World Cup - Day 1

So the first day pretty much consisted of us travelling, and it was one long day. We first had to deal with the 100 metre line to get into customs because of the strike customs workers were having, even though the line was so long, it did move quite quickly. When we all first saw the line we all thought we weren't going to make our flight, which would of been quite a debacle.

Now I usually sleep pretty well on flights, but this time flying to Los Angeles I only had about 30 minutes worth of sleep. I just couldn't get into a comfortable position. It may have looked like I was asleep for most of the flight since I had my eyes closed and were resting my head on the seat in front, but I can assure you, my attempts to sleep were in vein. Once we landed in Los Angeles we got all our bags and team equipment. The team equipment consisted of 14 boxes, which we probably counted 5 or 6 times to make sure we had all of them.

The flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta wasn't too bad, except for the fact I couldn't sleep again. By this point I was starting to feel like death, my body wanted to go to sleep, but for some reason, the plane was against me again, and I just couldn't get comfortable. So I just stayed up listening to music for 4 hours.

We got to Atlanta, and the first thing I did was get to our gate, and set up camp and fell asleep on the floor. Now when you're extremely tired, you'd be surprised on how comfortable a floor may be. It felt like I slept for about 5 hours on that floor, when really it was probably only about 10 minutes, Nonetheless it was an amazing little nap. Before we boarded the flight I took a sleeping pill to knock me out and on this flight, I actually had a great sleep. Luckily the flight was very empty, so I moved seats and had an entire row to myself. As soon as the captain turned off the 'fasten seat belts' light, I stretched out on the seats and fell asleep for pretty much the entire flight.

When we arrived in Panama we were greeted by a welcoming committee who were playing music and doing some salsa dancing. We got our bags and waited around for someone to tell us something to do. Eventually we all walked upstairs and sat around at a restaurant whilst our bags were being loaded onto a bus. We were at the airport for a little over an hour before we made our way to the Hotel.

Welcoming Committee 

We're staying at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel, and I must say, it is actually very nice, one of the nicer hotels that I have stayed in. Once we got to the hotel, I went to get some food and the only place that was open near the hotel was a small fast food restaurant called Pio Pio. It was pretty hard trying to order since I don't speak spanish, I had to point to what I wanted and even then it was still hard to communicate with the person working at the counter. After I ate I went back to the hotel and jumped straight into bed where I had another great sleep.