 |
[RC] [USA: Kathy Brunjes] Touring the Venue - Endurance.NetHi everyone!we spent the morning at the venue - visited our stables, although our horses don't arrive until after lunch tomorrow....the Canadians and Japanese horses are there. We have a new stable this year - our North American stables were so large last year, that they swapped us with the smaller stable - instead of 56 stalls (the Europeans have it now) we have just 18 stalls plus wash area. Only 8 turnouts (small paddocks) for 14 horses - so I am really happy I brought my portable fencing. Zulu granted us permission to put up the extra paddocks with my fencing - so all we be good - every horse will end up with a turnout. After saying hi to old friends - Bob Gielen, Wendy Benns, Ruth Sturley, Yagucchi - we drove over to the feed barn to check out and order our hay - and were told that the timothy hay was all gone....we were able to order for later in the week, and managed to get some alfalfa and orchard grass - and low and behold! I saw my Poulin Grain sitting next to the door....it arrived before my horse! they were very happy to know who it belonged to, since it arrived on a pallet with no name or country listed....I was very happy to see it sitting there, and they will deliver it to our stable tomorrow morning (Tom and Debbie - we are in the stables that the UAE had last year - way in the back - and Europe has our stable from last year). We are still the "White" stable and white training loop...which is the old UAE loop from last year, and only 10.4 km long...so we will have to go around it a couple of times to get any workout. At 11:30 we had a briefing from Zulu and lunch at the new canteen in the grooms' quarters....the USA has 3 grooms rooms assigned to us, and we can nap and take showers, etc, during the day if we need to - very close to our stables. Lunch was a nice buffet of local foods and pasta bar, ice cream and salad bar included. It was great to see Maarouf, Azrin, Salim and Zulu...hugs and kisses all around. Nice to see so many familiar faces (riders) from last year, too - we all caught up during lunch. The briefing was the usual about training loops, schedules, etc. Introductions of the new staff and re-acquainted with Major Magid, who is again our stable and feed coordinator. After Becky, John, Cheryl and I drove to the petrol station and hit the ATMS and filled the truck up with fuel..took a little drive up the coast to check the schedules for boats out to Redang Island, and then back to the venue to pick up Jan, Grace, Meg and Alam (Mustafa's nephew who is Chef d'equipe for Sweden). we drove into Terengganu to hit the Giant store and get our Sim cards for our phones. We are back in operation with phones now. Back to the hotel now and we are all sitting in the lobby on our laptops communicating with the world. So nice to be able to do this. Later, before dinner, we will drive about the old part of town and do some sight-seeing - especially for those who have never been here. Dinner tonight here at the hotel. It only took us 30 minutes to drive from here to the venue, so that's not too bad. I can see the ocean from my hotel room - and have a bird's eye view of the swimming pool...which, btw, they were still installing last night when I got here. It is now filling slowly, they are using one hose to do so!!! we may get to use it before we leave here....!!! that's all for now - waiting on the horses tomorrow and getting down to business. But SO nice to see everyone we know and meet new faces. Hope all is well with all of you...I'll be sending you daily updates from here on in. Love from Malaysia Kathy -- Posted By Endurance.Net to USA: Kathy Brunjes at 10/19/2008 11:32:00 AM
|