September 12th, 2007

We have been in Baku a couple of days now, and so far it has been a pretty good one. It is pretty hot here during the day, but fortunately for us we have some great air conditioning in our hotel rooms. We were out in the heat today as we traveled through the downtown area. Brad Vering, Coach Fraser, Coach Antonelli, and myself all spent some time looking at the shops and stores downtown. We ate at one of the local restaurants, and I was pretty impressed with the food. I had some great lamb kebap and a nice crepe and icecream desert.
The reason we were walking around downtown today is because we have the day off from training. At this point in time we are really just resting a lot to get ready for the tournament. The last couple of days we wrestled a match in the morning and then hit the sauna in the afternoon. One of the days we went to a sauna that had dry saunas, turkish saunas, and steam rooms. It was a really nice facility, and I felt good when I was finished. I thought that I was going to get a massage, but it ended up being this guy scrubbing me down with some kind of rough rag. The whole time that he did it I was thinking, “It will be okay because I will get a nice relaxing massage soon.” That time never came and I ended up itching the rest of the night. At least I know now never to do that again. Yesterday we went to a sauna at the Radisson hotel here in town. It was a very nice facility as well, and I am glad that we went. They had treadmills, weights, a swimming pool, and a sauna. I got a little run in and a couple sets with some dumbells. After that, I relaxed in the sauna and the pool.
I know that sometimes these posts are a little sporadic, but I forget to write about things from time to time. For example, I forgot to write about our little trip to the beach today after lunch downtown.  We hired a taxi to drive us down to the beach. We didn’t get in the water or anything like that. Jay said that Baku’s port in the caspian sea is the most ecologically damaged one in the world. The scary part about that is that the water actually looked pretty clean and clear. As we drove to the beach we passed numerous oil wells. There were pumps all over the place right next to the sea that were just pumping away. There are also huge oil tankers here as well as bunch of other cargo ships. It was really interesting to see that so up close and personal. The traffic was a lot better today on our trip than it was yesterday. Yesterday we must have spent at least four hours on a bus and in a van just to get to and from practice. It was a real nightmare. The coaches are looking into ways to make things more convenient for us though when it is time to weigh in and wrestle. The facilities aren’t even that far away, but the traffic is horrendous. It is the maybe the worst traffic that I have seen in the world. One way streets somehow turned into two way streets, and drivers don’t even recognize the white lines on the road as being any type of guideline. During rush hour it is absolute craziness. We saw several people and police officers get out of their vehicles to scream at each other about their poor driving. It was unreal. I wish that I would have had a video camera with me at the time to get a glimpse of it to share with .everyone.
I am feeling great right now. I have been sleeping through the night very well for the last two nights, and I feel like I am getting well adjusted to the time zone here. I still find myself getting a little tired and cranky in the afternoons, but I am getting better and better about that everyday. The time here has been going by pretty fast. I am looking forward to when we weigh in on Monday and finally get to wrestle on Tuesday. The freestyle team got here the other night so they are here with us in the same hotel. I haven’t seen any other teams get here yet other than Moldova’s freestyle team. I am sure that these next couple of days though that things will start to get a little crazy around here with the other teams showing up. That is usually the way things go.
I hope everyone back home is doing well and having a good time doing whatever you are doing. Take care