Let the Games Begin!

Hello from England! It's been about 3 days and not much has gone on here. Yesterday was a day off and we traveled the short distance to see Warwick Castle. It was definitely an experience. We walked through town about 10 minutes to the train station and rode another 20 minutes to the town of Warwick. I was expecting the castle to be more historic than it was; it was more like a tourist trap/amusement park. First of all, people in wheelchairs get in for 1/2 price, we quickly found out why. The castle itself was beautiful, but nothing was accessible. Stairs everywhere. I mean I wasn't expecting an old castle to have elevators or anything, but it would have been nice to see SOMETHING besides the grounds and outside of the castle. I did get some good pics and it was nice to get out of our hotel, however.

Today was the opening ceremony for the games. There are 22 teams total here (men & women) and 16 countries are being represented. We haven't played a game yet, we start tomorrow at 2:15 pm against Japan, again... I think the team is really chomping at the bit to get this tournament going. We have had a few practices with the last one this evening. Practices are getting more intense as time goes on and I think that this is primarily due to the fact that we really really need to play someone else besides ourselves.

Our hotel is now PACKED with people as I am sure you can imagine. We got a little spoiled with having our pre-tourney here and only about 4 other teams here. Now that everyone is here, there are wheelchairs EVERYWHERE!! When going anywhere, you definitely have to factor in time for waiting for the elevator. For example, yesterday when trying to leave for practice we had 6, yes 6, elevators stop at our floor (9) before there was an elevator where even one of us could fit in. It's kind of ridulous. Oh and now we have scheduled eating times. Tonight we had a 6-7:30pm practice and had to wait until 9 to eat. Needless to say, I was starving. I don't know about you all, but waiting 8 hours between meals, with a practice in there, kinda stinks :)

Well, wish us luck tomorrow! Check out the websites to see if there is any video feeds going on. Go USA!!!