CHINA – DAXING

It’s a little difficult to blog here….the editing stuff is in Chinese, yikes! Well I’ve made it this far, hopefully these posts aren’t translated into Chinese for you all…

Our travel day was quite smooth with our personal security and special entrance into SFO, we felt very high profile. We started off the morning reading our boxes of fortune cookies from Kelly Gross (very creative). We had some GREAT fortunes…some of my favorites….

- You will be upgraded to first class
- Speedo will offer you a million dollar contract
- You will hear USA cheers around the world
- You will be on the cover of a Wheaties box
- You will win the gold medal

Still waiting for these to happen, but so far our futures look bright!

When we arrived in the new Beijing terminal, we of course were looking awake and beautiful. So we were thrilled to be interviewed upon exiting the plane, but it was very cool to see how interested the Chinese were in hearing what we thought of the new terminal, the travel, the country, the Olympics in general....We quickly made it through customs and we didn’t have to wait long to get on our bus and head to Daxing where we will be training for a few days with the Dutch.

THANKS

Monday night, my mom also drove down to San Jose to deliver some forgotten goodies and goodbye hugs. Little did I know that she also had gifts and cards wishing the team good luck and congratulations!

I realize that my team represents the USA, but sometimes we get so caught up in our world of training and preparation...it is really nice to hear from the people that are supporting us. Thank you to everyone who has sent their good wishes! These are the actions that remind me how I got here and what I am here for.... It means a lot to hear from home!

PROCESSING!

So this is where we had our Olympic orientation. Sunday afternoon was amazing. We were given a Home Depot shopping cart and walked into a huge room filled with boxes of gear. Hats, pins, shirts, pants, shoes and our super top secret opening ceremonies outfit thanks to Ralph Lauren, they are quite fashionable...

Jimmy, our pro outfitter, was there to be sure we all looked just perfect. I was trying on the fancy pants and out of nowhere a man comes running over, “no, no those are too tight, see this? [points to the pockets] next size….[put on that next size in lightning speed] oh yes now that looks very sheik.”

Then we had our alternations done, took pictures for who knows what, got sized for Olympic
leather jackets, checked our medical forms, and last but not least picked out our Olympic Rings!

That night and the next day we got to pack and repack all our gear, crazily figuring out what we were wearing and what we could send home.

Monday night was our last practice in America before heading to Daxing, China....absolutely incredible. I remember moving in with Alison last September and having the "still so long till the Olympics" conversation....it doesn't seem that long ago.

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The men’s basketball team had just gone through the whole process the day before with multiple security guards and the place pretty much to themselves. Then they were whisked away…and some insider information (Apparently they trained at Stanford for a few days without shot clocks-and who do you think came to the rescue? Stanford water polo gladly supplied the new fancy pool shot clocks. Good work Stanford).

Last prep game before BEIJING

WOW 3000+ fans! The largest crowd at a women’s water polo game in the country ever! Anyone who did not pre-buy was turned away to watch from the far gate, which was unfortunate for all our friends who didn’t realize how popular this game would be. There were people from all over, who came to support both the USA and Australian teams. MSNBC covered the game and aired it on Sunday….underwater cameras and all. Apparently the Australians didn’t get that memo. Just for the record, our suits do get pulled around all over the place, but we generally put them back in place. Other teams I think prefer the thong look…..maybe it’s a cultural thing.

It was an exciting game, a great one for the crowd. We ended up with the win 7-5 after the Australians tried to pull the goalie out of the goal to double team the ball…bad decision…Brenda shot at the open goal to put us ahead by 2 in the final 30 seconds of the game.

What a great way to end this four game series and prepare us for China.

Return to the Farm for Game #4

I feel like I've come home, returning to Stanford. Alison, Brenda, and I have been anticipating our trip up here and we feel so at home hanging out at Avery, sitting with Sus in the office and eating at delicious Jimmy V’s.

The Stanford club actually treated us like celebrities, so it was definitely a different experience than I'm used to here at school. They came to greet us at the airport and even left us waters and snacks in our van. After our practice, the Stanford club kids had their annual cake contest. Not only were these cakes delicious, they were amazing pieces of artwork! There were Olympic rings, water polo balls, Avery pools, blast off to Beijing rockets and more….very talented bakers in the Palo Alto area. In addition, the girls made good luck bags full of all sorts of goodies for us, filled with mad libs, flag towels, UNO, dress up materials (always a plus!) and tons of fun stuff. Thank you Skylar!

To make our arrival even better, turns out Stanford has become the Olympic training center for water sports....We, the US water polo team, the Australian polo team AND the USA Olympic Swim team are all here this week! I walked into the pool that I know so well to see Natalie Coughlin, Brenden Hansen, Kate Ziegler and later on Micheal Phelps walking around Baker and Belardi. Even though we will all be competing together at the Olympics, I’m still in awe to be on deck with these amazing athletes.

A little Putt Putt Golf in SD

SURPRISE! Instead of practice Monday night we went GOLFING! Honing our aiming skills and our smack talking skeelllz, we conquered the tiny pirate-themed mini golf course. Well actually, my stellar team consisted of Alison, Betsey, Nat, Petie and I, but Alis0n and Nat pretty much carried the team. Sorry Betsey, but you and I are pretty terrible.

Not only did we get to practice our competitive edge, but we also learned some cool facts at each hole.

Did you know that "Octupuses have been known to board ships and open the holds to eat crabs?" Well now you do.

And I had to take this picture of my very GREEN teammates. We're saving the world one recycled bottle at a time! Speaking of recycling, our team started saving our used water bottles and so far we have recycled over $100! That's going towards our RECYCLING PARTY post-Olympics.

Game #2 & #3 – San Diego

We headed down to lovely San Diego to play for a different crowd and yet again the stands were packed! La Jolla was a fun game, we played well leading by 3ish at halftime, but let them back into it allowing a crazy 5m to be called with no time left on the clock. They scored the 5m and we lost, but with the confidence that we had improved our play and would be more prepared for Coronado. Thanks to the Koree/Blyleven crew, Uncle Peter & Carol for coming out to the game!

Coronado proved to be another great crowd and a great game as well. That night cousin Steph & Uncle Peter showed up again, representing the Schnugg familia. Katie Hansen and Koree decorated SUPER signs for both Al (Alison Gregorka) and I. I think mine was better…my name was bigger…..besides seeing three awesome friends and having a very enthusiastic crowd, we kicked butt in the pool winning 12-6, which doesn’t happen too often in international water polo.

Overall it was a great trip to San Diego and brought back memories of Fury soccer days at Surf Cup watching the hot air balloons flying around. We actually stayed in a hotel across the freeway from the polo fields that hosted Surf Cup. It is absolutely amazing to think that I was there at age 10 thinking it was the biggest tournament of my life and now I have returned on my way to the Olympics!

Happy 4th of July!

On Thursday we played game 1 of 4 against the Australians in preparation for Beijing. There was a carnival on the base equipped with a Titanic slide, New York City bounce house, Sausage Masters stand and the overly buttery popcorn vender (of course the mixed smells of sausages and popcorn made the game EXTRA interesting especially for my very sick roommate/teammate, Alison). We ended up with a win by the end of the night 13-12 and fireworks on the base to congratulate our win! (I like to think they were for us, but I think it was due to the 4th of July holiday.) I wonder what the Australians thought about our nation's birthday celebration...All I know is that one of the coaches has been walking around deck with a 4th of July T-Shirt on...I think we've converted even the foreigners!

Welcome!

My name is Jessica Steffens and on June 29, 2008 at 7:50 am I became an Olympian. I play Water Polo with the most incredible women in the sport and now we are preparing for the Olympics in Beijing, China to begin on 08-08-08 and guess what my cap number is.....8! I have to say it has been a little strange being #8 this year, I have never actually had an even number (3, 17 have been my go-to guys) but I've come to wear it proudly especially now that I know I'm on the team.

Anyway, this past year I moved down to Seal Beach CA to train at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Base where Chavez greets us at the gate almost every morning. Fortunately, I was able to move in with my Stanford teammate, Alison Gregorka, an Ann Arbor MI native and fellow defender on the team. The team is composed of mostly SoCalers but we have 2 Michiganians/Michiganders, 1 Oregonian and Heather Petri and I representing the East Bay.

I wanted to start this blog so that everyone who has been so supportive and interested in all that we've been up to can FINALLY follow us along. The Olympics are going to be an incredible event and I want to be able to share it with you all! So I will do my best to keep the blog updated without violating the rules about Olympic information that I have not read yet....I don't want to get into trouble with NBC!

Lets see if this works.....

Well I finally created the blog, the question is how often will I update it???