Day One of Akropolis Grand Prix

Yesterday, on our first full day in Greece we swam twice and in between we went to the Athens Flea Market. It took about an hour by tram to get to downtown and then we spent around three hours exploring. A massive thunderstorm suddenly occurred after about two hours and all of us were completely soaked through! But then the sun came out about 20mins later and we dried off nicely. By the time we trained that night most of the other international teams were also in the water and it was nice to see how they trained and prepared for a meet. Because at this meet people are trying to make their Fina A standard so they can make world championships. And after dinner a couple of us went to chocolate cafe and ordered things only speaking Greek...so we pointed and said thank you (ef-ka-re-sto) a lot!

Then this morning we went for a short 40min run instead of swimming and then went on an adventure to visit the Acropolis and it was spectacular. Other than being insanely full of tourists it was one of the coolest landmarks I have ever seen. And I found a nice little hole to hide myself in, just encase it rained again...

Tonight was the first session of the Akropolis Grand Prix and the results from today can be found here. I swam 400IM and it went alright. I finished in 5th spot with 5:13.02, and everything about it was good except my second 50 of butterfly and my first 50 of backstroke, but those will easily get better with some butterfly training. I also out-touched the girl beside my in the last ten meters of freestyle, so ending a race that way always feels good. There is no warm down pool though, so my 50 breaststroke did not go as well as I would have liked. I was 35.51 and ended up 10th, just out of a second swim position. And a second and a half over my best time.

Overall though, I am happy with tonight's swims, and getting a handle on the meet was helpful. Especially trying to fit in dives when they do not open dive lanes here and you just kind of dive in whenever and hopefully you don't hit someone in warm-up. 

Another interesting fact about Greece: you cannot flush toilet paper here, because the sewer system cannot handle it, so all washrooms have a little garbage can that you put your used toilet paper into...odd!