The first match I went to takes us back to 2007. Not quite 16 years old, this was only my second year even competing and I was traveling to the World Championships for my first overseas shoot. I don't say that to be arrogant. I say that to illustrate my absolute undeniable, inescapable, unadulterated, TERROR. The photo below is of the full team selected to compete. There are, bare minimum, 3 Olympians in that photo only because Vincent Hancock wouldn't take his first gold for another 2 years at the time of this photo. And then there was me. Naive, "just happy to be here" me.
At each World Championship they have an opening cerimony. I've seen them at world cups as well but to tell you the absolute truth I only know they happen for sure at the championships...don't tell anyone! Anyway, the next photo was taken at the opening ceremony. I remember standing there with all of these great shooters as we were trying to decide who was going to hold the flag and sign for our country when the USA was introduced. They all voted that, that duty would fall on the youngest team members present which turned out to be me and my teammate who was also shooting his first overseas match. We were all lined up in alphabetical order by country and called out as we paraded by. You'll notice that the photo is rather dark because it was taken at night. The ceremony certainly didn't
start at night. We stood there for
hours. BUT the show was so beautiful, time passed by surprisingly quickly. Cypriote officials spoke, there was traditional dancing, and did I bring my camera? No. I was young and stupid, don't judge me.
My dad, stepmom, and sister came with me (great excuse to travel) but got to see much more of the countryside than I did. For me, these things are working vacations. I pretty much have time to see what's from the airport to the hotel, the hotel to the range, and back. As I've gotten older I've made more time for sight seeing but am horrible at remembering to take out my camera so you'll see a lot of photos stol...*ehem borrowed from the internet so you can get a feel for what some of these places look like.
We stayed in a beautiful hotel with cobblestone drives. What mostly excited us was that the beach was just across the street. Of course, I didn't have the sense to snap a picture of "our" beach but this is "a" beach. Cyprus is an island, in case you didn't know. I learned that when I found out I was going there so I thought I would throw that little Snapple fact out. I did go swimming in the Mediterranean Sea and it really is that beautiful color. In the shallows it was more brown but in the deep it turned into that blue that you just can't stop looking at. Coming from Washington, I was waiting for glacier water but found bathtub water. Weirdest thing ever. It was even warm after the drop-off! I did get water splashed in my mouth and feel that if I had tasted anything salty enough to form a metaphor, I would, but to this day I can only duplicate it by having the cap fall of the salt shaker and into your soup.
My teammate Emily and I went down to the beach one day and were spotted by a man who has been called "greasy bo-hunk" ever since. He was a nice guy that somehow knew we were American. It couldn't have been Emily's blonde hair and blue eyes and my light brown hair and green eyes, or the fact that we were the only ones on the entire beach to be in a one piece bathing suite (more on beach nudity after the story). Any way, he sat and talked to us for hours! Would find us on different days, even when we were with my dad. Personally, I think he rather fancied Emily and I'm sure he was just being friendly, but he earned the nickname and so I had to tell the story.
Now, beach nudity. You hear about this a lot because it's not all that common here in the States. Most women in cultures where nude sunbathing is part of the culture do not do so in an inappropriate manner. They will tell you themselves that there is a proper way that is more conservative and it is more of an art. These women don't just skip along the beach in their birthday suit. They sit and don't move. That being said, there are, of course, some exceptions to the rule and they're usually younger, bolder women. The men, however, don't wear swimming trunks like the men do here. It's spedos all the way.
No cars were aloud on the side streets, those were only for foot traffic. I assume there were big parking lots someplace or everyone rode bikes or walked. I pictured all of these little carts selling their wares but found cute shops full of clothes I could afford. The only thing that saved my fantasy of "old Greece" was a group of what appeared to be 300 year old men playing some kind of game on a small table along the sidewalk. There was an area for smaller vendors and in it, we passed a man who heard us speaking to one another. He stopped my sister and said in a thick and excited British accent, "Are you American?!" Loni replied, "Yes, we are..." to which the man said, "Oh don't worry, I love America! I love Americans!!" See? We're still loved!
This is just a photo borrowed from the internet of some of the ruins you would see if you traveled outside of the city. My dad, stepmom, and Loni got to see wooden doors older than our country. From what they said, it got much more traditional as you went further away from town. They saw people hand-crafting silver filigree, ancient amphitheaters, I wonder what the chances are of Maximus walking those steps (insert sigh of adoration here)? (P.S. one of my absolute favorite movies is Gladiator, can you tell?)
After seeing those ruins, we come back to TGI Fridays. You may be disappointed to know that some countries have more American brands than we do.
You know how we like to crank the AC when it gets too hot? Yeah. No one else thinks that's necessary. So there really was no way to truly cool off. What about a cold bottle of water? Sorry, refrigeration is only to keep food to the point that it won't kill you if you eat it. How hot is that? Well, the cheese on my sandwich was still sweating. And that's exactly what I ate the entire trip. Sweaty sandwiches washed down with cold-ish water. But thank goodness for those sandwiches because we used them to attract flies to feed our new little friends!
At the range there were olive trees EVERYWHERE. They were planted as shade trees for the competitors. You know what hangs out in olive trees? Baby comeleons!!! Cutest little guys ever! My teammate Todd would sit there with our coach's binoculars and spot them in our shade tree so we could catch them. Once we caught them, one of us would let it sit on our finger near the sandwich that had been repurposed as fly bait until our quarry landed for a nice snack of sweaty cheese. It was the best thing to watch those little wandering eyes lock in one direction on that fly. Then that little tongue would start to work around in its mouth and quick as a blink it would shoot out and grab that fly! They were full after one or two so we had to put them back in the tree and scope out another.
I ended up shooting 63/75 (not bad for a newbie, but I wouldn't want to shoot that score now) which earned me 9th place in the Juniors. Our Junior Women's team took a team silver and many of my teammates took individual medals. Overall it was a great first match!
