After sleeping in yesterday and getting breakfast, I went to go attempt to pack. We have gotten so much swag this tournament that I can almost guarantee one of two things is going to happen: 1) one of my bags will be overweight or 2) I will look like the Michelin man wearing about 7 layers of clothes on the plane! Everyone else is in the same boat, we all had to do the sit on your suitcase thing to get them closed. Obviously in order to help with this we all took another trip to the Lululemon to buy a few more things. Manuela, one of our supervisors, came with us for the first time and she said to me "I hate you for bringing me here" as she had an armful of clothes at checkout, haha! One of the cool things that I didn't realize was they put us all in their research and development program because we are "national level athletes." This means I'll get a discount anytime I shop there, even in the US! Pretty cool that they respected us enough as athletes to do that!
After shopping a few of us went up to Parliament to do the tour and go up in the clock tower. There were some great views of the city from the top of the clock tower. It was interesting, one of the security guards asked us if we were involved with the tournament and we told her we were. She told us she volunteered as part of the security detail and said she was actually rooting for the US team in the final because they were so nice to her - she said the Canadian team was just miserable (and this is before the gold medal game).
Following our little tour we met up with everyone for a late lunch. The other North Americans had all left but the Europeans were all flying out in the evening. I'm not sure why the airlines here make most of their flights to Europe overnight - I think it is harder to adjust to the time change that way. Following lunch we said our goodbyes, promised to keep in touch and then headed up to Montreal.
It was only about a 2 hour drive to Montreal and we found our hotel pretty easily. Ian, one of my friends, travels to Montreal often and suggested we stay in a section of the city known as old town. It was a great suggestion as we seem to be right in the middle of all the things we want to see. Coincidentally, Sue Halpern, another official from the states who moonlights as a lawyer, was in town to take a deposition. Laura is really good friends with her from Dallas and I worked a USA hockey camp with her this summer. We picked her up from the airport and she graciously took us out for a congratulatory dinner. We all had an awesome meal, thanks so much Sue! Following dinner we crashed for the night and today we are going to do a bunch of sightseeing. Should be fun!
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