Shrek Curry

Making our way down to our team breakfast we were met with traditional southern Indian coffee and tea, mounds of delicious Belgium waffles, and specially made, just for us, perfectly peeled oranges. After we were all full we made our way to the courts – today was the first day we took the shuttles provided by the hotel – and after kicking a very eager group of Egyptians and Canadians off our courts, had a light hit and a few games. We then saw the older members of the Canadian team haze their newcomers by walking them into the venues swimming pool. Luckily for us first timers, we have not (at least so far) gone through world’s initiation pranks by our veteran girls – don’t get any ideas. After we hit the showers we came down for a nice lunch at the hotel consisting of lots of tomato soup, pizzas, and naan, and Olivia and Amanda opted for the buffet. In the end it was Amanda and Olivia retrieving heaping platefuls from their ‘all you can eat’ dessert buffet for the entire team, but having to pretend that it was all for them. After lunch some of us decided to go with Meredeth to the Spencer shopping center where we bargained with shop owners for silk scarf’s and bangles. After asking almost everyone in the mall where we could find a Henna tattoo place we were sent to a very nice salon in a grungy corner of the mall where Haley, Lexi, Yarden, Natasha, and Libby all got beautiful, ethnic Henna tattoos. For the next two hours the girls adventurous enough to try the henna had to be very careful and remain still while the ‘herbal goop’ dried. After a few hours of down time we headed over to the Taj Connemara where the Odinak’s treated us to a traditional Indian meal, where we all overcame our nervousness about spicy foods and tried some very good ‘Shrek [green] looking’ curries and coconut rice. Fortunately, the weather so far has only been hot but very dry, however during dinner we soon realized why people call this time monsoon season when we witnessed out first downpour. Making it back to the hotel by 11:10 we were all ready for bed and looking forward to our small sleep-in tomorrow morning.

Haley & Amanda