Pau — WED & Thurs!!!

Everything has been most enjoyable here. Burger’s entire hind end was very sore from his long travels — he must have been clenching his butt for 5 days straight. He has now enjoyed some fabulous physios and is feeling much much better. The biggest things on Wednesday were the competitors briefing, walking the xc course for the first time, and the 1st Jog (veterinary Inspection).
The Briefing was fine — mostly in French. Jan and I sat there listening to the French which seemed to go on FOREVER and then the translator would give us a MUCH shorter English version. After a while we were like… are we getting all the necessary info here??? It kind of reminded me of the Saturday Night Live skit with the UN translator that was just making up stuff for the person they were supposed to be translating for. All we could do is hope we were getting all the pertinent information.
We then took the afternoon to walk the course. There is a lot to do, but it is beautiful, well designed, and well built. I don’t think it is going to be easy at all, and the time will be very difficult to make, however, all the questions and the progression of them are well thought out. The mistakes made will be safe and incredibly frustrating!!! So definitely planning on not making any mistakes!!!
When we got done walking the course (which we took our grand old time doing because the posted jog time was 5:30 p.m.) I went to town to top off the minutes on my phone and to buy some groceries, and Jan decided to walk the course again. When I got back at 4:40… everyone was heading to the jog. What??? Jog was moved to 5:00 pm… none of the English speaking competitors were aware of this!!!! I am suspecting lost in translation from the briefing????? I am thinking probably not one of the key facts to be overlooked — just putting that out there. I am supposed to jog Jan’s horse (10th to jog) for her as she is still limping from a badly broken foot (actually the foot has healed but the screw sticking out of the side of it is excruciating). By the time I realize what’s going on it’s now almost 5! I texted her to tell her limp quickly back to the main arena and I ran back to the lorry for a quick change. Somehow the girls made it to the jog with the horses, I get my lesson on how to jog Waterfront and both horses jog up beautifully.. whew! It wasn’t until heading back to the barn that Jan & I started laughing hysterically — there was really nothing comical about the situation but we did somehow almost miss the first jog!
Thursday was a course walk and lessons with Capt. Mark, and last minute flight arrangements for the horses as their flight home was canceled! No problem… we got it all figured out… flying home from Frankfurt now. Course walk and lessons all very good too. Fingers crossed and good vibes for dressage tomorrow!!!