Hey World!

The last few days here in Chile have been pretty entertaining. We haven’t had a dull moment with having some difficulty with the language barrier at times, trying to navigate through the city with street signs that are very small and sometimes hidden and trying to find a restaurant that will has and will put on the NFL playoffs for us.

The tournament committee continues to set up the site. Banners, tables and chairs are set up and a huge tent is almost up as well. It looks like Coca-Cola and Powerade are the two big sponsors. Below are some pictures.

I am blown away by how Americanized Chile is. They play american music, most movies are in english with spanish subtitles, you can find television channels in english and if they aren’t in english; most likely it is the same shows we watched back home with spanish audio rather than hearing the actual actors in english. At times I forget I am in Chile and not at home.

Yesterday we had 5 out of 6 members of our team here (Alex Lauretano arrives today). After we were done practicing, Adam Pickos, Lauren Morgan and I went into town to watch the first playoff game. Tyler Lawrence, Dylan Schaffer, Dlyan’s parents and a handful of other skiers joined us for the second game. What a game! The Steelers came back in the 4th quarter but Tebow and the Broncos were able to hold off in OT scoring on the first play. By the time the game was over, many skiers had joined us at Ruby Tuesdays and we all decided to go eat at Santa Pizza. Everyone had been talking about this place since I had gotten here so I was glad I was able to try it out. It was great to meet more skiers from Germany, Peru, Columbia and Chile. At dinner, we had 6 countries together: USA, Italy, Columbia, Peru, Chile and Germany.

I took today off to let the body rest and we have team practice tomorrow afternoon. This will be the last practice for me until the prelims start on Thursday. The tournament will be web casted live. I will post the link once they give it to us. Make sure to tune in a watch it!

Tonight, most of our team is going to go watch the BCS National Championship Game. Dylan attends Alabama; so he is very excited to see the game tonight. I watched the first game between these to teams so I am looking forward to see how this game plays out.