Hello my dearies!
I'm sorry I didn't post about this earlier but life's been such a buzz and when I did get on blogger was down. :( So here's the scoop.
This weekend I was in Nanaimo. For those of you who don't know where that is it's a small town in British Columbia. Nanaimo though being small has a pretty killer synchronized swimming club. And that's what brought me there. It started on Friday where right off the ferry (that we had to take to get there because Nanaimo also happens to be an island.) we headed to Nanaimo Aquatic Center. I've got to say the pool was nice a bit cold but nice. I mean all pools are cold.
Here's a bit of a fuzzy picture of the pool. Nice huh?!
Anyways as soon as we got to the pool we were in our bathing suits and swimming run-through's of the routine. A soloist who is at national level was performing her solo in the water as we swam, and so was another team swimming to Justin Beiber.
That night after a quick team meeting and a plate of what seemed to be almost cold pasta and disgusting apple pie that I decided to skip on we were sent to bed in one of the swimmers houses in Nanaimo.
Let me just clarify something. I love swim meets. Especially away meets. There fun, we get to bond, watch re-runs of shows until late at night, and sleep in a comfy bed in a luxurious hotel.... Oops! Scratch that last one. Turns out we were in a stuffy house full of junk, little kids toys, and trash, oh yeah and SPIDERS! I'm still paralyzed in fear. When out friend told us of the rat running around I basically died right then and there. I didn't though! Still alive and somewhat well though a little disturbed. So sadly my "Hotel" Experience didn't really live up to expectations :( The OK thing was that, that was about the only thing that didn't live up to expectations.
The next day was figures. DUH DUH DUH DUH! I was marked in the high 5's and even got a couple of 6.2's a huge accomplishment for me! My final score was 55.003 in 23rd place. My teammate coming just above me in 22nd! I was 3rd best in my team and my score was a new personal best for me. So I was REALLY proud of what I achieved! The best girl on out team ranked 18th in standings which goes to show you what huge competition was out there!
On the car-rides we all fought to be in the camper van which could fit more people and always was more fun then the tiny car which was the other choice! Not a good one. Anyways for lunch we had homemade sandwiches! Very good! And we were out playing around at the beach, doing homework, and singing off key until it was time to head back to the pool. We watched our soloist who was amazing! She came second! But everybody thought she deserved first place!
At the end of the day we went a banquet where they gave out figures awards and awards for the solo's and duets of the day. The rest of the awards would be given out tomorrow. We cheered loudly for our soloist as she came up twice, once for second place in figures, and another time for second place in her solo! The food was delicious and we had pumpkin pie for dessert! It was delicious!
That night we slept pretty soundly aside from the freaky stories everybody kept on telling in the car ride back, and the awful odor of the clogged up toilet which nobody admitted to doing. But we all suspected one girl on our team who totally ticks us off. Yet we were still pumped for the next day!
We all woke at around 7:00am and started doing hair and eating breakfast, which were homemade egg mcmuffins! Yummy! The hair was less enjoyable but as people gelled it I played Plants vs. Zombies on my friends iPhone so all was good!
When we arrived at the pool it was LANDRILL LANDRILL LANDRILL! And we did that until warm-up where our coach was instead yelling PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE! Almost equally annoying! We were just hoping the hardwork payed off. Before we got out our coach told up we were fourth out of 8 teams and it would take some work to get to the podium and take even 3rd. Thanks for the pressure!
And then all of a sudden it was time. We were walking on. We were in the water. We were swimming. Not only that we were swimming the routine! I swear I swam my heart out and I was determined to make sure everybody else did. I held my breath and let me tell you it was harder then usual because I had a pretty bad cold yet there I was swimming it. Trying it as hard as I could. When the routine was over I was panting. And we were sitting on the side of the deck waiting nervously for our scores. We already knew we weren't coming in first because Victoria had gotten a score to hard to beat in the position we were in. When the score came up we cheered. 55.232 it was a break through and possibly a third place score! We might have made podium!
After that we washed our hair out which took a long time because it was all gelled up. We took off our make-up we got dressed in our team track suit. And then it was basically a race to see who could find out what place we came in first. I got there first and I think I might of screamed with joy because we got THIRD PLACE! I was so proud of us because I knew that going in with our score it might be impossible but we DID IT! We got THIRD FRIGGIN PLACE! I was soooo happy and overjoyed I raced to the others to tell them I also found out that the other team we were swimming got 3rd also and that meant we both made PODIUM!
Then it was the results when we walked up to the podium we were so overjoyed (have I used this word too much? I think so but it really describes us!) and happy and shocked. When we got our bronze medals we wore them proudly for pictures and our smiles were sincere! It was a REALLY GREAT weekend.
Then it was time to go back on the ferry and when our chaperone offered us sandwiches I wanted to barf because all we'd really eaten had been sandwiches.! Me and one of my best friends raced to the white spot on board and we both got chicken strips and fries, just to eat unhealthy for once. We both needed fried food! We also pigged out on ice-cream bad-talked celebrities and a couple of people we hated and then read those girly magazines in the gift shop. Laughing at the embarrassing moments and taking the quizzes. It was so fun and so not ordinary for me and for all of us! We'd been training all year and it was great to finally just relax!
Anyways that's the reason why I haven't been posting lately! Hoped you enjoyed reading about it and if you made it all the way to the end HIGH FIVE! And comment below! Especially if you have any questions.
For some reason I'm craving sushi...
More soon,
Jocelyn AKA Crazy Writer
