Ongoing Problems with Study Hall

Hello from Austria. I will let you know up front that I am in a foul mood. We arrived here late Sunday evening after a six-hour stay in Munich airport caused mostly by a rental van whose door was inoperative. Cancel that. Caused mostly by Hertz staff in Munich airport who were wholly indifferent to providing decent service.

Nevertheless, we are here. The hotel is nice, the staff friendly and accommodating.

My biggest problem here has been the Internet. In theory there is wireless in the common areas of the hotel, with LAN connections in the rooms. But the first two days of study hall have resulted in frustration. With all the demands for Internet schooling we seem to be overloading the network, so that the network connection often drops off. As an aside, let me go on the record to say that I am not a fan of Internet schooling while traveling in Europe. I much prefer relying on textbooks and written assignments. So far this season I have seen two laptops cease to operate and one power cable fall apart. In Igls I have spent far more of my time trying to resolve network issues than I have assisting anyone with their actual schoolwork. When the Internet does function, more likely than not it is only in the individual rooms, so I am not able to corral our athletes in one place to monitor and assist them. Elsewhere it is either expensive or nonexistent. Or some other problem.

Yesterday I made a trip to Innsbruck to purchase six LAN cables, in the hope that this will lessen the burden on the WiFi. I can tell you that I am not really satisfied yet, because I found myself unable to connect by cable all yesterday evening. I can connect now, but maybe this is because all the athletes are out of the building. We'll see how it goes.