While still trying to make Cadet team I traveled to Bratislava, Slovakia. When there all it did was snow and rain constantly with this dark sky 24/7.  Most of the fencers there hated this weather however I didn’t mind it as I love stormy weather and snow is new to me being from Texas. The one major problem with the snow and rain however was it made it miserable to walk with your fencing bag to the venue and back and made it difficult to go places in town.

The hotel we stayed at was actually one of my favorite european hotels ever. It was small but the rooms were so modern and cozy and the restaurant had normal food. The shape of the rooms were interesting because when you would walk in the first thing you see is the beautiful view of the dark city of Bratislava, then to your right the bathroom was like a little box that connected to the bedroom through sliding doors. The coolest thing about the rooms in my opinion though was when you walked in, on the  flatscreen T.V. it read “Welcome Shelly and Barbara VanBenthuysen”.

After checking in the fencing crew decided to go explore the town as we normally do so we headed to this outlet mall looking thing. We walked in by the food court and were greeted by several different Slovakian fast food chains and McDonalds. Instead of trying these exotic stands the moms opted to try the little restaurant on the far side of the court. The food there was amazing and while the parents finished their wine the athletes all went to explore the mall.We soon discovered that the mall itself was huge and partially underground. We started wandering from floor to floor and eventually found some weird pajama store where my friend and I bought matching onsies. While wandering around we bumped into the men’s foil team who was also there for the competition.

There wasn’t really anything to do in Bratislava so most of the time spent there was just us hanging out in a room until we had a team dinner or us trying to catch up on homework. Team dinners were fun because we would have all the US team attend and it became a fun way of relaxing before the tournament.

The competition venue was like a ten minutes away from the hotel walking but it was so cold that on competition day many people got taxis to the venue. We were stuck in the venue for the entire day (I was there from 9 in the morning to about 9 at night because I medalled) and when we finally got to leave there was a new batch of snow. I as a Texan was so excited by the snow that after finishing dinner went to play in it. My friend and I (she’s also Texan) went to the field across from the restaurant and made snow angels and had a mini snowball fight. It wasn’t until late when we were walking back did the major snow fight occur.

I will continue Bratislava in another blog.