 2 x 1000m pieces, one held at a stroke rate of 20 and then one stepped with stroke rates each 250m of 24, 26, 28, 30. It was unbelievable; the wind was blowing a gale! A head/cross wind that swirled! It felt like the wind was a lot stronger on the second one! When we got the results it certainly showed that it was tough out there. The second 1000m was 0.6 sec slower than the first and that was with a faster rate!!! The prognostics were pretty low, but when compared to the able bodied we were probably in the top 10% of the crews. So not a bad effort! But battling that wind did cause me some discomfort with my hip and back…thank you MS! So the first thing I did when I got back to the hotel was see the physio…she is my angel, helping to put things back into place!

We have a sleep in tomorrow morning, so will have breakfast and then go as a group for a walk, taking my camera with me…hell may even get to that shopping mall!