Because you asked…

We love your messages in the Message Book! At breakfast and again at dinner we now download the guest book onto laptops and huddle around reading your messages while we eat. That is hugely appreciated so please keep them coming.

You have asked a few questions in the message book so here goes on a few observations, answers…

The university is empty because it’s the summer vacation – that’s why there are no cars and people around.

The weather is changeable… very similar to Auckland actually (occasional sun, occasional showers, occasional wind, and sometimes warm then cold). We’re mostly wearing shorts and T shirts but always take a jacket which is either on because of a cold wind or off because you have stepped into a double insulated, double glazed building. They’re all “warm as” inside.

The locals are very friendly and are happy to speak to us in English when we ask “parlez vous anglais”. They are very helpful people.

We’re well serviced for buses here… they go past the university every few minutes. It costs $2.50 to go anywhere on the bus for up to a couple of hours.

Some things are surprisingly cheap. I bought a round of coffee for 3 of us the other day at the university café and it cost just over $5 for the lot. A large bottle of water is $1.50, a dozen small bottles of water in a pack are 2 packs for $5. I’m sure some of the team have found the expensive stuff too though!

All our meals are held in the university cafeteria. Good wholesome food and plenty of it.

We have shared bathroom facilities – they’re clean and we just have to be quick to shower and patient if waiting a turn. Our linen and towels are changed every couple of days. There’s a large laundry with a bank of washing machines and dryers.

Everything its tidy. The landscaping around the city is very clean and tidy with no rubbish to be seen.

The guys and gals wearing hoodies while training are doing so to loose weight. This morning DJ had two pairs of pants and a hoodie and was literally leaving a trail of water in his foot steps.

We’ve met some of the Australian team, and a couple from Argentina who now live in (brain freeze – somewhere in Europe). Other teams are staying in Hotels so we’re only really meeting up with others who are also at the university.

Internet access is hard for us from the university. We haven’t found a handy internet café and it was only today that three (out of 83) of us were able to gain cable internet to our laptops in our rooms. So, if you haven’t had a reply to your message it doesn’t mean that it’s not appreciated… we just don’t have easy access to reply. I guess most students at the uni have their own laptops, hense the apparent lack of an internet café.