July 10th
Hey all, hope all travellers are packed (or frantically packing like me). For those not going away, if you want to check up on what we're up to I'll be trying to keep you updated here. The frequency of updates will depend on how often I can get to a computer to blog! Hope everyone has a good couple of weeks whatever they are doing.

David

July 12th
Hey everyone, as i write this its 9:23am in the morning here. We arrived safely last night, a bit later than planned due to a 2 hour delay at heathrow but we finally arrived at UPC around 9pm local time on the hottest day in about 20 years in Seattle...so high 30's centigrade. Everyone is well, this morning we are meeting at a beach club to go for a swim and some introductions, but we have a busy day planned afterwards. That's all for now, hope all is well back home.

David


July 13th

Start of day 2, 8:29am. Yesterday was great fun, in the morning we went and 'chilled' at the beach club for a couple of hours, swimming in the lake, playing table tennis, football etc before meeting up with the american team at a park. We had some introductions, played some games and ate lunch. Following that the entire team went over to Qwest Field Stadium (home of the Seattle Seahawks (American Football) and the Seattle Sounders (Soccer)) and we were allowed to play football on the pitch for about an hour and a half which was amazing. Afterwards we had a couple of hours free time to roam the streets and grab some dinner before returning to Qwest Field to watch the Sounders play the Vancouver Whitecats, which the Sounders won! The most funny part of the day came at half time when Gav, Pete, Sam T and Aaron were involved in the half-time show! Wait until you see the pictures and videos... Anyways that was just day 1, time to get going for day 2!

David

July 14th
Day 3, 9:26am. Bright sunny morning here, bit of a ontrast to yesterday morning where we met in the park but were forced to run for cover as a thunderstorm passed overhead. Plan B was everyone heading to one of the host-families houses to play some fun games indoors for a couple of hours. Once it cleared up we decided to go ahead with the original plan of canoeing in Lake Washington. What started as a leisurly paddle in the afternoon sun, inevitably turned into a war of massive proportions with everyone trying to soak everyone else. Possibly even more enevitably therefore was someone capsising, step forward Sam Tulloch & her crew of Sean MEchie and Aaron Hagen! To my dismay my crew of Eddie and Will decided it was a great idea to dive in and help them, in the process capsising our boat... cue Sam going on a rampage to capsise about another 3 boats. The most hilarious sight of the trip so far was Tom Seymour frantically screaming in the water as he held a baguette just above water level that someone had to come and save his lunch. All in all a very wet but funny experience..until I realised i had been swimming with my wallet still in my pocket! Anyways following the canoeing we had a couple of hours free time where everyone broke off into smaller groups to play X-Box or cards or go sight-seeing. In the everning we went to Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners baseball team. Now where the soccer game the day before had been fun but not very well attended, this was totally different. American's love baseball. Huge stadium and a great experience, attendance was 37,000 and it wasn't even close to being full. Loads of opportunities for the crowd to take part, singing dancing and cheering on the team. Anyways sadly the Mariners lost the game but most of us didn't fully understand how the game worked so it was still brilliant. And that rounded off friday. Today is a quiet morning, we have a BBQ to head to at lunchtime for the afternoon then who knows what in the evening.

If anyone out there is reading this feel free to say hello or ask questions about the team or how your kids or friends are getting on I'll try m