Cultural Exchange Blog – May 25th

It’s 530am on the first day of competition. I got up to run at this time yesterday and got attacked by all the dogs in the city center–debating on whether I change my route or run later today….
We compete today and I am very excited to see how we do. There are six countries there and about 5-7 in each weight class — Tim Fader

My travel so far has been a little different than the other guys. I was suppose to just meet the group in Newark but my first flight got delayed and I ended up missing the flight to Romania, so I had to spend an extra night in new York. The next day I didn’t have a flight till 615 pm so got the chance to see Times Square and some other parts of new York city. I got to my flight but it didn’t end up leaving until two and a have hours late, so when I got to Poland I only had 15 to make it to my next flight. I got to the terminal and they closed the door right after I got onto the plane so I was the last one to get on. Once I got to the hotel we had weight ins luckily I was on weight. After that we eat then checked out the city a little bit. — Jake Fredricksen

Yesterday was our first full day in Romania. We had two practices and got to tour the city for a little while. We’ve met most of the teams that are competing in the tournament and talked a little bit with them all as best as we could. The practices we had were pretty different than what I’m used to back in the states. We drilled and wrestled live while the majority of the teams did a lot of cardio with little wrestling. I was originally planning to wrestle 96 kilos but was within 3 kilos of 84 after the first practice so I made the decision to cut the weight at the second practice and wrestle 84. After making weight and weighing in for the tournament we ate dinner with all the other countries and then went out in to the city again and saw some of the places the locals like to hang out. Today is the day of the tournament for my weight class and I’m pretty excited to be wrestling out here in another country representing Norwich and the United States. — Chris Schenk

Being in Romania is quite an experience, I saw many interesting things from a statue of Dracula to old ruin buildings. It’s kind of a challenge being the only person around that speaks English but in all it’s very fun trying to communicate with the residents here. One thing that’s kind of stereotypical though is that sometimes if you listen to some of Romanians would snicker and say something like “ahh americana” or “tourist” and you knew they were talking about you but it’s ok because we were talking about them too. Today is the tournament and I’m excited to have the chance to wrestle individuals from different countries and see the different styles of wrestling each person has in store for me — Daniel Manganaro