What it took to get to Germany!!!

I have decided to share this story with you due to a request from a co-worker.

In early 2007 I made a decision to attend the culinary olympics in Erfurt Germany. It was going to be a trip to see logistically I would need to bring a team . Anyway after I had decided to enter a platter I asked Angie Ryan to come along as my assistant. Her husband was already going to be there so I thought she would be a perfect choice.

So we fundraise and make it to Germany. Now we did not have the resources that most regional and national teams had. We did our work out of a small hotel room and we purchased a hotplate at the local grocery store. So 24 hours later our platter was ready to go , so we loaded up the cab abd began our 20 mile drive to the convention center , hitting evry bump along the way.

We get to the convention center and arrive at the gate and see a long prossesion of cars, trucks , trailers and buses.

We get out of the cab and begin to walk all the way to the hall that we were putting our showpiece together in . We were around 1 hour early, standing outside, in the freezing cold , holding my platter with the plastic wrap blowing all over the place.

About10 minutes later I see all the trucks and buses coming and these were the other teams and competitiors. A lot had team buses with portablke kitchens. Some had full commerical kitchen trailors , and here we were , looking like the true newfie joke with the the platter in hand and feeling quite out of place in the freezing cold with wet snow falling . Anyway we did win a bronze medal, and it was one of the most exciting things that I have taken part in .

Even if we had not placed that day we were winners anyway.