The hotel was fairly small and housed almost only americans as not only athletes were there. Coaches, parents, trainers and basically the entire US team was housed there on purpose. I don’t remember the name of the hotel but form past experience I would bet that it had “Hotel” in it’s title.

As athletes were paid for to represent the USA in this competition, we were provided with meal tickets to use for our time at the hotel. There was a preset menu everyday and everyday we would either get some weird Uzbek dish or what they thought was an “american” meal. There was always three courses to the meal and most of the time it was actually really good, however there were certain time that we passed on to the next course because no one could stomach the traditional Uzbekistan food. My favorite part of the meal tickets were the ones for the breakfast “buffet”. This meant that whatever people didn’t eat at dinner the night would be out in a buffet style table along side regular european breakfast foods and the worlds saddest donuts.

We didn’t really get to wander around as we had practice and competitions to attend. The practice and competition venues were probably about fifteen minutes away and we were taken by a shuttle bus with a police escort every time. Driving in Uzbekistan was crazy because the smallest cars were always the most aggressive and we always passed the most beautiful religious buildings, one of which I was lucky enough to visit after the tournament.

During the one day of nothing (we call the day in between practice and competitions this sometimes) my parents and I were shown around the city by two locals. This was an amazing experience as they took us to local restaurants where we tried traditional dishes and saw the normal social life. We also were able to go to a huge market, the name I cannot remember, and I thought my mom would never leave. All of these activities were cool however what I remember the most was when they agreed to show us the inside of their temple. This was huge as women are not generally allowed there and are expected to worship at home. My mother and I were given scarves to put on and we were told to take our shoes off as we went inside.  This was a once in a life time opportunity and was such an eye opener into the ways of other cultures.