Last night became interesting about 6:00pm, when all three of the toilets in our suite decided to stop working. We accessed our plumbing skills and worked out that by filling the cistern with water from the taps, we could get the semblance of a flush. However, this small victory was soon lost when the water stopped running from the taps. Not much fun!

There was some element of poetic justice as we had been mocking the the other athletes' suite because of the foul smell in their rooms and the mess of clothes and belongings. It turned out though, that we REALLY needed them yesterday. Thank you officially to my teammates who allowed us to use their bathroom and rooms. It was very big of them.

The coaching staff gave us today off from practice and we really really needed this generosity. I didn’t think I was that fatigued and tired, but I slept for almost 10 hours straight last night and everyone else did the same. We all crawled out of bed at about the same time and laughed at one another in the hall. Almost everyone on the squad had pillow marks down their faces.

We spent a quiet day all in all, with a light pool workout in the afternoon as the only even to interrupt our resting. Cesar took us through the hydrotherapy pool routine. The workout was a little harder than expected because of an unforeseen eventuality. The pool was deeper than expected. I am 5’ 5" and I was at my very limit of my tip toes and breathing ability; the rest of my shorter teammates were reduced to standing on the pool steps for the workout.

In the afternoon  a few of us headed to the athlete village’s busy Starbucks store and the coffee tasted delicious. It was a good break from the mess hall type cafeteria. Obviously, we didn’t eat at the  Starbucks, but just being in a different atmosphere was nice without having to queue for half an hour was pleasant.

Tomorrow we start competing. I am really looking forward to the matches. With this in mind, tonight's plans consist of watching Criminal Minds on TV and another early night. Our match meeting tomorrow starts at 7:45 am!