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March 14, 2009

Ashley Weinhold in Rome-Pomezia

Ciao!

I’m starting to settle in a little more and get my bearings as my 2nd full day of being here passes. I’m surprised I haven’t been affected by the jet lag or time change. The only thing is when my alarm goes off in the morning I want to sleep for a couple more hours, but that’s pretty normal for me…I like to sleep in!

My hotel room is very simple and like a lot of places in Europe my bed is tiny. I’m not too sure my air conditioning works because it’s awfully stuffy in here right now! Breakfast is actually down the street at the other Hotel Selene that I showed up at by mistake when I first arrived. They put out cereal, yogurt, croissants and I think some meat and cheeses…a bit different from the American eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, pancakes, etc. So far the food has all been good, plenty of pizza and pasta. I’m pretty sure every lunch or dinner I eat here will consist of either pizza or pasta. I walked into town this evening and found a supermarket so I picked up a few things. They have fewer options than Spain! But it seems like there are lots of small specialty shops for meats, cheese, pasta, pastries, etc. There were a lot of people walking on the streets thru town tonight, which is different from most of the places I went to in Spain. I’m on the outskirts of Rome in a town called Pomezia. Hopefully at some point during my trip I will get to go into Rome and do some sightseeing.

So far I’ve had 3 practices and all with different players. The tournament is at a University with only 5 red clay courts which makes for crazy practices. They only have one practice court and are using the remaining 4 courts for matches. Most practice time during the day is 30 minutes on half of a court. During that time you can pretty much bet on other people coming onto your court and trying to take your slot. That’s even with a sign up sheet! It’s important to be purposeful and intense during those small windows of practice. The best time is early morning before matches or late afternoon when all of the matches are finished. At that point you can usually get a whole court and longer practice time. Today I was able to jump on a court for 30mins to warm someone up for their match. Then I waited till 4pm to practice for about 1 ½ hours and finished up my day with some on court fitness/lots of sliding!

The main draw of my 1st tournament starts on Monday. I’ll practice a couple more times tomorrow whenever I can to keep getting used to the courts and everything. The draw and schedule will come out tomorrow night so I’ll be letting you know when and who I play. I better head to bed soon because it’s getting late. Buona notte! (I think that means goodnight) I know even less Italian than Spanish, I better study up!

Posted by Jack Newman at March 14, 2009 4:45 PM