America, Bye-Bye :(

We on the U.S. Junior Men's National team love America. We love baseball, we love American money, we love American people, and we love American accents. We constantly speak of such dear concepts as LIBERTY, FREEDOM, and the AMERICAN WAY with an alacritous passion, as concepts like these occupy a place so very close, so very near to our hearts that we truly cannot bear to see them go. This past Wednesday, at one o'clock Eastern Standard Time, something was set into motion that could potentially threaten the aforementioned passion. As we said farewell to Peddie for the last time, we were simultaneously embarking on a journey away from our beloved America, to a land where our love could, quite possibly, be considered a mere American excess. We knew all this, but we were not afraid. We would maintain our beliefs. We would maintain our love. America... Would not be forgotten. We had a job to do, and it was about time, in the words of one celebrated American, to "git-r-done."

The beginning of that journey took much longer than it should have. We ran into substantial traffic along our route to JFK (the airport), though fortunately this allowed us plenty of time to observe (and express our love to) the Statue of Liberty, standing prominently across New York harbor. Upon our arrival at the airport, we tried our best to disguise any back-sweat accumulated during the toasty drive over, and then quickly unloaded our bags with surgical precision. Apparently the staff at JFK did not share our affinity for precision, so we waited for far too long in the one line through airport security. Somehow I managed to smuggle my four extra-long 36" metal tracks (a boat part) in an threatening cardboard cylinder through the checkpoint; after this traumatic event, I naturally grew more relaxed. We got to the plane with time to spare. Now for the next step. I sauntered up to the Delta desk, planning to work my magic and score an exit-row seat for the extra leg room. No dice. It looked like I'd have a window seat, and that I'd have to like it. Again, I was wrong. My main man Fat Pat McGlone took the window seat, and I got the aisle. Though I had my sprawled legs assaulted by a fair number of old ladies trawling the plane aisles, I made it through the overnight flight, and was good to go in the morning. Success. 'Merica was here.

About an hour's worth of driving from the Prague airport took us to Litoměřice, the town in which our hotel is located, about twenty minutes from the race course. Don't ask me how to pronounce it: I've starting giving some Czech worlds a bit of an Italian lilt, which is not helpful either, seeing as my Italian lexicon is essentially limited to "lasagna" and "cacciatorre." Within Litoměřice itself, we're staying in the Hotel Roosevelt: yet another good sign that our Americanism will hold strong. Of course, within an hour after getting to the hotel, we made our first trip to the course to rig and row. Countless hours of travel and time-change were willingly put behind us, whether because we were so excited to row or because we were so disoriented from the travel that we really had no grasp at all over what was going on. The sectionalized eight had already been put together by two coaches who came over a few days early, so thankfully that nightmare was already taken care of. Coach Campbell made a few preliminary adjustments, after whichtime we went out for our first light row on the course in Račice. We came in, and returned to the hotel. I think I managed to stay awake during dinner. I can't really remember. What I do know is that as soon as my head hit the undersized European bed, I was out until morning. Game-time had arrived: we were at Worlds. And after many hours of change, one thing remained constant: our love of America was still intact.