Hi All! Sorry this is brief but I have only a little bit of time. Hope you are all well and happy in Aus!

I will tell you a bit about what I have been up to! So I flew into Dubai on Thursday morning really early and me and Belinda went to our hotel by taxi which was terrifying because the drivers in Dubai are crazy! Later we took a bus to the beach…it was 45 degrees and very humid in Dubai so we thought a bit of water would be nice but the water was like 35 degrees anyway! We had to pay like 2 dollars to get into this ‘beach park’ which was actually this very beautiful place with nice lawns and gardens. There was this weird old guy trying to chat us up…it was a bit weird but we got away. Later we met our friend Lillian from the plane and we went on this tour which was like 30 bucks for all of us for an hour and this nice guy drove us to the Gold Market, the old Presidential Palace with these little shops, this beach that you DIDNT have to pay for, the big famous sail-shaped hotel that Tiger Woods played golf on and that man-made island which is shaped like a palm! It was awesome but very hot and we were tired by the end.

The next day we met a few more Aussies in the airport and flew to Venice. We went to our accomodation (cabins) and we took a trip into Venice, took a few photos and had some Gelati and dinner. It was beautiful! That night there was the biggest, scariest thunderstorm I have ever been in, but luckily nothing nearby got hit by lightening. Seems like so far there has been thunderstorms every night! The next day we headed back to Venice and we did a sprint around the city, it was hard but heaps of fun. We then spent the day touring around and went to St Marks square and the beach, all of which were pretty breathtaking.

The next day we headed off to Cesuna in the mountains where we began our training camp. The forest is very rocky, green and dark and a fair bit harder than I thought. We saw some amazing mountains on the way up to our camp. We have spent the last few days driving around Asiago and the mountain area and doing some intense training.

Better go, out of time! Until next time

Aislinn