Off Time

Well, I'm sitting here in the computer lab using up some time before I return to the venue. This morning we got to the venue at about 9 am, to soon find out that Bolivia had pulled out, there was a reseed, and we had a bye the first round. After watching the Venezuela/Argentina match, we returned to warm up and headed out to the (always) enthusiastically booing crowd. Our first two bouts (Alexis an Emma) against Venezuela was super shakey. When I got up the bout was at 10-3 venezuela, but I managed to bring it back to 15-13 usa. Our final score was something like 45-38 as we were able to hold them off for the rest of the match. Tonight we fence Cuba at 6pm for the gold.

Our team cheer now has a new 'charm' to it. While before, it was (stomp) "drop the a.k. usa!", the new panamerican cheer for the final shall be as follows... 1, 2, 3, (stomp) "Muggle Power!"

Harry Potter is so vogue right now hahaha

On that subject, last night Emma and I managed to secure the english language copy of harry potter at 8 pm the night before it came out! In Brazil, they released the english-language copy at midnight in ENGLAND. It was actually very fun as all the brazilian harry potter nuts were running around the bookstore all dressed up, and they were running live feed at midnight of JK Rowling doing a book reading of Deathly Hallows.

It was difficult to put the book down last night, and I've been reading it in pieces today. Its very exciting and really good (I'm about 100 pages in).

Well, I'll try and send news as soon as I'm back from the final, press conference, and doping so it might end up being pretty late but I'll be calling/writing.

PS. There has been an air traffic controller strike in Brazil, and we're not sure when planes will get out seeing as all the flights are packed and there's only one United flight per day. I'll be in touch about this.

PPS. I've managed to trade some good stuff, as I've come out of here with pins from over half the countries, a brazil shirt, an argentine jersey, a sweet hat, and I'm looking to trade my other polo for something fun as well. This will leave me with a usa shirt, longsleeve usa dryfit, warmups, shorts and sandals. I'm a wheeler and dealer.

PPPS. Just found out, flights should be leaving as scheduled tomorrow.

In Brazil Still!

Cuba just beat USA in baseball, but it makes sense... we have kids they have badass players.

Basically my life here has gone on the same! I've been to the beach again, and have fallen in love with a sport called handball in which the US didn't even qualify.

Last night I went to the mall to get some pizza hut w/ the team, and then went to the village's "discoteca" with the argentines where I danced to Bob Marley. Much fun was had, especially w/ the different food that was eaten than rice, beans, and gross meat!

This morning I fenced for about 45 minutes w/ the argentines since I haven't done anything in a while, and now i'm sitting in the common room about to go grab a shower and some food. Brazil is beautiful as ever and the people are great.

Hope everyone's having a good summer in the states and I'll see some of you in a few days!

Eileen

Hey Everyone!

Sorry there have been so few posts, but things have been crazy here schedule wise! I've been basically hanging at the beach (Copacabana has the most ridiculous undertow/waves ever), eating a lot of brazilian meat at churrascarias, and playing a lot of an excellent card game called THE GREAT DALMUTI! haha

Andras won, hannah took second, and both our epee guys were in the top eight. Tomorrow is womens epee.

Another problem is my computer difficulties. Right now I'm in Cody MAttern's computer so everthing is much easier!!

I hope everyone's doing great! My job here so far has been just to eat and have fun. Limited practicing has happened for a variety of reasons (aside from my own trips to workout and do weights) so tomorrow morning I may meet up with Lucas and the Argentines for some practice.

I've also been thinking about one of those free massages....

AMAZING day #4

This day ws so amazing I don't know where to start. This morning we left on a bus and drove to see Christ the redeemer on the mountain. The views were SPECTACULAR. Unfortuntly my keyboard isn't workin too well so I'm oin to have to use the computers tomorrow to talk more but hree are some pictures.

OK mo pics to com3 my computr htes me... lol


Leen

View of some of the amazing topography outside my window
Part of the village from my balcony view

On the way, Police cleared the entire freeway, and I caught this snapshot

At the Spy museum we got to crawl through the airducts and try not to set off the sound meter more than a specific amount

Mmmm... Tangerine Gatorade... tastes like tangerine juice. Yes, its completely random but I'm always amused by the differences in common drinks among different countries. Gatorade flavors include Tangerine and Aci Guara here. I think I ate some aci guara at breakfast, it was really good but kind of seedy.

Off to practice!

Eileen

Hello from Brazil everyone!

Well we're obviously under a lot of security. They cleared the highway for our bus and we had a full police escort. Now I'm safely in Rio de Janeiro and in the village!

The cafeteria food left a little to be desired but the whole village, and the whole set up is amazing! On the bus ride here, many people almost got in accidents waving at us or watching from cars.

The entire city is decked out for the games, and its pretty darn cool. We have a celebrity status among the general public it seems, and the press is wandering around everywhere.

For those of you who know him, I've already run into Hernan Jansen the Venezuelan who trained at Marcos' club with me. He seemed suprised I was there, of course. I don't think he realizes what level my fencing's at now but anyways it was fun to say hi.

The village is made up of huge towers that remind me of the towers at Ohio State. They each have apartments that have about three rooms with double beds in them, a living space, a kitchen, and two bathrooms. They're all super clean aside from a ton of small spiders lying in wait for us. Evidently all the men have seperate rooms, while all the girls are sharing. I'm rooming with Emma Baratta, which has worked out well for us in the past.

Alexis and I had a conversation today at lunch about the team event. We realized we're the first womens saber team ever to be in the pan american games. We thought it would be amazing to take home the first womens saber team gold in the history of the pan american games or any ioc-sanctioned games (even before the olympics!) We're already planning our tactics to bump off some of the teams. All we can do is train hard and believe!

They do evidently have organized trips to the tourist atractions every day starting at certain times. Aside from those the team is planning on making a venture into the city tomorrow to see the Harry Potter movie, and we're also going to try and go to a good Churrascaria (Brazilian steakhouse).

Today Yury asked me whether Terrence or Coach gave me lessons... I wasn't sure what to think fo that. I think I may have suprised him when I fenced Dagmara and beat Caroline.

Talk to you all soon!!

Eileen

Briefing

Well, this is a big deal. Our briefing on Rio was made by the head of the USOC, and lasted about an hour detailing security, culture, passes, the village and pretty much everything else. We also had a talk on flag etiquette and media, since there will be a lot of accredited press there. Afterward we headed to check in with the medical staff(they had lost my form so I filled out a new one), get an official picture taken, and head to collect all our apparel. I got a total of about 6 shirts, two pairs of shoes (sneakers/sandals), 3 pairs of shorts, podium warm ups, a cap, a visor, sunscreen, bug repellent, lots of pins, a huge rolling duffel bag, a backpack, and (MOST IMPORTANTLY FOR ALL PARENTS) a prepaid Brazilian cell phone with about 30 bucks on it for international calls (1.20 a minute to US).

We learned too much stuff to put all down here, but here are a few quick facts:

-Heads of security for the US team were heads of security for the president

-We are the only ones w/o a team uniform that we wear all the time

-I can get free tix to all other sports (futsal and soccer here I come!)

-We will be hounded by media

-Ignore anti-american comments and cheers

-Lots of stuff I'll have to read up on in the games athlete manual.

See you all in Brazil!

PS. Pictures to come i I can get a cable

I Spy With My Little Eye...

This morning I made it to Washington a bit tired out already at 6 am. I met up with some badminton players and Emma Baratta in the airport and wee made our way to the dorms at George Mason University. By the time we had lunch I had convinced three other people (Tim Hagaman, Andras Horanyi, and Emma) to make a trip downtown to the spy museum. After quite an ordeal of buses and metros we managed to find our way to the museum, which ended up being amazingly cool and lots of fun. After a couple hours at the museum it ended up we were right near China Town so we grabbed some dinner.

I would say that the most useful lessons of the day were:

Crawling down an air duct quietly is harder than you think

Being a spy has a very large downside; torture/capital punishment

I can now pick a lock successfully!

Washington Monument and the white house are cool in a quickly seen while driving by sort o way.

Fencers are weird.

Nadal is improving as a tennis player

They supposedly do have my passport here.



...I foresee much free clothes in my future.


(PS. Yes I'm tired so this is all slightly incoherent due to 3 hours sleep)