JFK Airport, NYC —Jason Rogers, James Williams and I are off to Budapest, Hungary! This is probably my 8th trip to Budapest and anyone who wants to make a national team in fencing on any level and in any weapon knows that the road usually goes through Budapest! (And the Hotel Stadion of course!)
It’s traditionally one of the hardest competitions and they host a number of Olympic sports in the city each year at their sporting facilities. Ben Igoe and a few other Americans will be joiing us tomorrow.
This is the first Grand Prix for men’s saber this year so we’ll be competing individually as well as in the team event.
Budapest, Hungary Day 1 — After four hours sitting on the plane waiting to take off we finally departed JFK for our 8 hour journey to Hungary. Luckily, the plane wasn’t very full so we each had our own row and got to lay down and sleep for most of the flight. James had actually slept three hours and when he woke up we were still on the ground!
James eating desert in a restaurant near the hotel
Once we arrived we headed to the Hotel Stadion…except in earth shaking news, the hotel Stadion is now the Hotel Arena! Craziness! It’s still exactly the same, but the new name was still shocking. We did a light work out and swan for a bit which we have read is a great activity to help the body recover from a long flight.
We have tomorrow as a rest day, but we’re planning on getting up at 8am which is around the time we will need to get up compete on the following day so we start to get our bodies ready to perform in this time zone. We’re going to take it easy tomorrow, check our equipment and do our best to stay relaxed.
