to our final destination of Cape Town! When we arrived in Cape Town we drove about half an hour out to Stellenbosch, Coach Gideon's hometown. Stellenbosch is beautiful! The town's charm reminds me of Dexter but it is very different in that it's surrounded by mountains. We stayed there on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (tonight) and got to know more about Africa and our sport.
We stayed at a house used during the school year for the local rugby team. Since it's winter break for the team, our team was able to stay there while we trained in Stellenbosch. It's surprisingly cold for what I imagined winter in Africa to be like! It feels like an October day in Michigan with sky blue days and chilly nights. There isn't heating in the house and I have been thankful for my mittens and hat! Another thing that has been surprising is how minimal the presence of Internet is here. There are only a few places in town that have wireless internet and it costs about $2 for half an hour of access. We've had wireless hooked into the house we're staying at but it's very expensive so each of us has only five minutes to catch up on the busy American online life... it's a great thing to help us focus on our game but tough when I love to share or team's adventures! My favorite part about South Africa is the scenery and landscape. I wish I could post all of these pictures!! When I'm not able to post to my blog, our team has a video blog here http://www.netballamerica.com/team-usa-netball-2/track-their-progress so you can watch what's happening!
We spent our days training with two incredible coaches - Sandra Du Plessis and Francois Nels. They bring out the best in our team and have shown me how to be my best on the court. Sandra put me on wing defense during one of our games with the local club and it was a great experience!
In the mornings, we worked with our coaches doing team drills before having lunch, taking a required nap, sight seeing, watching the regional university championships here, and then playing a game against the local club team.
The sightseeing has been fantastic! On our sight seeing on Wednesday, we took a drive through the wine country of the area up in the mountains and we spent time in a coffee shop where most of us tried a hot drink called milo for the first time. Throughout the week, we also had a a braai (BBQ) with the local team and drove up into George's Harbor. The harbor was one of my favorite spots to be - the mountainside met the ocean and on our drive we saw baboons walking along the side of the road! It was exciting :) Tomorrow morning, we'll be leaving to move into the athletes village in Cape Town and the opening ceremonies will take place! First game is on Monday vs Zimbabwe and it should be streaming online but we don't know the link yet. I'll keep you posted - we'll need to hear your USA cheers from here!
My five minutes is up... hopefully internet will be more accessible tomorrow!
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