Rebecca Sobel Blog From the Maccabi Games: First Entry

First entry from Sobel:

It's hard to believe that we've been here for almost a week now, especially when it feels more like one long, fun day with random intervals of sleep thrown in. This is my excuse for not having written anything earlier- I've barely had a minute to breathe. Today we had practice at 5:00 AM so I have a couple of free hours (bittersweet). Every day we have a practice in the morning, although its usually at a more reasonable hour. After practice, we rush back to the hotel, jump in the shower, and scamper out to the buses which take us out to explore a different part of Israel every day.

The field hockey team shares a bus with the swim team- which includes none other than Jason Lezak, Olympic gold medalist extraordinaire. Awesome.

We spent couple of days in Jerusalem, and yesterday we went to the dead sea. It was 100 degrees. Those who know me can feel free to laugh at the image of me frantically pouring on suncreen every five minutes or so. And my teammates, who know well how much time I spend on the ground when I play field hockey, can also wince at the thought of my scrapes and cuts burning in the infamously salty water... I'm glad Kelly Hood missed this one. This afternoon we are heading up north- I think we might be kayaking.

Reading over this post I see that I haven't written much about field hockey, but this is just precamp after all. The actual games will be starting soon enough; the opening ceremony is on the 13th, and we begin competition the next day. There are just over 900 of us in the U.S.A delegation and we will be joining thousands of other Jewish athletes from around the world. We haven't met or seen the athletes from other countries yet- it's just been us
Americans hanging out- and though we don't really know what to expect, we're really excited for the weeks ahead.

Okay that's all I have time for right now, except to say that I miss my Dartmouth teammates and wish they were all Jewish so that they could be here with me.

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