by Andie Malloy and Allison Palmer

So today we had to wake up early for a morning practice. I actually woke up even earlier because every morning the maids come to our door and go "HOUSEKEEPING...HOUSEKEEPING...HOUSEKEEPING!" hahah.

We waited for everyone to come down to the breakfast place and then we all walked in together in our matching outfits cause we are just that cool. The breakfast was super good! It was eggs with ham in it... yummm! Every morning they change the breakfast so we don't get bored. The food has been dank this whole trip. They also change the drink on the table. Its a surprise every morning. Yesterday's was pineapple juice...fresh squeezed.

After breakfast we went back up to our room for like 30 minutes and listened to English music videos with Spanish subtitles. Its really hard to find English channels here. Then we headed down to the bus where we saw KAREN, our hostess who we all love. She definitely spoils us.

Outside the hotel there is always this one guy trying to sell us rainmakers. I feel bad cause we never buy one. We all boarded the yellow school bus to practice! The ride was about 30 minutes to get to the gym, which was at an all-girls private school. The bus rides are always really neat cause we get to see how the people here live. We see the houses on the hillside, some of them looking just like cardboard boxes. It is really sad and eye-opening to how third-world countries live.

When we got to the gym, we were early so we sat outside. While we were putting on our shoes we look up and all these little girls in their school uniforms were waving hands and peace signs at us. They posed for our pictures.

Then Coach Melissa made us do this activity where we all had to get into a line and rearrange ourselves in birthdate order without stepping off the line. This taught us that communication was really crucial, talking and listening, when we weren't allowed to talk. It was really fun but also challenging us at the same time. It was time to do work at practice. At practice we worked hard trying to improve our game.

After practice we took the big yellow bus home. I love it because we always have a police car following us with 4 policemen (and women) with huge shotguns... our escorts. We feel safe whenever they are with us and we always wave and thank them.

While on the bus we try to wave and smile at all the people on the sides of the road. Most of them are really nice and always get a huge smile when we wave at them. It is mostly the guys who wave and whistle (hahah) and the girls just kind of stare at us.

When we got back to the hotel, we showered and ate lunch then left for our match against JAMAICA. We got there early and while we were waiting to play, all of us bought trinkets at the stand at the gym from rainmakers and drums to purses and coin bags. Outside we could here thunder. We watched the Costa Rica vs. T&T match. One of the T&T moms had these clappers and every play would bust out singing, this chant that got stuck in everyone's head.

Finally it was time to play. We played our hardest and beat Jamaica in 3. Everyone got to play this match. After the match we went back to take a quick shower and eat dinner and then we went back to the gym to watch the Dominican Republic vs. Canada match. We play Canada tomorrow so we were trying to scout them. While attempting to do so we kind of got just a little bit distracted.

Of course our beloved Karen came to sit with us. Then we were all trying to get the attention of this native guy decked out in Gatorade gear. Karen said she would get him to come over... the quote of the day is when Karen said "I will attack him!" trying to get the Gatorade boy aka Cristian to come over to us. Eventually he did. It turns out his English was as good as our Spanish meaning he knew NOTHING. He got us free Gatorade and gum which was really sweet of him! Karen would translate all that he was saying so we could understand. He was super shy and was blushing the entire time! He said we were really cute... and that got a lot of "AWWWWW"s from us!

Unfortunately it was time to leave...it was pouring down rain outside so we had to hustle to the buses! We shared the big yellow school bus with T&T. We took turns (both teams) singing songs and dancing! This one chant that we brought to the table was "Jig-a-loo... Our hands up high and our feet down low.. And this is how I jig-a-loo. We went around the whole bus and all took turns dancing!

The T&T libero was quite the dancer. She also did impressions.. and the one that stuck out the most to us was from the YouTube video "Charlie Bit Me". She did it in a really good English accent and had us all roaring with laughter. It was sooo much fun to watch all the girls dance and try and do it ourselves! We did it the whole ride back.

It sadly came to an end when we pulled up to the hotel. We headed up to our room and fell right asleep! We were sooo tired from quite the adventurous day! Can't wait for tomorrow!

Talk to you soon USA,