July 4, 2013
Right now it is 4 am on July 4th and if you look outside you would think it’s midday because the sun only sets for 4 hours here. Getting to Russia was the journey of a lifetime. We left Colorado Springs at 10 am Monday the 1st and arrived in Kazan Russia at 3 am on the 3rd. After 17 hours of flying and at least 10 hours of lay overs our bodies were extremely exhausted.
The place we are staying is a mini Olympic village. This means that every coach, player, trainer are staying on campus in the around 30 dorm buildings. This means there will be approximately 8,000 athletes in competition this week and next. So far I have met people from about 20 different countries and the language barrier is very difficult. The only thing I know is thank you in Russian “спасибо” which is pronounced spaciba, and of course my New Mexican Spanish is very helpful!
The rooms are really small and the beds are made for a gymnast but it’s OK, as they make it up with the food setup. The cafeteria is the same setup that they had in London for the Olympics it also includes a McDonald’s. But the best part to me is that it is free and open 24 hours.
Yesterday (after we got our two hour naps) we went to the gymnasium where we will be playing for the next two weeks. It was a tough practice just getting all the kinks out from the trip but we got better and it was nice to move around on the floor again for a few hours. Today will be a very interesting day because we have our first scrimmage vs a very talented Russian pro team. We are not sure what to expect but it will be good to go out there in a game setting before all the actual events start. Besides that I hope to see Cameron today he is flying in from China.
So slowly but surely things are getting more exciting playing for team USA. Thanks for all the support back home Lobo nation!
Happy 4th,
AK