Hey bloggers!
Most of you out there (minus most of my class) don’t know that was away in ARUBA from Wednesday to Wednesday for a training camp. As I mentioned in my ‘About Me’ section, I am a competitive synchronized swimmer. A lot of people have asked me “why a training camp in Aruba?” Well why not!! To be honest, I’m not completely sure why myself. The club that I swim at is friends with the Aruban team and they have a really nice pool (I think that’s why?).
Each morning we got up at around 5:30ish so we could be ready to head to a pool...thirty minutes away...for a five hour practice. In these practices we would: Stretch, work on our routine and get burnt! If some people out there don’t know, Aruba is a small little island in the Caribbean. So each day it is at least 30 degrees out (maybe up to 37 or more degrees). I’m surprised I didn’t get that burnt at all. Oh gosh! I got off topic! Anyways back to training...some of the days we share the pool with the Aruban team, who are all really nice. Our whole team traded caps with theirs and we are now planning on wearing them at the next competition (which the Aruban team does not swim at). On the last day, the practice was shortened to a 3 hour practice. Thank goodness! The whole team was so tired from all the swimming we did the whole week. It was the most swimming I have ever done over a week long period!
Since the practices were all in the morning, we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted. The first few days there we spent the afternoons lounging on the beach and swimming (yes, swimming at the beach right after we just had a five hour practice). And when I say swimming, I mean doing some highlights and swimming to the buoys. We also did some handstands
and cartwheels, as well as one girl on my team learnt how to do a front handspring. What’s convenient was that our hotel was right on a beautiful beach so we didn’t have to go far.
As the days passed the team had gotten some nice sun burns, mostly on the face, back, and arms. So after getting these nice burns (not me!) we spent a day inside working on homework and other stuff, to avoid getting more burnt.
Besides going to the beach we also went snorkelling. It was soooo much fun!! Because our team are strong swimmers (*cough* Synchro*cough*) we were able to swim without the huge lifejackets! We all suited up in flippers and snorkels, and got to see a lot of different marine life. As well as a sunken German world war 2 boat. Since we had no lifejackets we were able to dive down to get a closer look. It was soooooooo cool!! We also did highlights when we were by the sunken ship. The whole side of the boat was watching, taking pictures and or clapping for us.
Each night we would go out for dinner and once we went to this awesome restaurant that we then went to later on, it was called...Senior Frog. It is the best restaurant ever!! The whole team decided that if we lived in Aruba we would definitely work there. The workers were awesome! The second time we went one guy took my friends camera and took pictures of everyone he saw from the staff and of us. They also had this guy that made balloon hats; He was so funny! He gave the team each a
balloon (one of those really skinny ones meant to make balloon animals and hats) and told us to blow them up. It was really hard to do! Only one girl on the team was able to actually blow it up and when she did, we all screamed with joy making the whole restaurant look at us. Besides the awesome workers the food was amazing too! When we were going to leave, they started to play the funky chicken and got everyone to stand up and dance. You know the part where two people are
supposed to link arms then spin around in the circle, occasionally changing arms? Well since I somehow manage to sit at the head of the table, the balloon guy got me to dance with him! Overall the restaurant was actually really fun and kept us laughing the whole meal.
We took a day to go out and buy souvenirs, so we went to downtown Aruba and visited all the different venders and stores. Aruba is so much fun and it was really hard to leave.
Our flight out was good, nothing went wrong (except that the fact we had to be at the airport for 4am so we could make our 6:15am flight) and we made it to Aruba around the time we were supposed to. BUT THEN ON THE WAY BACK...our second flight got cancelled (From Aruba to Newark was fine, but Newark to Buffalo...). Since the flight was cancelled the airport people (I don’t know what they are called ok!) had put our group of like 12 on separate flights, so we had to somehow find a flight that could fit all of us. When we did find one, we looked it up and it didn’t seem to exist. So when we made it to Newark the person on charge of the group got off first to get all our boarding passes. After rushing to the opposite of the airport and finding Erika
(girl in charge) we finally got on to a pretty sketchy airplane and got home.
If you want to learn more about my trip and other crazy things that might have happened that was not mentioned above, you can check out the blog we made just for it! It is kind of weird since we are all pretty crazy, but here’s the link: http://waterloosynchro.com/aruba-2013-training-blog/
Most of you out there (minus most of my class) don’t know that was away in ARUBA from Wednesday to Wednesday for a training camp. As I mentioned in my ‘About Me’ section, I am a competitive synchronized swimmer. A lot of people have asked me “why a training camp in Aruba?” Well why not!! To be honest, I’m not completely sure why myself. The club that I swim at is friends with the Aruban team and they have a really nice pool (I think that’s why?).
Each morning we got up at around 5:30ish so we could be ready to head to a pool...thirty minutes away...for a five hour practice. In these practices we would: Stretch, work on our routine and get burnt! If some people out there don’t know, Aruba is a small little island in the Caribbean. So each day it is at least 30 degrees out (maybe up to 37 or more degrees). I’m surprised I didn’t get that burnt at all. Oh gosh! I got off topic! Anyways back to training...some of the days we share the pool with the Aruban team, who are all really nice. Our whole team traded caps with theirs and we are now planning on wearing them at the next competition (which the Aruban team does not swim at). On the last day, the practice was shortened to a 3 hour practice. Thank goodness! The whole team was so tired from all the swimming we did the whole week. It was the most swimming I have ever done over a week long period!
Since the practices were all in the morning, we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted. The first few days there we spent the afternoons lounging on the beach and swimming (yes, swimming at the beach right after we just had a five hour practice). And when I say swimming, I mean doing some highlights and swimming to the buoys. We also did some handstands
and cartwheels, as well as one girl on my team learnt how to do a front handspring. What’s convenient was that our hotel was right on a beautiful beach so we didn’t have to go far.
As the days passed the team had gotten some nice sun burns, mostly on the face, back, and arms. So after getting these nice burns (not me!) we spent a day inside working on homework and other stuff, to avoid getting more burnt.
Besides going to the beach we also went snorkelling. It was soooo much fun!! Because our team are strong swimmers (*cough* Synchro*cough*) we were able to swim without the huge lifejackets! We all suited up in flippers and snorkels, and got to see a lot of different marine life. As well as a sunken German world war 2 boat. Since we had no lifejackets we were able to dive down to get a closer look. It was soooooooo cool!! We also did highlights when we were by the sunken ship. The whole side of the boat was watching, taking pictures and or clapping for us.
Each night we would go out for dinner and once we went to this awesome restaurant that we then went to later on, it was called...Senior Frog. It is the best restaurant ever!! The whole team decided that if we lived in Aruba we would definitely work there. The workers were awesome! The second time we went one guy took my friends camera and took pictures of everyone he saw from the staff and of us. They also had this guy that made balloon hats; He was so funny! He gave the team each a
balloon (one of those really skinny ones meant to make balloon animals and hats) and told us to blow them up. It was really hard to do! Only one girl on the team was able to actually blow it up and when she did, we all screamed with joy making the whole restaurant look at us. Besides the awesome workers the food was amazing too! When we were going to leave, they started to play the funky chicken and got everyone to stand up and dance. You know the part where two people are
supposed to link arms then spin around in the circle, occasionally changing arms? Well since I somehow manage to sit at the head of the table, the balloon guy got me to dance with him! Overall the restaurant was actually really fun and kept us laughing the whole meal.
We took a day to go out and buy souvenirs, so we went to downtown Aruba and visited all the different venders and stores. Aruba is so much fun and it was really hard to leave.
Our flight out was good, nothing went wrong (except that the fact we had to be at the airport for 4am so we could make our 6:15am flight) and we made it to Aruba around the time we were supposed to. BUT THEN ON THE WAY BACK...our second flight got cancelled (From Aruba to Newark was fine, but Newark to Buffalo...). Since the flight was cancelled the airport people (I don’t know what they are called ok!) had put our group of like 12 on separate flights, so we had to somehow find a flight that could fit all of us. When we did find one, we looked it up and it didn’t seem to exist. So when we made it to Newark the person on charge of the group got off first to get all our boarding passes. After rushing to the opposite of the airport and finding Erika
(girl in charge) we finally got on to a pretty sketchy airplane and got home.
If you want to learn more about my trip and other crazy things that might have happened that was not mentioned above, you can check out the blog we made just for it! It is kind of weird since we are all pretty crazy, but here’s the link: http://waterloosynchro.com/aruba-2013-training-blog/
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