long time, no see

Hey everyone, well whoever bothers to come and see what i'm up to...hi from South Africa. it's sure been a long weekend...but i've had a lot of fun and now it's time to fill you all in on what the trip has been like so far! it's kinda gonna be in a list format so that i can get this written fast (i've got to go collect my $$$).damn, that flight was LONG!! there was a lot of space on the flight from atlanta to jo-burg...but i wasn't one of the lucky ones that got 4 seats to themselves, i only managed 2 seats to myself, but i couldn't really stretch out too much! but i met some cool people on the plane. we landed on some island halfway through to refuel, but it was dark and you couldn't get off the plane so i didn't really see too much! we got to jo-burg- did the customs thing and got on another flight to durban. got to durban at 2pm and the swimming people were right at the airport to drive us to the hotel. beautiful hotel right on the beach, like Darien promised. then we headed over to the pool to have a little 'swim out the flight' swim. that was fun. but the pool is really cool, nice outdoor pool for warm up and cool down. the only negative might be the pigeons that live in the rafters and drop feathers, eggs, and poo into the pool! got back to the hotel, grabbed some dinner and fell fast asleep. friday morning, the meet starts, at 10 so we get to sleep in. all the meals are in the huge resturant in the hotel lobby, all you can eat, really good food too! after breakfast we headed to the pool, i just got in to swim a warm up because both my 400im and 800 free were in the finals. i was looking throught the heatsheet to see when the other USA people were swimming and noticed that there was a Sara McLarty entered in the 200 backstroke. hum...wonder how that happened. so, i didin't even have a race suit, got up there and attempted a backstroke start and swam a descent 200 back. made sure that i scratched the finals. at night i swam great, won the 400im with a 4:35 (faster than NCAAs) and won the 800 with a 8:25...nice time. total for the day $3000!day two was the BIG day. three events: 200 fly, 200 free, and 200IM. the last two were only separated by the men's 50 free! made finals in all 3...and took a nice long nap to get ready for that one! at night, i swam really well in everything, 3rd in the 200 fly and the 200 free (1:58) warmed down for like 5 minutes and got back on the block to race right to the finish wall in the 200 im, got 2nd by like 1 tenth!this morning was painful becasue i didn't really warm down last night because of the lightning storm that came right after the 200 im! so i swam a long warmup and a really slow 400 free in prelims: 4:12. there was going to be stiff competition in from the french girl that won the 200 free...but i got to finals and she scratched...but the stiff competition was still there from Melissa from SA. we raced to the wall...4:05s and i only won by a touch. in between prelims and finals today, we all went across the street to the market and broused the beautiful african art and spent a few rand on some souveniers. yep...i've got some presents! so now...i'm going to go get in the line to pick up my money (i'll just tell you that it's a nice $6500!!)and then i've got to go rush up stairs, shower, get dressed and head out for the world cup post-meet PARTY!alrighty everyone...i hope that i will have better luck in Dubai writing on here so that i can keep you posted!