Cultural Exchange Blog – May 27

The past few days in Romania have been fun, exciting, a little frustrating, but very memorable non the less. Wrestlers from many different countries including Korea, Cuba, Canada and Romania have been sleeping, eating and training in the same places and for the most part at the same time, which makes for quite the melting pot of cultures and personalities. Our team has spent time getting to know several of the Canadian wrestlers, trainers and coaches, as well as a few characters from Cube and Romania, everyone has been very open and friendly. The tournament we wrestled in was quite humbling, competing with top wrestlers from multiple countries around the world in a style which most of us have little experience in and or haven’t competed in for several years made it very difficult. Our wrestling experience in Romania is over and now on to Castle Dracula tomorrow then to Bulgaria to continue practicing and competing with the Bulgarian wrestling clubs. — Jared Myhrberg

Today I learned that freestyle is not as easy as it looks. While half the battle was trying to decipher the bout sheet and figure out what singlet to wear, the other half was fought on the mat. As predicted by our coach, we struggled at defending turns on bottom and also at executing them while on top. My competition today consisted of none other than two time all American and NCAA champion Franklin Gomez. Getting to wrestle him was a opportunity that I would not have gotten had I not gone on this trip. Other countries i wrestled included Moldova and Romania both of which yielded strong competition. With the tournament coming to a conclusion our time in Romania has ended. We will travel next to Bulgaria while stopping first in Transylvania to see the legendary castle of the infamous Count Dracula. With the first leg of the trip done we will continue to train and compete over the next nine days at the international level. — Alex Stewart