Let The Games Begin!

My first night in another country is done. I felt like I took a nap yesterday! I managed to stay awake until about 7 pm after I got here. I wimped out and had to sleep. It wasn't for too long though. I am rooming with Monica Webb and she arrived around 11 pm. I figured it would help if I got up and did some things then went back to sleep. We went for a walk to the store and ran into Kelly Fisher, Val Finnie and Joanne Ashton. Of course we had to stop and catch up for a couple of hours. After a little fun and lots of laughs we all decided it was time to rest. Monica and I bought phone cards so we had to call home and try them out since it was normal time there. I think you have to punch in 50 numbers to finally call! Finally it was time to sleep!!

We woke up bright and early and totally not rested to go to the players meeting at 11 am. I didn't know what to expect today. We went to the Taipei Sheraton where they had a whole buffet set up for us. All I was thinking was "YES, finally I can eat!" During the meeting we just had the general rules and whatnot to go over. The thing that was stressed the most was that things will be on time! What we had to do after the meeting was completely foreign to me...we had a press conference.

We had a practice run of us walking up on stage in our groups. Then a long break. I took this time to take some pictures. I think you can pretty much recognize everyone that I could actually get pictures of. Here are a few. Most important, Team USA!

I am actually the tallest one in a picture finally! Here I am with Rubilen Amit and Iris Ranola. Yes, they were both standing on their tiptoes.
I also got a chance to meet Kamila Khodjaeva. She is 13 years old and definitely the future of the sport!
Next we all had to line up in the order we are seeded in our group. We had to walk up on stage in front of tons of Taiwanese press to have our names and countries announced. All I could think was please, whatever you do, don't trip! Here we are lined up in the hallway by group. I am in group F.
Here is one of the other groups up on stage.
After all of that we got to hear a few words from the sponsors of the tournament. The most popular words used were Beautiful and Determined. Those words were used soooo often. I feel like I should have kept track of how many times those words were used to describe us. "Welcome 48 beautiful and determined ladies." The most interesting thing that we heard, through a translator, was that the Taiwanese government made pool one of its top national sports. Next we had a small orchestra group made up of twelve, twelve year olds. This was in celebration of the twelfth year of the Amway Cup. They were really pretty amazing. We got to hear the Forrest Gump theme song, a Japanese cartoon song and last but certainly not least, YMCA! Next we moved on to a small press question and answer session. Allison Fisher was questioned first, then Xiao-ting Pan, Kamila Khodejaeva, and the first and second place finishers from last year. Some of the questions asked were 'How do you stay so beautiful?' 'How do you stay so determined?' I hope you are seeing a theme! Here are Allison and Xiao-ting...

After all of that excitement was over, 18 of us headed to Videoland Studios to do small television interviews. Even though this only was about a 2 minute interview, we had to go through full make-up and hair. Here is Team Japan...
Then we headed to do some silly poses and say a couple of lines. Here is a picture of me being totally confused and Monica posing.

Later I will have the funniest picture which is of myself, Monica and Jeanette. We had to say all together "Hello Taiwan" then give our names and then all together again "We are from the United States" then strike a pose...very funny and very odd looking Charlies Angels to give you an idea. I have to have it emailed to me from the person who took it.

So that gives you an idea of what's going on. I have video as well but I am too exhausted to get it all uploaded. I will post it later though. We start playing matches at 10:30 am. I got lucky and don't play until 12:50 pm. I asked about the live-stream but I didn't get much of an answer. You can google Videoland and see what comes up or check that website that I posted a few days ago. I believe there should be a link on that.

I apologize for any spelling and grammar mistakes that I have made. The spell check is not working and I am extremely tired!

I will be back with updates!