We found the best Gelato EVER.

Today was an amazing day! We went to see the Sagrada Familia, which is absolutely insane and huge! And it is still being worked on... after being under construction for the past two centuries! Crazy, I know! Then we headed to the beach in the Olympic Village in Barcelona. At first it was very cold and cloudy and we were all very disappointed but after sitting on the beach for a good 30 minutes and after about ten ladies came by and asked us if we wanted massages, it finally got sunny and hot! It was so beautiful! Some of the girls, Mrs. Bryan, and I found the perfect place for lunch. It was very expensive, being that my water was 5 euros where the coke was 3 euros (have you ever heard of such thing), but the food was amazing! After we had lunch we all really wanted gelato.

Since we only have two more days, now one more day :(, we are loading up on the gelato. Aubrey, Casey, Jen, Dana, and I decided to go on a hunt to find an incredible gelato place. We asked this nice frenchie and he told us there was a really good place about ten minutes away. So we went on a nice long walk and ended up getting to the cutest part of the village. We found the most amazing ice cream place ever. It had turning wheels of ice cream! It was so good and plus we got a picture with the Italian owner after. After we finished our ice cream we decided to continue walking all around the village, running into about three other amazing gelato places. We seriously had hit the jack pot in ice cream! Today was an awesome day! Sangrada Familia, beach, gelato and a not so bad practice was awesome! We only have one more day, but we are spending it in Barcelona and doing some shopping! We are all very excited about that!
See you guys soon!
Taylor

So Far So Good - "Thanks!"

It has been a “Fantastic Week” so far here in Spain and I am very proud of everyone here with the way they have carried themselves so far. "Thanks!" The families of Sabadell are very happy with each one of our kids and they have loved every minute of this experience and I think the same for our swimmers. These past two days at the competition it was neat to see the three teams cheering for the same swimmers as if we were one team. Cullen Jones at the end of the meet came over to us (Sabadell-SwimMac-Bolles) and thanked the swimmers for the great energy that they gave him before the race, it make him feel very good to hear us cheer.

The meet went well for all of us; we had some great swims and some not so great but at the end of the day I can say with pride that our “Mission” was accomplished. I believe that the opportunity that we had to watch so many world class swimmers from so many different countries has been an eye opening and an incredible experience for our kids. At the end Dave Marsh had Ian Pope (one of the greatest All-Time Australian coaches) talk to our group about his swimmers (Grant Hackett, Michael Klim, Matt Welsh, etc..) and how strong mentally they were and gave us some examples of what they did and what mae them great. It was amazing and hopefully something that our swimmers will take with them and really think about it to help them with their lives.

Personally I am very happy with everything that we have been able to experience and also watching our swimmers enjoying every single day. I sure hope that this is the beginning of a strong relationship between the three clubs and that we can keep providing this type of experiences to our swimmers for many years to come. Swimming fast is very important since we work very hard and we are in a competitive sport but at the end the only things that really will last forever are the great relationships and experiences that we are able to have throughout our lives and I have no doubt that this experience has marked our swimmers (in a positive way) and hopefully they will keep the friendships that they have created for many years.

These past two days at the meet I have been able to see many of my friends that I had the privilege to train, compete and travel with as a youngster and that I have not seen for 10-15 even 20 years and I am really thankful. Life goes by so fast that we forget how many wonderful experiences we have been able to share with so many different people and how much they have helped us become the person that we are right now. It has been overwhelming going back to my past as a swimmer and I want to thank you all for giving me this chance to be here where I grew up as a swimmer and as a person as your coach.

We still have two full days ahead of us before we come back home and I have no doubt that they will be full of great emotions and memories. I know that I will be coming home being more thankful for the great life I have been able to experience with the good and that not so good moments and also ready to keep moving forward and experience many more as a father and coach. I hope that all of you back home are enjoying this blog and see you soon ;-)

Coach Sergio

Coach Sergio: ´´It´s the Spanish Way of Life``

Today marks the first week the team and I have been in Spain. What a quick week! First let me start with the plane ride here. The five hour layover was miserable! But the eight hour flight was even worse because of many reasons. One, we were all too excited to actually be going to Spain. Two, we had ten hours to learn Catalan-their language. Three, Kendall sat behind me on the entire flight and her knees broke my spine in half. And finally five, what were we going to do, see, make, live, eat in Spain? Before you knew it, the plane was landing and we all looked like we were walking out of being in a coffin for eight hours not to mention I think at this point we had been awake for almost twenty hours. But hey, were teenagers, were invincible, we´ll just put on fresh makeup and sunglasses and were good to go! Forget about the six hour time change. We were so awake, Coach Sergio even made us go for a quick swim straight off the flight! Thanks Coach Sergio :) Even better, after we would walk a so called ten minute walk turned into twenty minute walk to eat lunch, we had to walk back to the pool and do the real practice.....practice makes perfect. After practice, it was time to meet our host families who were more than happy to meet us. But everything worked out so well that we knew some of our host before he called out our names because the girls who couldnt wait to meet us came and introduced themselves to us while we were changing! So then it was names being called and luggage being moved and we were on our own for the first night in a different country to live with people who barely speak english and who we have never met before in our lives.....EXCITING. I personally love oppurtunities like this and being in situations that we were in because its thrilling, the anticipation.
So my first night....
I am staying with another boy named Logan from SwimMac team along with our host family. The dad who i call Papi is Jordi. The mother is Theresa aka Mama. And my brother Jan!! and my sister Claudia!! We all live together. The father speaks perfect english. The mother speaks a little english and Jan and Claudia speak perfect english. LUCKY US! For dinner we had spanish tortillas and jamon serrano (ham) and something like fried yam. The food was VERY different but nonetheless filling and not bad at all! At dinner we quickly got to know each other: names, where are you from, how old are you, what do you swim, where do you work, is practice going to be hard etc. We all linked perfectly and we all have a great relationship with each other to this day, almost like a real family. Now it was time to pack get some sleep finally and prepare for our first morning practice and a day in the life of a Spaniard! But while I was packing my bag, I noticed medals and trophies all over Claudia´s room. I thought to myself ``hmm this girl is awesome, wonder what her times are like?´´ Turns out, she is the European champion in the 800 free, 400 free and 400 IM!......she´s 14 years old! Wow! Maybe Coach Sergio is trying to inspire me........
Morning practice
So morning practice aka try to kill Ashley workout. To be honest, I sprinted the entire practice.....just to keep up. First thing learnt, sprint warmup, main set, and warm down when swimming with a spanish team. Something else funny, the people in my lane do not speak one word of english. When I said, `` No please you go Im dead!!´´ they mistook it for `` Hey can i go before you?´´ So one by one they let me in front of them........my plan: don´t get in their way, don´t get lapped, swim faster faster faster! Estoy loca! Finally practice is done, Im done. And now to laugh at the group of people on our team who have to do our practice one hour after us because it depends on your host when you swim. But im too tired to laugh so Ill just go change and eat the breakfast my mama made for me :)
Journey to Barcelona, Lessups, and Sabadell
So our journeys to Barcelona and Sabadell and Lessups have all been incredible sight seeing adventures. Coach Sergio did a great job not making us feel like tourist with just putting us on a tour bus, but instead making us walk, go on our own to look around and actually experience it for ourselves. We could take whatever pictures we wanted, where we wanted, buy something for our families(at home and in Spain) or something we wanted to try..which turned out to be ALOT OF GELATTI ICE CREAM AND CHOCOLATE. Although, I dont think its a good idea for us to leave Taylor shopping on her own....she may just get arrested.....oh wait she did. Well we learned our lesson. As for me, shopping went well! I bought a new bikini bottom........
Spain is a beautiful country. The buildings are unique, as to the language and tradition.
Mare Norstrum Swim Meet
Well personally, I swam awful. But hey, who cares when you can watch people like Cullen Jones, Frederick Bousquet, Cesar Cielo, Aubrey Peacock :), Tamara Wadgymar go girl, Lauren Neidigh wohoo (some girls who finalled) and so on you get my point. The experience is amazing and worthwhile. Many records broken at this meet! We also bonded with the club we train with even more because they travelled with us! Speaking of travelling with, my family is close with Lauren´s and Aubrey´s family so we went out for dinner and shopping one night. Tomorrow night after our Beach day!!, our family is having a small ´´dinner`` aka party for the girls who have no host families and are living in the hotel along with Aubrey, Lauren, Matt and then Peter from SwimMac.
I cannot believe that this week has gone by soooo fast. I love everything that has happened on this trip. Its amazing to watch the way these people live and interact and so forth. You know, writing this blog isnt easy because you cant describe how this trip really is. I think you have to have a hands on experience to understand what we are feeling. Our last three days, we will make the best of it because here is where we find lasting friendships and build lasting relationships, with other swimmers, coaches, and people in general. I laugh everytime I hear Coach Sergio say, `` hey guys, its the spanish way of life´´ because now, I know what he means. This trip so far has been a cultural eye opener(good thing). To sum up our journey so far.....its the spanish way of life. Just agree with Coach Sergio, he knows his stuff.

An International Experience

Hello!

As all of you may know, we all competed in an international swim meet this weekend. For many of us this was our first international meet and it was an amazing experience. Seeing the different swimmers from all around the world, the different techniques and the way they were as a team was remarkable. Although we were not the fastest at the meet, it was a good learning experience. And it was neat to see some of the best swimmers in the world compete. Many of us had a chance to talk with some of them, including Cullen Jones, Cesar Cielo, Mark ( i dont know how to spell his last name), and many of the others. Getting advice from them was awesome. At the end of the meet the Australian Coach talked with us about who he has coached and what type of swimmers they were, dedicated and very self-confident. Cullen told us some of his techniques he uses at practice when he wants to go faster and how emotion really controls how you swim.

On top of seeing the best in the world compete and getting advice from them, I think we all had a really good time. Many of the girls had quite a time "sightseeing", if thats what you would like to call it, at the meet and I know the guys did that as well. There were some good races and some bad but the whole point of the meet was a learning experience and seeing how the fastest in the world swam. Getting into warm ups this morning, which I might say is a very hard thing to do with a million people swimming in only 8 lanes and many of them much bigger and scarier, I realized that although we weren´t the fastest at the meet and there were many others much faster than us and did not know who we were, we were all there doing the same thing: trying to swim at our best and be better than before. All of us, from around the world, were in the same pool trying to achieve the same goal (becoming better, faster) which when you look at it that way I think it is a very neat thing.

I have had a blast so far and am sad that our last days are approaching. We are going to the Cathedral and the beach tomorrow! It should be another fantastic day! Hope all is well! And see you soon!
Adios
Taylor

Rrrricooo here! today was muy muy ¡muy fabuloso! we got up early (as usual) and headed to la piscina (pool) it is a pretty nice pool and people seem to swim fast in, but we´ll see just how fast i can swim in it since i didnt get to swim, but goodjob to everyone who did swim today!
when we first go ther me and mi Manzana (ian apple) saw cullen jones sitting with the MAC guys so we decided to head on over and talk to him a little bit, we told him that we were up and coming rappers and he said he wanted to listen to our music. so Mi Manzana went and grabbed his ipod and gave it to cullen, cullen listened and cullen liked very much he gave us some negative feed back but he critiqued us honestly and said we have the heart to be the next eminems, but to be completely honest i already knew we did ha just kidding but seriously it was sweet, to have an olmypian athlete tell you, your song is hottttttt! is cool.
being at a meet like this is probably one of the gratest experiences a swimmer can have besides the olympics, especially for someone like me who has never been out of the country, and when i do go it is to go all the way to spain is awesome, and getting to see all the different ways that all the different countries prepar themselves for their races is amazing! this trip has gone by so fast, but i am doing my best to enjoy every minute of it cause there are only 4 days left. but we dont have to think of it that way lets just have some fun while we are here :)

p.s for all the guys out there the ladies in espana es muy que rrrrricoooo

It was a hill not a mountain, taylor, you are just jealous because i beat you up the hill and did not break a sweat. Anyways, today being my last day i figured i would write one more blog. my time in spain has been awesome and i look forward to coming back again in the future. i was worried for a while when we talked about the trip that i may not get to go because of swim camp. turns out i worried for nothing other than i come back a little earlier than everyone else. that is okay because i did get to visit and experience the joy of Catalonia. I will definately go back again.

Today we went to see one of the most famous soccer stadiums in the world. it was impressive, i can only imagine what it would be like to play in that stadium with 105,000 crazed yet passionate soccer fans cheering for or against you, plus who knows how many watching on tv. must be awesome.

the competition pool is not bad but seeing a lot of the top swimmers in the world was impressive. though many of them swim only the 50 and 100, which means it is easier to qualify in the longer events.

it is sad that i must leave but my wife and kids are dying to have me back home. the little ones have been counting down the days till daddy gets home. i am excited about going home and seeing the family but will never forget the amazing time i had here in Catalonia.

i hope all the rest of the swimmers and sergio get back safely and have a great time for the duration of the trip.

good bye for now, until the next blog.

Juan Miguel´s Queer Eye for a Straight Guy

John Michael wanted me to tell yall that he found the cutest guy at the swim meet from Norway. Juan Miguel (John Michael´s name) said not only does he have the perfect tan, but also the perfect blonde hair. We (Jess, Ellie, and me) all agree and think Rico (John Michael´s other spanish name) should go on the show, queer eye for a straight guy.

Sorry for making you read this irrelevant blog.
adios, casey