Today marks the first week the team and I have been in Spain. What a quick week! First let me start with the plane ride here. The five hour layover was miserable! But the eight hour flight was even worse because of many reasons. One, we were all too excited to actually be going to Spain. Two, we had ten hours to learn Catalan-their language. Three, Kendall sat behind me on the entire flight and her knees broke my spine in half. And finally five, what were we going to do, see, make, live, eat in Spain? Before you knew it, the plane was landing and we all looked like we were walking out of being in a coffin for eight hours not to mention I think at this point we had been awake for almost twenty hours. But hey, were teenagers, were invincible, we´ll just put on fresh makeup and sunglasses and were good to go! Forget about the six hour time change. We were so awake, Coach Sergio even made us go for a quick swim straight off the flight! Thanks Coach Sergio 🙂 Even better, after we would walk a so called ten minute walk turned into twenty minute walk to eat lunch, we had to walk back to the pool and do the real practice…..practice makes perfect. After practice, it was time to meet our host families who were more than happy to meet us. But everything worked out so well that we knew some of our host before he called out our names because the girls who couldnt wait to meet us came and introduced themselves to us while we were changing! So then it was names being called and luggage being moved and we were on our own for the first night in a different country to live with people who barely speak english and who we have never met before in our lives…..EXCITING. I personally love oppurtunities like this and being in situations that we were in because its thrilling, the anticipation.
So my first night….
I am staying with another boy named Logan from SwimMac team along with our host family. The dad who i call Papi is Jordi. The mother is Theresa aka Mama. And my brother Jan!! and my sister Claudia!! We all live together. The father speaks perfect english. The mother speaks a little english and Jan and Claudia speak perfect english. LUCKY US! For dinner we had spanish tortillas and jamon serrano (ham) and something like fried yam. The food was VERY different but nonetheless filling and not bad at all! At dinner we quickly got to know each other: names, where are you from, how old are you, what do you swim, where do you work, is practice going to be hard etc. We all linked perfectly and we all have a great relationship with each other to this day, almost like a real family. Now it was time to pack get some sleep finally and prepare for our first morning practice and a day in the life of a Spaniard! But while I was packing my bag, I noticed medals and trophies all over Claudia´s room. I thought to myself “hmm this girl is awesome, wonder what her times are like?´´ Turns out, she is the European champion in the 800 free, 400 free and 400 IM!……she´s 14 years old! Wow! Maybe Coach Sergio is trying to inspire me……..
Morning practice
So morning practice aka try to kill Ashley workout. To be honest, I sprinted the entire practice…..just to keep up. First thing learnt, sprint warmup, main set, and warm down when swimming with a spanish team. Something else funny, the people in my lane do not speak one word of english. When I said, “ No please you go Im dead!!´´ they mistook it for “ Hey can i go before you?´´ So one by one they let me in front of them……..my plan: don´t get in their way, don´t get lapped, swim faster faster faster! Estoy loca! Finally practice is done, Im done. And now to laugh at the group of people on our team who have to do our practice one hour after us because it depends on your host when you swim. But im too tired to laugh so Ill just go change and eat the breakfast my mama made for me 🙂
Journey to Barcelona, Lessups, and Sabadell
So our journeys to Barcelona and Sabadell and Lessups have all been incredible sight seeing adventures. Coach Sergio did a great job not making us feel like tourist with just putting us on a tour bus, but instead making us walk, go on our own to look around and actually experience it for ourselves. We could take whatever pictures we wanted, where we wanted, buy something for our families(at home and in Spain) or something we wanted to try..which turned out to be ALOT OF GELATTI ICE CREAM AND CHOCOLATE. Although, I dont think its a good idea for us to leave Taylor shopping on her own….she may just get arrested…..oh wait she did. Well we learned our lesson. As for me, shopping went well! I bought a new bikini bottom……..
Spain is a beautiful country. The buildings are unique, as to the language and tradition.
Mare Norstrum Swim Meet
Well personally, I swam awful. But hey, who cares when you can watch people like Cullen Jones, Frederick Bousquet, Cesar Cielo, Aubrey Peacock :), Tamara Wadgymar go girl, Lauren Neidigh wohoo (some girls who finalled) and so on you get my point. The experience is amazing and worthwhile. Many records broken at this meet! We also bonded with the club we train with even more because they travelled with us! Speaking of travelling with, my family is close with Lauren´s and Aubrey´s family so we went out for dinner and shopping one night. Tomorrow night after our Beach day!!, our family is having a small ´´dinner“ aka party for the girls who have no host families and are living in the hotel along with Aubrey, Lauren, Matt and then Peter from SwimMac.
I cannot believe that this week has gone by soooo fast. I love everything that has happened on this trip. Its amazing to watch the way these people live and interact and so forth. You know, writing this blog isnt easy because you cant describe how this trip really is. I think you have to have a hands on experience to understand what we are feeling. Our last three days, we will make the best of it because here is where we find lasting friendships and build lasting relationships, with other swimmers, coaches, and people in general. I laugh everytime I hear Coach Sergio say, “ hey guys, its the spanish way of life´´ because now, I know what he means. This trip so far has been a cultural eye opener(good thing). To sum up our journey so far…..its the spanish way of life. Just agree with Coach Sergio, he knows his stuff.