Wow, this place is amazing!

The view of a nearby village from our hotel

We got to the hotel around 4am this morning after traveling for nearly 24 hours, and my Dad made me go straight to sleep. We wanted to get up by 10:30am for breakfast, but we both slept right through the meal. After a nice long shower, we went out to find my friends and explore the hotel grounds. As you can see from the picture above, the resort is located at spectacular site. It is now off-season and most things are closed, but the resort has a nice looking pool (unheated sea water), golf course, tennis courts, soccer field, and beach. During the summer, I think this area must be quite crowded, but now it is very quiet except for 1000 chess kids running around.

On the way to the village, we met up with my coach and fellow teammate Steven Zierk

After exploring a bit on our own, we finally found my friends and we decided to walk to the next village over to pick up some supplies. It turns out the nearest market is a few kilometers down the beach. On the way there, my coach Steven caught up to us and we all went together. At the market we picked up some of my favorite chess staples: lots of bottled water (very heavy), cheese, crackers, ham, and fruit. We calculated that we had to carry 120 lbs. of water back to the hotel, but it was a good deal. Steven said that he paid about 50 times as much for a small bottle of water in the Frankfurt airport.

After missing breakfast and doing all that walking, I was starving. Thankfully we got back from our adventure in time for lunch. The lunch was buffet style and very good with lots of things I like to eat.

Now we are hanging out in our room. I've got independent study work to do for my school and my Dad has to work. Tonight we have a team meeting with all of the coaches and American players. Things will start to get more serious then.