Olympic Day 9/10

These posts are starting to come in pairs! Haha I'll be better. Promise! Although, be prepared for this one. It's gonna be long!

First off yesterday when we got back to village, I felt at home. It felt like where I was supposed to be. The village has such an energy that I can't even explain it. And I think I may have gotten the best view in the village. Of course I could just be biased. It is my room in the Olympic Village after all!

I love this view!!!

We got off the plane, and once again went straight to the pool. One day I'd like to know what it's like to get somewhere, and have time to unpack before I do anything else, but at the same time I'd probably get antsy wanting to get things started! I guess that day will come a long time from now. A day far in the future where I don't do Synchronized Swimming.

After we got to the pool, we had a total of 5 minutes of music time. Talk about stressful! We don't get much time in the competition pool before we actually compete because the swimmers have priority at the moment. They wrap up on the 4th, so us starting on the 5th won't be a problem. (I know you were all SO worried! :P) We practiced in that pool for a couple of hours then came back to the village to eat some lunch. Then it was to the practice pool! A synchronized swimmers work is never done! We had more music time there. The practice facility is awesome. It has a water polo pool, 3 50meter pools for swimming, and another pool strictly for synchro. I took pictures on my camera instead of my phone so y'all will have to just wait till after the games to see what it all looks like! I can show you the bus route we take everyday however:

Our bus line

Aaaaaaall the way at the end there, is where we meet our bus. Okay, so the picture makes it look much further away than it actually is. But look at all that PINK! Haha I'll never get over it.

Anyways, at the practice pool we share music time with Canada and France. It's kinda nice being back in a group where it's more than just Mariya and I in the water at one time. The Canadian girls even cheered for us during one of our swims! It was nice not to swim in silence. (well, if you can consider our blasting music silence) Athletes have to stick together after all.

Afterwards we had some treatment with Holly, making sure sore muscles are taken care of. And then I was so tired from our 4:30am wake up call that morning that I called some people and made really good friends with my stuffed Tiger (kudos to anyone who thinks up a good name for it!) and my pillow that I brought from home. Ergo why there was no blog post yesterday. I admit it! I fell asleep! :D

That tiger travels with me to EVERY competition

Then onto Today. We didn't have much time at all in the pool this morning. Only a few hours in the water and still sharing music with Canada and France. Afterwards we stayed in the pool a bit longer and worked on how we want to perform. We want to swim like we're tied for 2nd, and the next 3&1/2 minutes determine if we get a Gold medal or not. We always say we want to swim the best that we possibly can, and in order to do that, we have to prove to the judges we want it. That we want it more than anyone else does!

After we got out, we had an hour to shower, get back to the village, change, get presentable, and be back downstairs ready to go to a press conference. Somehow we managed to do it, but I'll tell you it wasn't easy haha! There's a lot of pool face that we have to cover up with makeup after being in the pool that long. Let's face it, no one is all that attractive after being chlorine, working out for the last 3 hours.

We had this press conference and as much as everyone likes to think everyone knows who we are, it was kinda empty. But thats okay, we got asked some good questions!

Speaking of questions, I've been asked multiple times on how to watch our swims when we compete! To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure when it is airing on Television, but here is the online schedule for those of you who are able to watch it live!

NBC Synchronized Swimming Schedule Online

Now I'm writing from the dining hall at the University of East London, where we're to meet up with Holly and Cate to get treatment and visit for a little bit. This is where a lot of the staff, judges, and alternate athletes, as well as a few competing athletes are staying. It's not in Olympic Park, but its still quite nice. It seems to be set up a lot like the village, but it's at a college. Haven't really seen anything much, but some of the pictures in the dining hall are of old Olympic Games moments. I probably couldn't tell you who they are of, or what year they were, but it's cool to see. I think each country has its own dining hall here, instead of a common one like we do in the village, so we're in the USA one obviously!

USA Pride on the table there!

Also on a slightly off topic, I wanna extend a SUPER HUGE good luck to Coach Robert's (who will forever be my favorite Swim coach) current Swim Belton swimming athletes Austin Couillard, who will be competing at Sectionals!!! I know how hard it is to pull off a sectionals cut. Congrats Austin! 

Until next time!

--Mary