The US delegation
My team mates in the U8 Girls section
10/19
First Day in Greece - The Plane Trip
We flew from Austin to Dallas. Then, we flew from Dallas to Frankfurt, for 9 hours. Then from Frankfurt, we flew to Vienna. Our last flight was from Vienna, Austria to Thessaloniki, Greece. From that airport, we took the bus to Porto Carras. It took a while to know our room number, 1002. 1002 is in the basement. Well, it looks like being in the basement is bad, but it's actually pretty good! We get a good view of the beach. So we could go outside and see the beach right in front of us. Also, outside, it had 2 sofas and 1 breakfast table. It also had 2 beach chairs. Inside, we got 2 bathrooms, 1 dinning table, 1 king-sized bed, 2 twin-sized beds, 2 TVs, and 1 work table with big lamp. The ceilings were painted dark blue. We went to the lobby, only me, my brother Anthony, and my dad because my dad wanted to have Internet. We were at the lobby for 1 hour. When my dad was done, we went back to the lobby for our USA team meeting. Then, we went to dinner. We ate dinner for one and a half hours. When we were done with dinner, we went back to the basement, took a shower, brushed our teeth, and went to bed.
10/20
The First Round
I woke up at 10:00 am today in Greek time. Yesterday night, I couldn't sleep very well because we slept at 2:30 pm American time. So, I'm not used to it yet. I slept until midnight, then I woke up, tossed and turned for 2 hours and finally slept at 2:00 am. We changed our clothes and went to breakfast. Breakfast was good. Then we went to the gift shop to buy a hair tier. Then we went back to our room to rest. After about an hour, we ate lunch. Lunch was good! I ate pasta and for dessert, I ate plums.
We checked pairings to see who I was playing for round 1. I was going to play a Russian girl named Alina Beshukova. My brother, who is always negative, said that Russian people are always tough. So, we went back to our room, and I relaxed outside on the couch for maybe about 5 min. Then, we went inside and it was 3:00 pm in Greece. The first round would start at 4:00 pm so I took a nap at 3:15 pm and woke up at 3:30 pm. We went back up to the lobby and went in the room to play chess. I played for 3 hours and 45 minutes and I won!
10/21
The Second Round
I woke up at 12:25 pm today in Greek time because still, I was not used to the time yet. The water was clear so we could see the fish in the water and there were lots of fish in the water. My brother and my dad were outside watching the fish. My dad came in and told me to wake up, brush my hair, change my clothes, and go outside. So I did what my dad told me and I went outside to see the fish. They were right! I could see the fish swimming! After about 10 minutes, we went back inside and my mom told me that I skipped breakfast and I skipped the training session. We went to lunch. I did some chess tactics for 15 minutes then I went back to sleep after lunch until 3:30 pm. I went to the lobby to play chess against Gabriela Antova from Bulgaria and too bad, I lost.
We went to our room, and my mom told me that we could swim. So me and my brother changed our clothes into our swimsuits, got 2 towels, and got our goggles. we went to the lobby, and went outside. We tried the swimming pool and the beach, but they were both too cold. So we went in the spa, because they had a swimming pool there. And cool! The swimming pool was like a hot tub! But the bad thing was that it had salt water.
10/22
The Third Round
Yesterday my dad and my friend's dad went to the casino. The casino was being held in a different hotel. My dad came home at midnight and the next morning my dad said that he won 70 Euro (European money) or 90 US dollars. My, Anthony, and my mom all said "Wow!". My dad said he set the alarm for 8:30 am because yesterday I woke up at 12:30 pm and missed breakfast. So we went to eat breakfast. After breakfast, we went to our chess coach's room because it was our time for training.
After training, we went back to our room and went outside and we read for 45 minutes. Then, I played some practice games with my brother Anthony and we went back inside.
He continued reading while I took a nap. We went to lunch after that. At about 2:30 pm, we went back to our room, got some rest, and played with our neighbors, all from the USA. After that, it was 3:45 pm, so we went to the place where we played chess and I played Anezka Drastichova from the Czech Republic.
After 1 hours 45 minutes, I came out and won! My brother and my dad played table tennis while my mom and I walked along the beach. We ate dinner, went back to our room, brushed our teeth, took shower, and went to bed. That night, my dad went to the casino to try to win more money and he won 150 Euro, 220 Euro in all. Wow!
10/23
The Fourth Round
This morning, I woke up at 9:00 am. I went to breakfast and went to my coach'es room for training for about 30 minutes. Today is the first time we went out of the hotel. My mom, my brother, and I were going to buy souvenirs. The owner of the shop was an old lady and my mom found a purse for 10 Euros. The old lady told us and my mom did something not very nice. She said, "8 Euros and it's a deal." My brother said, "Mom, she was just an old lady who gave us things for free and that was not very nice!" When we got back to the hotel, my mom laughed and said she would go back to the store and apologize. That was a funny day. Now back to chess. I was playing Shadan Babazadeh from Iran.
It took me almost 4 hours but I managed to win. My brother also got to play some games of ping-pong. It was a good, funny, inordinary day.
10/24
The Fifth and Sixth Rounds
Today we were going to play two games because it was the day before break day. We woke up early because one game was at 9:00 am. We got ready for the game. I was going to play a Slovakian girl, Dominika Ferkova.
This game was really short. I won! I had 4 out of 5 points. We went to lunch, ate, and got ready for the next round. We got to go on the play-ground. Then the next round came. The girl I was playing was Joanna Swiech from Poland.
Achoo! This time it took 3 hours to defeat her! 5 out of 6 in 11 games was a a good chance to land in the top 3. My brother, my mom, my dad, and I were really happy. We went to the playground for about 30 minutes, after that it was pretty dark, so we went back inside to review and analyze my game. Then we went to dinner. After dinner, we took a bath, brushed our teeth, and went to bed.
10/25
The Break Day
Yes! Today is break day. And you know what it means! No playing chess!!! Yay!!! We started off on our break day by waking up at 8:00 am. Then, we went to breakfast for about 1 hour. Then, we went to the playground for 30 minutes. We went back to our room to wait for my friends Annie Wang and Joanna Liu to come so we could go on the water taxi to the village. After 5 minutes, Annie and Joanna came. We went outside to the dock so we would get on the water taxi.
After we got to the village, we went to a whole bunch of shops that I could not remember them. My mom bargained again and at each store she got at least 10% off. At least, it was a good deal. We bought a lot of stuff and at the end my mom told my dad: "You have to go back to the casino again tonight" because my dad always got some money when he went to the casino. My mom said, "We need more money because we shopped a whole bunch today." Today was a relaxing and wonderful day.
10/26
The Seventh Round
5 more rounds to go! Yay! But too bad break day was over because yesterday we had a lot of fun!
This morning, we woke up at 8:30 am. Then, we went down to breakfast. At 10:00 am, we went to room #1353 for my session of chess training for 30 minutes. After that, we went back to our room to train a little bit more on the opening I was going to play against my opponent. My opponent was going to be Eszter Morvay from Slovakia but she lives in the USA. When we were done training with the opening, I was going to play. We went to the playground for about 10 minutes, then we walked to Sithonia, another hotel in Porto Carras. We went to the playground there but the swings were full, so we went to the gift shop inside to see what they had. We bought a little bit gum and some candy. Then, we went back to Meliton (our own Porto Carras hotel) to have lunch. After lunch, we went back to our room to rest.
At 3:45 pm, we went to the chess room in the tournament hall. It lasted 3 hours and I lost. We reviewed the game, went to dinner, went back to our room, and went to bed. :-(
10/27
The Eighth Round
Today we woke up around 8:30 am and my dad told me that I was playing the #1 from the USA! I wanted to play with her in other tournaments because she was really tough. After we got ready, we went to breakfast. Since I was playing someone from the USA, there was not any training. After breakfast, we went back to our room for my dad to train me on the openings we thought Annie was going to play and what moves I was going to play against that. After the chess training, we went outside to play, but it started to rain so we went back inside to nap. Then, we heard a whole bunch of voices outside the hall. My dad went out to see what was happening outside. After my dad saw what was happening, he told us to come outside. We saw everybody in the basement from the USA playing dodgeball in the hall. My brother and I went outside to play with them. After that, we went to lunch, took a break, played our game, and I lost.
10/28
The Nineth Round
Last night, there was a thunder storm. This morning, there was no power for the whole town. When I woke up, my mom and dad told me to look outside in the ocean. I did and and guess what I saw in the water: broken trees, mud, broken pieces from the boats, and bamboo sticks. After that, we went outside to look at it up-close. While we were doing that, our neighbors came outside. There was a dog on their sofa. They wanted to play with the dog. Our neighbors named the dog Shaggy. We played with them (including Shaggy) for about 20 minutes. Then, we went to breakfast, went to training, rested, and went to lunch. After lunch, we went outside to our deck. We heard a lot of voices and some screaming. We looked to the right and saw our neighbors having a pillow fight. We joined in the pillow fight. We had a pillow fight for about 10 minutes outside, then one of the neighbors found some bamboo sticks. She handed us each one stick, and we started to fight with them until my mom came out and told us to come inside, and we did. I took a shower. We went to the tournament room because it was time. I was playing Elena Badzgaradze from Russia. After 4 hours, I won. I was so happy and glad because I did not make any blunders; usually when I played long, I made a blunder.
10/29
The Tenth Round
Last night, my dad told me I was playing Saina Salonika from India because when he came back from the lobby to check the pairings, I was still awake. She was FIDE rated. It meant she had defeated other FIDE rated players. When we woke up and got ready, we went to breakfast. Then, we went to training. After training, we went to the playground for 1 hour, then we went to lunch. After lunch, we went back to our room, took a nap, and we walked along the beach. Then, we went to the toy store, but there was nothing there. We went back to the basement, took a shower, got prepared, and went to the tournament hall. After 3 hours and 45 minutes, I came out with a draw. I was very happy.
10/30
The Eleventh Round
Today was the last round. I did not know if that was good or bad. Today's game started at 10 am and it was going to end at around 2 pm. The award ceremony was going to start at 6 pm. My dad said if I won, I was going to get 8th place and get a prize. I was going to play Olga Badelko from Belarus. I had no idea where Belarus was. All I knew was that this round was going to be tough. My dad told me that Belarus was in Europe. We went to breakfast and went to play chess. It lasted over 2 hours and I .... WON!!! We were all so happy because I was going to get a prize. We went up to our room. My dad came up to our room and told us I got 9th place because there were too many upsets. I was a little upset. The rest of the day went great.
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