Day 10: July 28th

I cant believe today is our last full day here in the UK! Time has flown by! I am sad to leave but also very happy to get back to America and devour a nice American meal :)
The girls are headed off to the Olympic Stadium today! After an early breakfast of well, you know the routine now, they headed straight to the bus. Took us a little less than 2 hours to get there and surprisingly not a lot of singing on the bus as I am sure everyone was sleeping.
Once we arrived the turf was being watered with the giant sprinklers to get the astro pitch nice and fast for us. The pitch is a bright colored blue which is a literally interesting to play on, almost messes with your eyes a bit. On the coaches Matt Daly played on this turf during the 2012 Olympics, but unfortunately he had to leave early to head to Holland so he was unable to come. The girls headed right into training after they were done being amazed with the stadium and the pitch.
Harriet, Tom and Dave again split the groups into 3 and did some more tactical skills and small sided game play. After that the players split up into Seacoast and "The rest of the world" to play against eachother for a full sided game.

The teams started out in the hallway and after Dave announced team USA and "The rest of the World" they all ran out and greeted the umpires (Harriet and Tom) The girls were loving how we were trying to make it seem official. After the introduction they even sang the national anthems! Our girls were of course on point, but the "Rest of the World" girls struggled considering they have girls from 4 different countries, so instead they sang "We Are the Champions" by Queen.
Unfortunately we did lose the match, but it was great to see the girls all play against eachother in a friendly match!

 After the match, the girls were given some time to explore the rest of the Olympic village. We were able to the Aquatic center, the Cycling center and also did a little shopping through Westfield. It was amazing to see how they still use all of the Centers to train. Harriet was a great tour guide for the group I was in, as she herself was able to attend the 2012 Olympics.
After the tour was over, we were off on the bus and headed back to Ardingly. The Olympic Stadium was definitely a great experience for the girls and I am sure something they will never forget!

Once we got back to Ardingly and enjoyed a nice meal (we were all very hungry) the coaches planned a little closing speech and some awards. Tom, Dave, Harriet and Patrick each spoke about some funny stories that happened over the course of the ten days but mostly about how amazing it was that 2 groups of girls from different countries were able to come together as one. The girls were truly a great group of girls and very entertaining to say the least! After the speeches, awards were given out. Most Improved, Player of the Matches, Coaches Award and Camp Player (of course they were given sweets as an award)
Once the awards were over with, all of the girls exchanged snapchat, instagram and whatever social media they use now. I truly think a lot of these girls will stay in touch as they definitely learned a lot from them not only playing wise but culturally as well. All the girls stayed up late and played some more "Just Dance" to end the night. Some chose to pack a bit, others took their mattresses out of their rooms and decided to have a giant sleepover (atleast they will have plenty of time to sleep on the plane). Unfortunately tomorrow will be the last day we are all together before we head off back to the States :(