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RHIAN'S SOCCER JOURNALS:

TOURNAMENT TIME ARRIVES March 30, 2008

First, a very happy birthday to KK!

We left California this morning for El Paso, Texas, and then on to Mexico: Tournament time has arrived.

We had a well scheduled departure. It's too bad though that things don’t always run as smoothly as they should on paper. The plan was to start loading at 9:00am so that we would be good and ready for our 10:00 am departure. This almost worked out, except for the fact we had too many bags traveling with us, and the luggage compartments were full. So, we left the hotel on time, but instead of the nice comfortable seating we had predicted, we were wedged in like sardines with bags filling every spare bit of room available.

Some minibuses were worse than others and some people’s seating arrangements were not good at all. A special shout should therefore go to Brit. She traveled the whole way into L.A with a bag balanced precariously behind her head and another packed on her side, forcing her to keep her head at an angle the entire trip.

We had not been going for more than 5 minutes before we pulled over for a Starbucks stop. As a non coffee drinker I find these stops laborious and time consuming at the best of times. Today though was even worse. No one wants to prolong being in discomfort … that is unless you’re a coffee addict. However, our coffee fiends soon had their caffeine fixes - they were well fixed with large cups - and then we were back on the road.

Our next incident was the closure of the highway heading to the airport. We were a little tight on time already, courtesy of the coffee addicts, so now we really needed to move quickly. Fortunately, Les had his little palm pilot at the ready and he soon had a new route planned out for us. However, there was another time-consuming problem. Now we had to wait for the caffeine junkies to void their bladders. Much to our manager’s chagrin we had to pull over for a good ten minutes.

The intended bathroom was unfortunately locked and barred, and the owners had obviously been forewarned of our impending arrival. Thank goodness for a nearby car dealership where our sweet talking ladies negotiated access to their washrooms. However, this was not before they had scared a young clerk working there so badly that he walked right into a fridge - guess they don’t get many women in there.

Our actual arrival at the airport went more smoothly than anyone could have predicted. It was a good thing, We are all pretty decent at the teamwork thing, and we were soon through security screening, and waiting at our gate for boarding, it ended up being a pretty smooth trip after all. I had predicted a missed flight, but I was wrong.

On the flight, I spoke to the lady sitting next to me, and she managed to scare me pretty badly about the place where we were now heading. She had quite the stories. I have decided to take what she had to say with some reservations, although I know the newspapers have similar articles. I am reassured, that judging by 4 inch heels she was wearing, we probably don't frequent the same types of establishments, especially on a soccer trip.

There are obviously some pretty bad things going on in Juarez at the moment, and the fallout from a drug war, but I am not going to make any comment until I actually see the place and experience it.

We have important issues of our own. Training starts tomorrow, and there is talk that this will take place at the University of El Paso, just across the border. We will see. The flight into El Paso was a bumpy one, but apparently this is common because of the heat. No offense to El Paso residents, but I could do without this and I will try my best never to go through that bumpy landing experience again!

The border crossing was not something any of us were looking forward to. However, the good news is that we barely slowed down at the crossing and were soon pulling into our hotel on the Mexican side. An interesting bit of information for everyone is the fact that even though El Paso is an hour ahead of L.A., Juarez is not. I can only guess that this is going to be a matter of much confusion, if not for the team then definitely for me!

So far everything about Juarez has been great. The people have been fantastic, the hotel is really good, the food is pretty decent and there are even some English channels on the television - great news for all.