The Great Wall & then some...

So today is August 8th in china (Opening Ceremonies day!!!) Which I will blog on in full detail tomorrow!! But on the 6th our team took a little trip out to the Great Wall of China. And wow, it was HIGH! We climbed over 700 stairs (one of my teammates counted) to get the the top and when we got there we were covered in sweat and short of breath... I thought we were supposed to be olympic athletes! But the wall... It was amazing.  When you were on top you could see the wall stretching for miles across the mountains. The size of it and the amount of time it took to build is just unfathomable. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far.  We spent some time walking along the wall and taking pictures. When it came to getting back down we had 2 options, we could either walk back down or ride the slide. We Chose the slide. It was awesome. Some of our teammates raced trying to get the fastest time. I did not win...oh well. After our visit to the great wall we got on a bus and rode to Leisure city where we checked into our hotel at the hot springs. This was a chinese version of a spa... kinda creepy though. They had hot springs all over inside the spa, some with fish in it, that if you would sit in they would eat the dead skin off your body.. Needless to say we didn't sit in that one. Overall it was a pretty exhausting day so we were ready for bed. The next morning we went to breakfast at the hotel and ran into some fellow americans who are members of the bouncing bulldogs. These are teenagers that are professionals at jump-roping. The group did a little exhibition for us in the lobby of the hotel. Our team went nuts. 2 of the girls, Rachel Dawson and Dina Rizzo then gave their best shot at double dutch. They actually did pretty well (we think it was because of the people spinning the ropes. They definitely made them look good. 

We returned to the village around 1pm. We had lunch then just spent the rest of the day relaxing trying to get our feet rested for our scrimmage at 8 against Korea. We played 2 25 minute halves. We tied 2-2 and we played pretty well...you can tell we are ready for competition!! We open our slate against Argentina on the 10th at 6:30pm. I am pretty sure it will be aired on nbc. For sure you can check nbcolympics.com or usfieldhockey.com for full schedule of when we are going to be aired. Right now  I have to get ready for practice, but I will update after opening ceremonies! I can't believe it's finally here! Look for me on TV, I'll be the one in the blue blazer!!  Go USA!!!!