a long and very fun 10 days is coming to an end. i am very excited to be home, but i dont want to leave! me familia told me that i could stay for another month so if i dont make it on the plane you will know where i am! the cabanas, the family that i stayed with, are some of the most amazing people ive ever met. every night we became closer friends and even with the very interesting spanish food that was served, every dinner was amazing! swimming with club natacio sabadell has been an amazing experience and being coached by coach albert and coach eloi has been awesome! also swimming with swim mac has been da bomb! i have made many friends from both mac and club natacio and im very sad that we have to leave.
today was a very relaxing and enjoyable day. being our last day, we got to do anything we wanted in barcelona. so, just like yesterday, logan, peter, juan rrrrrico miguel, and i walked around the city with the australian accents. im not very good at it so i was their friend from america. even though we were in spain, we ate lunch at burger king, and we ran into a very nice waitor. he liked us so much that he gave us refills and even called me beautiful! after the exciting lunch, we walked around the city and ran into a very nice lady working at the ice cream stand. throughout the week, logan and juan miguel fell in love with a popsickle called a twister. so we went to the stand to buy one. but this stand didnt have them. this caused us to begin a very nice conversation to the girl in the stand. after a few minutes of talking it seemed that this girl looked like she liked us (probably because of the aussie accents). it became a little creepy and we left the stand, but were happy with the ice cream and our new friend. but the best thing that happened today was that i found my new girlfriends (the turbo girls from the swim meet) on facebook! so now i can keep in touch with them even though im across the ocean!
see everyone in jville tomorrow night!
¡adiòs!
Ian Manzana
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Adios Mateyyys!
I guess this here be the end to our wild and crazy adventure in the great country of españa! yet it was quite an amazing trip, in which i made me self a few mateys along the way, including my spanish family and a couple of little buggers on the swim MAC team! today was a great way to end an already great trip, by just running around and shopping and doing whatever in barcelona. i met me a couple of beauts that were quite friendly, and the family i stayed with had to be some of the nicest people i have ever met before! i would just like to thank all of club sabadell and coach sergio and coach jon for putting this great trip together, and i cant wait for me mateys from MAC to come swim in a meet at the bolles pool. Also i cant wait for the club sabadell guys to come visit us in the U.S it should be great amounts of fun
well i had an amazing time and thank you coaches for everything
see everyone soon!
p.s. everything i just said should be read in an australian accent :)
peace out mateeyyyyyyyys!
well i had an amazing time and thank you coaches for everything
see everyone soon!
p.s. everything i just said should be read in an australian accent :)
peace out mateeyyyyyyyys!
ONE MORE THING!
I FORGOT!! Thank you so much Coach Jon!!!!!! You were awesome to have for the first 6 days of the trip!! So happy you got to come!!! See you thursday!
Taylor
Taylor
Thank You!
Hola! (for the last time)
Today was a fun, tiring, and very sad day. It started off with a pretty hard practice but then we went shopping! Dana, Casey, and I had so much fun shopping in Barcelona, eating an incredible lunch, and then getting our gelato at the last minute and having to run a mile to meet everyone. We headed to the pool and thankfully practice was not too bad! I am at my house now, packing unfortunately and about to have my last Spanish, family dinner! :(
I would just like to say though, that this trip has been absolutley amazing! It has been so fun, and so educating! Living and training with people from a different country has taught me so much and just made me realize so many things in my life and how thankful i should be! I first want to thank my parents, most importantly, for paying for me to come here, it really has been amazing! Coach Sergio, thank you so much for planning all this and dealing with us for the past ten days, your the best coach ever!!! :) Coach Stephanie, thank you so much for coming with us while your husband was in the US for the first time in a while, and Mrs. Bryan thank you for everything: the pictures, helping us with anything we needed, and taking us to the beach! I thank all the coaching staff at Sabadell so so so much! And lastly I thank my host family for having me, for preparing meals for me, and for providing me with a place to stay. I cannot describe in words how much fun this trip has been! It has definelty been an experience that I will remember the rest of my life and I will miss Spain so much!
Thank you to all!!!
See you guys tomorrow!
Taylor
P.S. Thanks to all the swimmers for making the trip so much fun and memorable!
Today was a fun, tiring, and very sad day. It started off with a pretty hard practice but then we went shopping! Dana, Casey, and I had so much fun shopping in Barcelona, eating an incredible lunch, and then getting our gelato at the last minute and having to run a mile to meet everyone. We headed to the pool and thankfully practice was not too bad! I am at my house now, packing unfortunately and about to have my last Spanish, family dinner! :(
I would just like to say though, that this trip has been absolutley amazing! It has been so fun, and so educating! Living and training with people from a different country has taught me so much and just made me realize so many things in my life and how thankful i should be! I first want to thank my parents, most importantly, for paying for me to come here, it really has been amazing! Coach Sergio, thank you so much for planning all this and dealing with us for the past ten days, your the best coach ever!!! :) Coach Stephanie, thank you so much for coming with us while your husband was in the US for the first time in a while, and Mrs. Bryan thank you for everything: the pictures, helping us with anything we needed, and taking us to the beach! I thank all the coaching staff at Sabadell so so so much! And lastly I thank my host family for having me, for preparing meals for me, and for providing me with a place to stay. I cannot describe in words how much fun this trip has been! It has definelty been an experience that I will remember the rest of my life and I will miss Spain so much!
Thank you to all!!!
See you guys tomorrow!
Taylor
P.S. Thanks to all the swimmers for making the trip so much fun and memorable!
Monday, June 8, 2009
Livin the life Aussie style!
Man oh man oh man! where do i even begin with this day, it started off great and ended even better! we all met up at the pool, but DIDNT have to swim. Then we caught the train to segrada familia, one of the nicest cathedrals i have ever seen, even though i have only seen two ha. after that coach sergio and coach stephanie had to leave us to go to a special lunch back at the club, i still dont understand why i wasnt invited, but i got to go to the beach along with everyone else. This day was probably one of the best days, as soon as we got to the beach all the guys stripped down into there speedos with not a care in the world that we were at a public beach and everyone could see us! a little later on logan, peter and I decided we would walk down the beach and try to find some mamacitas so we acted like we were from france and spoke some random gerberish that sounded french haha i guess you would have to be there. After this we went back to where we were all sitting and we met up with mi manzana a.k.a ian apple and matt schlytter and we went to get some lunch, lunch today was very interesting ian and logan and matt all got sodas which were 2.50 euros which is almost 5 dollars in america and when the cokes came out they werent even half the size of a coke back home, to top off them being mad mi manzana was trying to talk to the waiter in spanish when all along he knew english and got mad at ian. After lunch we went for another stroll on the beach this time we went a little father and acted like we were from australia this is where the fun began. We talked to just about everyone we could in an australian accent, we chased pigeons to see who could catch one first and we climbed a 25 foot rope structure and stood at the top with everyone watching, there was much more we did but i dont really know how to explain it but it was really funny! and we got to see something you wouldnt normally see on a beach in U.S. Later on we made our way back to everyone, where we noticed all the girls were trying to make a pyramid by stacking themselves on top of each other, they couldnt really do it, but of course the boys could cause we are just awesome like that. this was pretty much the end of our time at the beach, we caught the train back to sabdell we swam and then went home with our families. I'm kinda sad tomorow is our last day but it will be fun atleast for the girls since they get to go on a major shopping spree.
until next time, im out
yours truly, juan miguel RRRrrricooooo hayes
until next time, im out
yours truly, juan miguel RRRrrricooooo hayes
sun and gelato...nothin better
Hola Families in Jacksonville,
Today was probably one of the most fun days of our trip. We grabbed our bikinis and towels and headed to the beach! It was pretty cloudy, but somehow everyone seemed to get fried. Some girls and I were really hungry so we wanted to eat right away, but the place we chose didn´t open till 1, so we hung out on the beach with our lovely tan lines until then. As we were laying out, I am pretty sure that atleast 10 chinese ladies asked us if we would like a 5 euro massage, which Kendall almost said yes to, until we quickly told them we were not interested. Anyways, lunch was amazing, although rather pricy, totally worth it! Not to mention that it was American food. Ellie also found out the Caesar dressing is made with anchovies, I am not sure that she really enjoyed finding that out. After lunch, we headed out for some gelato/adventure. I am not sure if yall are aware, but some people in Spain walk around in the complete nude. I have nothing more to say on that issue. We ultimately found the best gelato plus about 100 more shops we saw on the way back. I was not really counting...but I am pretty sure I had 4 scoops of gelato today. Anyways, we then cut over a few blocks and found ourselves in an adorable part of Barcelona filled with resturants, surf shops, and cute houses. Eventually, we made it back to the beach in time to step into the Mediterranean Sea for the first time and take a picture of it! Today was filled with sun and gelato...whats better than that?
I cannot believe that our time is Spain is closing, I even started packing tonight! It has been an amazing experience and I look foward to having all of the Sabadell swimmers come to Jacksonville sometime!
But, tomorrow we are shopping till we drop, so parents be prepared.
See everyone very very soon
MTA
Casey
Today was probably one of the most fun days of our trip. We grabbed our bikinis and towels and headed to the beach! It was pretty cloudy, but somehow everyone seemed to get fried. Some girls and I were really hungry so we wanted to eat right away, but the place we chose didn´t open till 1, so we hung out on the beach with our lovely tan lines until then. As we were laying out, I am pretty sure that atleast 10 chinese ladies asked us if we would like a 5 euro massage, which Kendall almost said yes to, until we quickly told them we were not interested. Anyways, lunch was amazing, although rather pricy, totally worth it! Not to mention that it was American food. Ellie also found out the Caesar dressing is made with anchovies, I am not sure that she really enjoyed finding that out. After lunch, we headed out for some gelato/adventure. I am not sure if yall are aware, but some people in Spain walk around in the complete nude. I have nothing more to say on that issue. We ultimately found the best gelato plus about 100 more shops we saw on the way back. I was not really counting...but I am pretty sure I had 4 scoops of gelato today. Anyways, we then cut over a few blocks and found ourselves in an adorable part of Barcelona filled with resturants, surf shops, and cute houses. Eventually, we made it back to the beach in time to step into the Mediterranean Sea for the first time and take a picture of it! Today was filled with sun and gelato...whats better than that?
I cannot believe that our time is Spain is closing, I even started packing tonight! It has been an amazing experience and I look foward to having all of the Sabadell swimmers come to Jacksonville sometime!
But, tomorrow we are shopping till we drop, so parents be prepared.
See everyone very very soon
MTA
Casey
good day mate!
¡Hola!
being in spain has been one of the most amazing experiences ever! living with a bunch of spanish people has been tough but muy muy fun! im glad that ellie and i got to live in the same house because when the rest of the familia(the spanish family) started speaking spanish, i had someone to go talk to! however i have learned quite a few new words in spanish. actually i think ive learned more spanish here than i did in spanish class this year! jk!
swimming in an international meet was amazing! getting the opportunity to swim with some of the fastest swimmers in the world was definitly an unforgettable experience. during the meet i swam pretty good and got best times in both of my events! but the best part of the meet was meeting my new girlfriends: the turbo girls! during the first finals session i was being some what of a creeper and took a picture of the girls without them knowing. but on the second day i got a picture with all of them and i made 5 new girlfriends! i also met cullen jones and mark gangloff (us olympians from swim mac) and got to take pictures of cullen, ciesar, and fred after the 50 freestyle with cullens camera!
saturday night the familia took my parents out to dinner. we went to a very interesting resturant that was on a farm. it was good but when i saw a very dark salchicha on my plate i became a little concerned. but im always up to try new things. so i took a bight and almost threw up. little did i know it was made up of really grose parts of an animal. on our way out of the resturant we noticed that there wernt any rabbits in the cage (there were 5 or 6 in there when we got there) and realized that we probably ate those rabbits for dinner!
today we went to la playa! (beach). all of the guys were rockin their colorful speedos and quickly ran away from the girls so we didnt have to be seen with them and their horrible tan lines! me, logan, peter, and juan miguel ran around talking in austrailian accents and got many complements on our georgous swimmer bods and sexy speedos!
now we only have one more day in españa and i am very excited to be back home but at the same time am going to miss mì familia, and living with ellie (sike!). be aware that i might talk with some what of a spanish accent when i get home!
adiós!
Ian Manzana!
being in spain has been one of the most amazing experiences ever! living with a bunch of spanish people has been tough but muy muy fun! im glad that ellie and i got to live in the same house because when the rest of the familia(the spanish family) started speaking spanish, i had someone to go talk to! however i have learned quite a few new words in spanish. actually i think ive learned more spanish here than i did in spanish class this year! jk!
swimming in an international meet was amazing! getting the opportunity to swim with some of the fastest swimmers in the world was definitly an unforgettable experience. during the meet i swam pretty good and got best times in both of my events! but the best part of the meet was meeting my new girlfriends: the turbo girls! during the first finals session i was being some what of a creeper and took a picture of the girls without them knowing. but on the second day i got a picture with all of them and i made 5 new girlfriends! i also met cullen jones and mark gangloff (us olympians from swim mac) and got to take pictures of cullen, ciesar, and fred after the 50 freestyle with cullens camera!
saturday night the familia took my parents out to dinner. we went to a very interesting resturant that was on a farm. it was good but when i saw a very dark salchicha on my plate i became a little concerned. but im always up to try new things. so i took a bight and almost threw up. little did i know it was made up of really grose parts of an animal. on our way out of the resturant we noticed that there wernt any rabbits in the cage (there were 5 or 6 in there when we got there) and realized that we probably ate those rabbits for dinner!
today we went to la playa! (beach). all of the guys were rockin their colorful speedos and quickly ran away from the girls so we didnt have to be seen with them and their horrible tan lines! me, logan, peter, and juan miguel ran around talking in austrailian accents and got many complements on our georgous swimmer bods and sexy speedos!
now we only have one more day in españa and i am very excited to be back home but at the same time am going to miss mì familia, and living with ellie (sike!). be aware that i might talk with some what of a spanish accent when i get home!
adiós!
Ian Manzana!
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