We're Here!

The travel was looooong.

But good.

We had no hiccups or difficulties and every step was smooth. All the luggage got where it was supposed to etc.

It's funny how much we've gotten used to those little seat-back tv's. None of our flights had them (although the long ones had the big shared tv's with one movie). Additionally South African Airlines does not allow Ipods etc. to be used even for listening to music and playing little games. Even my Kindle (e-book thing) was not allowed during take-offs and landings.

Still it just gave us all a reason to chat and visit even more than usual. This is a great group of people to be with. Jason, Rosie, Alex, Denis, Emily and our girls are all pretty awesome. Our team therapist is Stephen King (great name hey?) and our intrepid GCG leader Stephan Duchesne was my seating companion for the 17 hours from Washington to Johannesburg. We didn't even get off the plane in Dakar we were literally on the plane for that long. Definitely a first for all of us! We were met at the airport and quickly bussed to the University of Pretoria where we are staying and competing for these first days. GCG staff person Traci House met us here to round out our group (she's been here for a week already and is nut brown).

South Africa is incredibly beautiful. The weather is balmy and everyone has been very friendly so far. The residence rooms are very nice and the food last night and this morning has been excellent. This is not always true when we travel and is much appreciated! It's going to be 32 degrees and sunny so we'll have to slather on the sun screen but certainly no one is complaining. We are about to walk to the gym for our first training. It's apparently only a 1/2 km away. After lunch we will be heading out to a township to visit a local club and interact with the coaches and athletes there.

I'll talk about it when I get back tonight.

Enjoy training,

Dream Big Dreams,

Stay Strong,

Jamie