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April 10, 2006

This past competition year was an awesome experience for both Joe and I.   We were very excited when we got assigned to our first JGP in Andorra, at that time neither of us were familiar with Andorra, but we researched it and decided we were one of the lucky ones to get this assignment.  Andorra was incredible, we flew to Barcelona, Spain and rented a car for the 4 hour drive to Andorra.  Andorra was beautiful, the hotel was right across the street from the ice rink.  I roomed with Meryl Davis and Joe roomed with Charles Clavey.  Meryl and I got along great, she is a great person.  We knew all the team USA from one way or another, but when you go on internationals you really get a chance to bond with them. After the competition we drove to Barcelona, Spain for the day to sightsee, it too is a very beautiful city. 

Our next assignment was supposed to be the JGP in Bulgaria, but we were reassigned to Japan.  Of course we wanted to go to Japan.  We wanted Japan from the beginning.    Japan was another incredible experience.  We flew to Nagoya and took a bus for about 4 hours to Okaya City.  Okaya City was a small city in the mountains of Japan.  Nobody spoke English so it was very interesting trying to get around and order food.  We all had our own rooms because the rooms were about the size of our closets at home.  The competition went good and we placed 3rd, which qualified us for the Junior Grand Prix final.  After the competition we took the bullet train to Tokyo to sightsee for three days.  This was probably one of our favorite places to see this year.  Tokyo was like New York City, huge with millions of people everywhere.  We stayed in Ginza which was shopping central, it had every store imaginable.  We saw so much in the three days.  We went on the ferry tour of Tokyo harbor, to the world’s largest fish market, to the imperial palace and gardens, we didn't stop for three days. 

When we got home there was no rest, it was right to training for the Junior Grand Prix final.  The Final was in the Czech Republic, it was the longest trip ever to get there.  It took four stops and about 21 hours from LAX.  But when we finally got there it was also beautiful, cold and snowy, but beautiful.  It took place over Thanksgiving week.  We had a great time with all the competitors, we met so many from all different countries.  We still keep in contact with many of them through the Internet.  Both Todd and Jenni were able to go to this competition, so we were excited about that.  We skated good in the Short program placing 4th out of 8.  However, the long program didn't go as well and we ended up 6th.  But, we were still very happy with our results, 6th in the world.  After the competition we went to Prague for 3 days, Prague was very cold, but what a awesome place.  It is a very old city, we went to the Cathedral which was the most beautiful building I had ever seen.  As far as charm goes, Prague was the most charming place that I have been to so far. 
 
Back from the Czech there was no rest, it was right back to work getting ready for nationals.  Nationals was in St. Louis this year.  We were really excited to cap off out 1st year in junior at nationals.  We skated our best short program of the year and ended up in 1st place.  We knew that we had to skate the same in the long and felt the pressure.  Well to say the least we probably had one of our worst skates in the long and ended 5th overall.  We were disappointed, but we knew this was just another bump in the road, on our way to our ultimate goal of making the 2010 Olympic team.  Back from nationals Joe was off the ice for about 6 weeks with an injury.  We are now back to training full time and looking forward to another great season in Juniors.  We are hoping to get assigned one of the Junior Grand Prix's that start in August.  Our goal this season is in make it to the Junior Grand Prix final again, place in the top three at nationals and go to Junior World's in Germany.

Till next time,

Love Bianca