Passion Blog

Not all of my fencing travel experiences have been fun and exciting. My least favorite place I’ve ever been to was without a doubt Helsinki, Finland. Not only did the traveling there suck, the city itself was cold, boring and had some of the worst (and weirdest) food I have ever had. Now to be fair to the city it wasn’t all bad and I’m sure the hotel was most of the problem. Helsinki itself did have some beautiful sights and views, sadly we were just staying too far away to really enjoy them.

The hotel itself was probably about thirty minutes outside the city and was in the middle of nowhere. In front of the hotel there was a giant frozen lake and behind it was our fencing venue, this was actually very convenient in the long run but made for a very bland experience. The only food available was some very sketchy food truck looking shack near the lake that was a fast food place and the hotel food, unless you wanted to go into town. You would think that because its a hotel the food would be alright but no this hotel had about five items to choose from ranging from barbecue chicken and noodles which consisted of noodles and chicken smothered in barbecue sauce to meatballs and mashed potatoes. Despite the hotels lunch and dinner being gross the hotel’s breakfast was honestly one of the best european breakfasts I have had.

I don’t remember the hotel’s name but I do remember that it was pretty nice and weirdly modern just as many other bigger european hotels I have stayed at. The rooms were small but as only my mom and I travel to these tournaments this is never really an issue for us. One of the cool features of the hotel was the lounge area in front of our room where my friends and I attempted to finish our homework on our break time. Another cool thing we discovered about the hotel was on the third floor (shout out to this hotel for being more than two floors) there was a pool and a sauna.

The fact that we were so far away from town, it wasn’t that far but we are used to be in walking distance to everything, made it so that the fencers and their families were basically isolated in the hotel unless you wanted to take a taxi to town. A group of us eventually chose to leave the hotel for an outing in town.

The hotel was fairly small and housed almost only americans as not only athletes were there. Coaches, parents, trainers and basically the entire US team was housed there on purpose. I don’t remember the name of the hotel but form past experience I would bet that it had “Hotel” in it’s title.

As athletes were paid for to represent the USA in this competition, we were provided with meal tickets to use for our time at the hotel. There was a preset menu everyday and everyday we would either get some weird Uzbek dish or what they thought was an “american” meal. There was always three courses to the meal and most of the time it was actually really good, however there were certain time that we passed on to the next course because no one could stomach the traditional Uzbekistan food. My favorite part of the meal tickets were the ones for the breakfast “buffet”. This meant that whatever people didn’t eat at dinner the night would be out in a buffet style table along side regular european breakfast foods and the worlds saddest donuts.

We didn’t really get to wander around as we had practice and competitions to attend. The practice and competition venues were probably about fifteen minutes away and we were taken by a shuttle bus with a police escort every time. Driving in Uzbekistan was crazy because the smallest cars were always the most aggressive and we always passed the most beautiful religious buildings, one of which I was lucky enough to visit after the tournament.

During the one day of nothing (we call the day in between practice and competitions this sometimes) my parents and I were shown around the city by two locals. This was an amazing experience as they took us to local restaurants where we tried traditional dishes and saw the normal social life. We also were able to go to a huge market, the name I cannot remember, and I thought my mom would never leave. All of these activities were cool however what I remember the most was when they agreed to show us the inside of their temple. This was huge as women are not generally allowed there and are expected to worship at home. My mother and I were given scarves to put on and we were told to take our shoes off as we went inside.  This was a once in a life time opportunity and was such an eye opener into the ways of other cultures.

 

 

In my first blog I talked about the way fencing worked and mentioned how I am trying to make World team this year. If you haven’t read and are confused I’m not going to make you go back and read. Here’s a basic recap of everything:

I am a competitive fencer and have been for about six years now. I travel around the country and around the world in an effort to try and make National Team and recently retaining my World Team status. National team is the top twelve girls on the points list and are selected to represent the United States of America in International tournaments. Of these twelve girls the top four are taken for World Team. The World Team competes in that years World Championships. I have been lucky enough to have made it the past two years and I’m fighting for this year’s team. (I may have copied and pasted directly from the other one don’t judge me)

Now that I’ve covered that again I want to talk about my first Worlds experience. My first time making World Team was in 2014 and was held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. At this tournament I was ranked first in the country for my age group so I qualified to fence the individual and mixed team event meaning I was required to be in Uzbekistan for about a week. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this week as I had never heard of Tashkent nor had I ever really paid any attention to the country of Uzbekistan. When I mention we, fencers, are sent to armpit cities for competition this is a great example as our biggest competition of the season was being held in some random country I had never heard of.

I knew that this was going to be a huge culture shock before I even got there as  we were told not to drink the tap water and were given very strict instructions on how to not carry or wear any USA stuff out. Safety was such a concern that we were given the embassy information and were forced to apply for a temporary visa as an athlete. All the safety concerns aside I was excited to visit this foreign country. The flight there was probably around two days (thats including all layovers and flight changes) and when we finally arrived were driven about an hour away from the airport to this small city of Tashkent, which also happened to be the Capital of Uzbekistan.

I’ll continue next passion blog as I have way too much stuff to talk about in 500 words 🙂

Pictured above- Grenoble Christmas Market

When visiting Grenoble, France I was lucky enough to stumble upon what they call their “Christmas Market”.TheChristmas market takes place in the centre of town and is bordered by authentic Haussmann-style buildings. The market has around 100 log booths selling things like  macarons and chocolate as well as non edible goods such as star shaped paper lamp covers (As oddly specific as that sounds they are pretty cool I actually bought two).

Suspended above the market are rows of christmas lights. They span for about 120 streets give or take and cover something like 200 sites. The gorgeous lights cam in all sorts of shapes and colors creating an adorable home feeling at night. When walking through the market at night you could see the French Alps behind these seemingly floating lights and in addition to that strange homey feeling it gave you, being there almost made you not want to leave.

My favorite booth was at the very back of the market and was making a traditional french dish called tartiflette. This is basically mashed potatoes on steroids and mixed with bacon and cheese and I honestly am so hungry writing about it because it is AMAZING. To make it they have these huge ass pans, i’m not thats the correct term but, and they have probably about 100 potatoes mixed with all the other stuff just baking and cooking together. When you order they would go scoop out a serving and you would be presented with a hot, freshly made tartiflette. For reference to how big the pan is here’s a picture.

Side note- Try this it’s the bomb

I don’t generally get to experience much during my fencing travel so when I run into things such as a Christmas Market in the middle of a small French town I feel so lucky. This was a great look into a different town’s culture, I believe this market has been going on for over a decade, and one I will never forget. Sorry I know this post was more like the stereotypical travel blog but I felt like this unique experience needed to be shared so that hopefully someone will be able to experience it as well. Personally would recommend this market to anyone who loves Christmas, food or basically anyone looking for a fun time.

 

In response to the comment from my last post, I get asked so many questions it’s kind of crazy. They range from my teacher disdainfully asking why I only attended one class in the last two weeks to what is fencing. My favorite thing someone has told me was actually not a question, it was an inside joke my precalculus class had about my absences last year. Due to my crazy tournament schedule I was almost never at school for an entire week so on the rare occasion that I was actually able to make it to school for an entire week, my class would lose their shit.

Little side note before I go on. Sorry for the profanity in my posts I curse like a drunken sailor and I’m trying to make these posts somewhat professional, however my personality always manages to sneak into my writing. This is also why my blog posts are a mess of thoughts and have almost zero organization, sorry about that haha.

Alright so back to my actual topic, Traveling as a competitive athlete. If you read my last post you got a tiny preview of what tournament travel is like but i’m hoping to go into more detail this time. If you haven’t already realized this fencing doesn’t get to have tournaments in big cities like Paris or Rome, we aren’t that lucky. We get to visit what I like to call “armpit cities” or little european cities that no one has heard of. A good example of this was my first trip to Grenoble, France. When people learn that I’ve Grenoble they always ask me where it is. I’ll be honest and admit that even though I’ve had the pleasure of visiting twice, I still have no clue where in France it is.

Since I have been to Grenoble twice, Im going to talk about my first visit to this lovely “armpit city”. Sidetracking again, these little towns are a pain to get to because instead of just having one flight there and back it requires like three different flights and planes. One flight generally takes you from the US to somewhere in Europe, I frequent the Istanbul, Frankfurt, and Munich airports, and then you’re put on some dinky little commercial airplane with mediocre service and seating. When you finally arrive in Grenoble, you have to figure out where in the hell you are and where the hotel is. Most of the time my mom is in charge of these logistics, however for this tournament my mom was unable to make it due to a family emergency so I was traveling only with my good friend Sonya, another fencer, and my coach who is as helpful as a rock in these situations.

When we finally found the hotel it was tiny just as many of the places we stay are. Walking in the room we see a bathroom and a single bed for the two of us. To put this room in perspective the whole thing was probably around the size of your average dorm room or smaller. After getting settled into out shoebox room we try to find the convention center where our competition is being held. My coach being the mess that he is gets us lost and we end up stumbling into a christmas market in the middle of the town.

I’m going to end the blog here and i’ll continue with my Grenoble experience next time so keep on reading!

Most travel blogs talk about either future bucket list vacation spots, fancy european getaways, or even cute little Bed and Breakfasts around the United States, mine is going to be a tad different. I’ve been to Austria, France, Hungary and even Uzbekistan, however the circumstances on why I am there are differ greatly than your normal traveler’s. When I travel I have the privilege to see rundown convention centers, the occasional family owned restaurant, and the local H&M if i’m lucky. This is because when I visit other states or countries I am there to compete either for my Club or the USA national team in Fencing.

Not many people know much about fencing so let me digress a bit to try and clear stuff up. I am a competitive fencer and have been for about six years now. I travel around the country and around the world in an effort to try and make National Team and recently retaining my World Team status. National team is the top twelve girls on the points list and are selected to represent the United States of America in International tournaments. Of these twelve girls the top four are taken for World Team. The World Team competes in that years World Championships. I have been lucky enough to have made it the past two years and I’m fighting for this year’s team. Another part of fencing is the collegiate meets. When we travel we either get the cheapest flight or we bus for hours to get where we are going. This means that about seventy of us are all crammed onto a bus for eight hours or more to go to competition, Unless it’s a travel team only competition in which case the number drops to around fifteen people. No matter the size, when we travel while representing Penn State we aren’t seeing luxury hotels or eating at fancy restaurants. We are more likely than not eating at the host college’s dining hall and staying in Hampton Inns or something.

The point of that long ass background information was to make it clear that when I travel and blog about it, don’t be expecting some artsy post about a cute little french town that I have been to. Not to say that the french towns I visit aren’t adorable, most are, and most do have excellent food however don’t be expecting to plan your summer vacation trip with this information.

Now that I have filled ya’ll in on what exactly this blog is let me try to give an example. My first ever international competition was back in October 2012, in Klagenfurt, Austria. The town of Klagenfurt was a bit of an odd small town but cute none the less. We stayed in one of the town’s only hotels, I believe the name of it was actually “Hotel”, it was about  the size of a town house and was owned by a cute old lady who spoke very little english. Our first meal there was at the only place open past ten, a little bar around the corner. The first thing the server says when we walk in is “beer?” The food was amazing and foreign and it was a great way to experience a new culture for the first time.

Hopefully this short snipit of how travel is for fencing gives an insight into what future blogs will be!

 

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