A New City

It has been a few days since my last entry, but that is mainly because not too much has happened in the past few days. We had our first training when we were still in Beijing, which was the first team training together after a good break, and it took a few touches on the ball for everybody to get their legs back and really get going. It didn’t help that it was extremely hot and humid. We are constantly drinking water to stay hydrated because we lose so much water during training. After training, many of us submerged our legs in ice baths so that we could recover from the day of intense training and be fresh for the next weeks. Once we got back to the dorms, we had to pack up and get our bags down to the lobby, because they were not going on the train with us. Then we had lunch and a bit of time to waste, so most of us just hung out in the lobby on our floor and got in some last internet time before leaving.

We got to the train station about an hour and a half early, so we had some more time to waste. We were in a VIP lounge, so it was basically just us and some of the tournament people in the area. A large group of us passed the time by playing a highly competitive game of Phase 10. It was a lot of fun and definitely made the time pass quickly. Once the time came, we loaded up the train and were on our way before long. It took us a little bit to get situated, because initially we did not realize that other people were in our train car, and we just sat anywhere. So, we held up traffic as we rearranged ourselves in our proper assigned seats. The train itself was a bullet train, so the entire ride was only two hours, which for us is nothing. The seats were rather spacious and made for a fairly comfortable ride during which I enjoyed some TV shows on my iPod. Our General Manager gave us about a ten minute warning to gather up all of our stuff and be ready to get off the train as soon as it stopped, because there is only about a minutes time to get everybody off the train, and then the next group has about a minute to get on the train before it leaves again. We all made it off the train in time and thoroughly enjoyed the chaotic challenge of unloading the train in such a short time. We then immediately boarded a bus and went over to the soccer stadium to get our official tournament accreditations. Our last stop was our hotel, which is located right on the beaches of the Bohai Sea. Upon entering the hotel, there was a lovely welcome reception. All of the hotel staff was lined up on both sides of us and gave a warm applause when each of us walked in.

We have been training here the past few days, and the weather has been a bit cooler than what we saw in Beijing, but it is still pretty sticky and we are still sweating quite a bit. Because of the heat and humidity, our medical staff came very prepared with cooling vests. We had a scrimmage yesterday against China, and at each of the breaks, the players on the field wore these vests to try and get their core temperature back down. They look a bit like space suits to a lot of us, but we are here for the gold and going to do whatever it takes to get that edge to win. Other than that, there really has not been too much else to report on from here. We have a good bit of down time, which is spent doing various activities. I can oftentimes be found working on the World’s Largest Crossword Puzzle which was sent to us by one of our team docs, playing competitive games of Spades, or catching up on my reading. Today is a day off from training. We were originally supposed to go see the section of the Great Wall that is here, but it is raining today, so that has been postponed and instead there will be an excursion to a market.

I have included a photo from our trip to the Great Wall in Badaling (I am wearing a hat that a few of us purchased to wear on our hike up the wall) and also a photo from the balcony of a teammates room (I am unfortunately not on the water side) here in Qinhuangdao. Some days you can see nothing due to the weather and the smog and other days you can see boats and ships out in the water. It is amazing how much it changes. Enjoy.