And we're off!

finally we are in Kutztown PA. I didn't even know where this state was until i google mapped it the day before we left...Turns out it is a little 'Holland influenced' community in PA. It is also an Armish community, so we see a lot of horse and buggies lol. My apologies for these first few posts, they are probably going to be a bit long and descriptive but i just want to paint the scene so you understand a bit more of what i'm going on about. So here goes:

Nearly 30hrs and 8 plane meals later (swear they should do a documentary a la ‘supersize me’ style to see just how good living off nothing but plane food is for you…not very I suspect.) it feels good to be on solid ground.
Sam and I met up with the crew from the east coast in Sydney which consisted of Angus Tobin, Pat Lane and Peter Johnstone then caught the rest of the East coasters up in Brisbane (Brodie Stewart, Thomas Richards and Mitchell Mulhern) and we started our trek over to KL to meet the rest of the team from WA. We were frequently asked where we were going/what we were doing and one couple even suggested we were the Australian rep ping pong team…Pat (vic) decided to tell curious onlookers that we were the Aussie basketball team bound for Beijing.. Needless to say with about an average combined height of about 5 foot 5, people weren’t buying it. Anyway after 2 average movies, a marathon of tetris and battleship duelling between team mates as well as he odd game of bejewelled (I now consider myself a bit of a connoisseur at it actually), it was good to be on the ground and not have to think that we had another epic journey waiting for us just around the corner. The trip to KL took about 8 hours, then from KL to Stockholm it was an epic 12hr and finally another 8hr flight to Newark airport in New Jersey. In our battle to minimise jetlag, the east coasters mission was to not sleep a wink on the flight to KL. When anyone showed any signs of weakness they would be poked and yelled at until their slumber was disturbed. What made it extra tough is that it was an overnight flight and so by the time we arrived in KL, we literally hadn’t slept for 24hrs. Needless to say that we were all looking decisively average by the time we all caught up in KL. We all cleared customs alright; however, the fun came when we had to collect our baggage. Between us we each had our carry-on bags, suitcase and two bike boxes. With no trolleys to help us, we were made to drag all our gear through baggage check. Now anyone would be able to tell that it is physically impossible for one person to carry at least 4 bags in one go. However, the baggage officers told us that once we took a bag through clearance, we weren’t able to go back through. Not willing to offer any assistance or alternative options, we had to haul our bags convoy style through the baggage check only to be told in their strongest American accents ‘you gotta keep , you can’t stay here “ and ‘you can’t come back, you gotta keep on movin’ your blocking the way”. It was funny at the time, think you might have had to be there though.
Once we finally lugged all our gear through the airport, we met up with May Britt Hartwell (the coach of the US juniors we are training with) who kindly took us to our accommodation (which is about 1hr30 from the airport). After not being fed for over 5hrs we were keen for some real food. Cruising down the highway, we were overwhelmed by the amount of ‘Wendy’s next exit’ or ‘Burger King 1 mile’ signs we didn’t really know what to do. The boys got their way and we settled on Burger King and Taco Bell. My first taste of American food was a chicken rancho soft taco…and I can see why America is also known as the ‘fat nation’. That thing was delicious, and for only $2 a bargain. There I said it. Disgusting, I know but hey you know what they say ‘when in Rome…’. Anyway, we finally reached our accommodation which was a quaint little 4 bedroom house located in the city of Kutztown. However, this house looked like something out of an old fashioned horror movie equipped with scary looking basement and an old creepy shed in the backyard (check out the photos, and swear it looks more creepy at night). This place was basic to say the least. Our beds were simply mattresses (no sheets, pillows ,blankets), we basically had nothing. Our first night consisted of sleeping on top of sleeping bags (it was about 30 degrees at 1:30 am when we finally clambered into our beds).Feel asleep relatively early and managed to get a decent 5 hours sleep. Was that the best you had jetlag?


So there it is, my first post. Not sure who'll actually make it to the end of this, reading back on it now its pretty uninspiring lol. Oh well, its mainly just for me to recall what i've ben doing and to let my family know that i'm still around lol. But have to admit of I get more than 1 person reading this, then i'll be a happy girl ;-)