Day #1

Hey NTSC,

I apologize in advance for this post if it has grammatical mistakes or typos because I have been up for almost thirty two hours. I arrived in Barcelona at 9am this morning and met up with ten other kids who had flight problems yesterday. We went straight to the hotel, then ate and then went on a bus tour of the city of Barcelona. I was sat on top of the double decker bus and had a really fun time seeing the city. There is a ton of culture here, it is right on the water (kind of like Chicago!) and is beautiful. It was fun to be with the team and make up for the time I had lost yesterday. It is really cool that everyone on the team is, suprisingly, human! Sometimes I think that the fastest teenagers in the country must be nothing like me. From a distance they seem perfect, calm and never nervous. It has been good to see that we are all the same in a lot of ways. We are all teenagers who work hard and swim for fun!
After the tour we took the pool to warm up. We got to the pool and the warmup was insane. We walked in all dressed in our USA attire and it seemed like everyone was looking at us. I had a moment right then and realized that I am representing USA Swimming and how cool that is. In the pool, they were blasting this techno-club european music and it was packed. A lot of swimmers swam down the left side of the lane instead of the right (I think that is how they do it in some countries) and there were no organized sprint lanes. People just dive in any random lane where they see space! All these things got me out of my comfort zone so I did our Elite group meet warmup that we always do. I started to loosen up and by the end I was feeling good!
Right now I am sitting in my room with my roommates Kyle Whitaker and Ben Anderson. Kyle is from Indiana and swims IM and Ben is from Texas and swims sprint freestyle. This is Kyle’s fourth trip with the Youth team so he is showing us the ropes. We just got back to the room from a team meeting on the roof of our hotel. It is really cool because you can see the entire city from up there. Aaron Peirsol, Eric Shanteau and Dave Cromwell were all at the meeting to talk to us. Aaron talked about how he was on the Youth team 10 years ago and a bunch of the people he was on it with ended up being the same people he was on the World and Olympic team with! Pretty cool! Eric talked about how none of the medals or races he has won matter as much as the relationships he has made along the way. He has met so many people on our national team and from other countries.
I expected a great experience, but so far this trip has surpassed my expectations. It was such an honor today to represent team USA and wear the flag cap even though it was just warmup. I am so lucky that swimming has given me the opportunity to see Barcelona. Tommorow I am swimming the 100 Breaststroke, 200 Butterfly and 400 Freestyle. Thanks again NTSC!

Until tommorow

Sam