Today's Events- August 31

Today was a great day! I didn't necessarily do anything special, but had a lot of fun. I woke up early to talk to my parents on skype, but then went back to bed while watching Say Yes to the Dress (there are tons of english channels here, thank goodness). I woke up for the second time around noon and the owner of the club, Nikola, asked if I wanted to go grab some lunch.

As we were heading to lunch he was asking me what types of food I enjoy and told me he was disappointed that I don't like seafood. Considering that we are in a port, it is very prevalent here. I promised I would try it again sometime, but in the meantime I'll stick to other foods. He said he was going to take me to his favorite restaurant in Bar. As we were getting closer he said "you say you want good and delicious food right?" (of course I say yes, so he says) "ok then, you don't pay attention to anything else but the food then". Immediately I'm thinking ..ok great, where exactly ARE we going?.. but we ended up at a tiny little grill by the bus station (a little ways off the beaten path) where it is clear he knows everyone who works there and is eating there. He orders for us and when I asked what he ordered he said "meat".

just a sidenote about montenegro: you don't ask questions about the meat. if they say it is meat, then you just assume the best. It really could be the worst, but you just pretend it's not a big deal that you could be eating the most obscure part of an animal and just accept that in montenegro ALL MEATS ARE MADE EQUAL. they do not discriminate like we do! pork is pork and escalope is escalope (which I still to this day have no idea what animal escalope comes from)

So we get our meal and it is great! We get cabbage salad, french fries, meat patties, and meat chunks (see what I mean? I'm describing the meat to you in shapes rather than species!). It was very good and it was nice to get a chance to get to know him. He speaks english very well and he just returned from a vacation to America so there was lots to talk about. Then we went to check out the sports center where we practice (we haven't been practicing there because the floors are being redone) and then finally ended up at the cafe he owns to have a glass of wine. It was a good time.

Then I rested for a little while before conditioning. Our coach Luka told us it was the last time we would run at the stadium!! My days of being a track star are finally coming to an end! The plan was to run 18 laps (yes people, thats 4.5 miles) but halfway through the wind picked up. Luka was afraid that running in that weather would make us sick which is a bad way to start the season off, so we left. Now we have to run the other 9 laps on the weekend.

Tomorrow my teammates start school, so we will go to just one practice per day which will be very nice.   We get the day off from practice so they can settle in, but then the next day we will have a 4 hour practice to make up for it. yikes!