Hello Rio!

We are FINALLY in Rio!! Anita and I have been anticipating this day for weeks now. We are the last synchro team to arrive, but what can I say...we like to be fashionably late 💁🏼 Our trip started by us waking up at 4am to take a flight from San Juan to Houston. We accidentally went to the wrong airport and ended up almost running through check-in and security to catch our flight but we made it! In Houston, we had an entire 12 hours to kill before our red eye to Rio, so what did we do? Go shopping of course! Anita and I even got Chinese massages in the mall to loosen up our muscles before getting on a long flight. My lady was literally sitting on top of me and digging her knees into my back but it felt amazing so I didn't mind. Then we came back to the hotel and did a gym workout and swam in the hotel pool, which felt more like a lukewarm bath than a swimming pool. I don't know what's worse - swimming in a pool that's too cold or too warm. Either way, it's uncomfortable. In this pool, I'm pretty sure I sweated out all of the water I drank that day in the 45 minutes that we swam for 😐

When we finally got on our flight to Rio, there were some other USA athletes from wrestling and track and field so we all exchanged the usual "when do you compete?", "how long are you staying" questions. After getting to Rio, we went straight to the village to drop off our stuff, eat lunch and...you guessed it, go to the pool for music practice. The village is beautiful and unlike London, it's pretty big so getting from our rooms to the dining hall to the buses is quite a walk. They even have a bus going around the village if you don't want to walk from one side to the other. 

 

 

The first photo makes it look like a resort doesn't it? Anita and I are sharing our little apartment with two girls from archery and trampoline. Here's my bed and the view from our window:

 

 

We haven't gotten a chance to explore any of the village yet and to be honest, we probably won't until we are done competing because our schedule is jam packed every day. Fortunately we have a few days before we leave to do all of the fun stuff, but right now it's all business. Again, we start competing THIS SUNDAY at 11am Brazil time so don't miss it!! I will write more about training and the pools in a later post. Let me know if you want to know anything specific about our experience so far! 

Xoxo,

Mariya