Seeing the Sights (and Baby Wallabies!!!) in Sydney!

USA women in Sydney!

Yesterday, we had an awesome Sydney adventure—in just a few hours, we managed to check off all of my non-racing-related to-dos for the trip! We (very briefly) walked through the 2000 Olympic Park, took a ferry through the Sydney Harbor and saw the Sydney Opera House, and stopped by a wild animal park on the way home and got to see some kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, and incredible birds, very up close!

The USA ladies visit the 2000 Sydney Olympic stadium!

After starting the day off with some solid racing pieces, we packed up into a small bus with some of our fellow racers from South Korea and Portugal and headed out to quickly see the sights! First stop was the 2000 Sydney Olympic Park and athlete village. Giant statues of the Olympic symbols--a runner and others--towered overhead, and we maneuvered around the dozens of columns in front of the athletic stadium, trying to find US teammate names!

Couldn't have picked a prettier day to cruise into Sydney!

Then it was back into the bus and off to a ferry that took us through the beautiful Sydney Harbor--lined with amazing houses, yacht and boat clubs, and natural and historical parks--right up to the Sydney Opera House and the Financial District/downtown! We got in a bit of sightseeing and souvenir-ing before it was time to take off again.

Baby wallaby!!!!!!!!

This time, we headed to a wild animal park, and we were SO EXCITED to get to see real Australian wildlife up close--REALLY close! As we got off the bus, a park guide handed me a swaddled up baby wallaby, which was about the cutest thing I'd ever seen. We also got to see kangaroos (with joeys!), kookaburras, echidnas, ghost bats, and everything Aussie in between.

Emus are startlingly large! But friendly, if slightly aggressive. I also saw the most brightly colored bird ever--wow! Thankfully, the animals were incredibly friendly. It was amazing to get to see so many awesome creatures up close!

Finally, it was time to head home--our friends from Portugal and South Korea had another training session, and we were all pretty wiped from the adventures! Many thanks to the Sydney International Rowing Regatta (SIRR) and World Rowing/Sydney Rowing World Cup organizing committees for planning this trip for us. What a great glimpse into Sydney and Australia, and an awesome chance to meet some of our fellow international racers, before we get into straight racing mode this week!

Power naps for everyone!

Thanks for following our journey, and Go USA!

...And We're Off!

Final stages of packing (for the OLYMPICS!!!) last night!

  The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of training, media, and packing! We are finally heading out today to London, and I can't wait to get there, train, and finally, finally RACE!

  We have a bit of a planes-trains-automobiles of getting there, but somehow this feels different than the usual traveling. For now, we're bussing it to the airport, heading to Heathrow, then bussing it to the satellite Rowing Olympic Village, then off to get accredited and processed, and then finally back to the Village to get settled in. Whew!

  I am so excited to be traveling with my teammates and heading over to represent the USA with everything we've worked and trained and sacrificed for. All of us are so incredibly excited and ready to race, it's hard to think that we'll still have to wait more than a week to actually get to the starting line! And it's also really cool to see the two- and three-time Olympians on our team as excited as us newbies about this whole experience.

  I'll be updating as we go as best I can, and thank you for sending your support and cheers! Go USA!!!

Get ready for Head of the Charles... and the 2012 Power and Grace Calendar!

The Head of the Charles Regatta is just five days away, and the women's team here in Princeton is gearing up to make the drive north to support everyone racing...and to share our amazing 2012 Power and Grace Calendar with the world!

This is our second year of making the calendar, and while last year's was beautiful, inspiring, and still hanging on my wall at home, I'm SO EXCITED for the 2012 edition! Our excellent calendar team hired two premiere New York-based photographers to shoot us on the water and in the studio, and put together little cameos that are windows into each rower--what inspires us and drives us on our journey as we train towards the 2012 Olympic Games.

Susan Francia. On your wall. Fierceness!
All images property of Jordan Matter and Jeremy Saladyga.

The calendar's not just beautiful, it's also useful to rowers and non-rowers alike: both major holidays and major regattas are printed in the calendar! Even though I see these women and train with them every day, I'm inspired every time I look at mine--it somehow manages to show both the incredible amount of training my teammates put in to this endeavor, while also showing everyone's competitive, beautiful, and resilient spirits.

So, if you would like to support our journey--100% of our net proceeds go directly to the women of the USRowing Princeton Training Center--and to hang some inspiration, motivation, determination, and just some pure joy in rowing on your wall for the next year, please buy a calendar!

All images property of Jordan Matter and Jeremy Saladyga.

You can order your calendar online by clicking here. We will be selling our calendars on Saturday and Sunday at the USRowing booth in the main tent at the Head of the Charles, and holding a special autograph session on Saturday from 2-4 at the Wintech Racing booth along the walkway by the finish line. We will be selling the calendars for $15 at the Charles--so come by and get one with autographs for the same price! You can also email me at esther.lofgren@gmail.com if you would like to order a larger quantity to sell at your club, event, or store.

Erin Cafaro can do more pushups than your boyfriend!
All images property of Jordan Matter and Jeremy Saladyga. 

If you want to see even more about the calendar, you can check out our photographer Jordan Matter's blog about our shoot, "25 Beautiful Women and 2 Frantic Photographers- How We Photographed an Olympic Calendar in One Day" here, as well as my teammate Megan Kalmoe's video about the making of the shoot here!

Thank you for supporting our journey. Go USA! (And SEE YOU AT THE CHARLES!!!)