Willkommen in Berlin!

Cal Gold at the Brandenburg Gate

California Gold has made it to Berlin! Our two practices earlier this week were extremely productive and we had some great run throughs.

After our practice thursday morning, we had the

opportunity to go out and tour the brilliant city of Berlin. We bought day passes for the "Bahnhoff," Berlin's subway system, and visited major sights such as the Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Wall, and Checkpoint Charlie. After seeing the streets of Berlin, we walked just had to stop in a chocolate shop called Fassbender & Rausch and had ourselves a nice cup of hot chocolate. 

Our lifts on an outdoor sheet of ice outside the practice rink.

When we were preparing for short program last night, we were doing off-ice in a hallway in the hotel. There was a group of elderly German onlookers that were intensely interested in what we were doing. Our ridiculously happy smiles were probably very entertaining to them! 

In competition last night, we had an amazing time skating our short program. The fun and swanky program is always a blast to get into with our surprised and smiley faces! Going into long program today, we are sitting in 3rd place and are ready to push ourselves to skate a fast and clean program. GO TEAM USA!!

Preparing for the Cup of Berlin

  We're down to our last few practices before we leave for the Cup of Berlin and we couldn't be more excited!  Our focus on the ice, however, has not been altered and we have been training hard these past weeks with the goal of skating two flawless programs in mind.  We recently received our new Team USA jackets and pants.  We were fully expecting to take a nice picture all dressed up in our outfits, but Alison pulled her pants out of the bag and asked "Are these supposed to be capris?" The pants were tiny and could not possibly fit anyone older than 10!  Our team started busting up as we all pulled our own pants out and found that they, too, were miniature!  It turned out that the inseam and outseam measurements had been mixed up, and our team manager tried every trick in the book to get them fixed by the time we left for Germany.  They will probably arrive after the competition, but we realized we had enough of the old Team USA pants for everyone to wear and that our new pants will not have to get dirty from the rain/mud, so it turned out to be a positive thing.  Plus, it gave us a funny story to tell :]
  For those of you who are not coming along with us, this blog will keep you up to date on what Cal Gold is up to in Berlin.  The Cup of Berlin Website can give you more information on the competition.

International Assignment

California Gold has been selected to go to the Cup of Berlin!

U.S. Figure Skating posted the International Assignments on September 17th.

Click Here for USFS Article

Official Cup of Berlin Site