Day 3: July 21st

The morning started off with Back Bacon for breakfast...it's kind of like Canadian Bacon because it has a thicker cut to it.  Some of the girls tried it but I think that most of them enjoyed the tater tots more!

After breakfast, we were off to Arundel Castle for most of the day.  On the bus ride over to the castle (there was a lot of singing again...Katie Donovan and Leah Cohen were by far the loudest and most enthuastic), the girls had a chance to see Lancing College where our field hockey camp took place this past summer.  It truly does look like Hogwarts, especially the beautiful Cathedral at the center of campus (unfortunately, I did not get a picture to pass along).

Our whole group took a tour/walk through Arundel Castle together.  They were able to see where parts of the castle that are over 1,000 years old.  Also, they were able to see parts of the castle where the Duke of Norfolk and his family inhabit.  The girls took tons of pictures as they walked through the different parts of the castle and some of them bought a few souvenirs from the gift shop (some of these gifts might even be for the people reading this blog right now).

 

Once we were done touring the castle, our group took a stroll through the massive garden on the castle's grounds.  The garden was absolutely stunning with so many flowers and trees that I can't even name.  The girls had 15 minutes to walk around the garden in groups and again, they took many pictures of themselves and the wonderful surroundings.  Some even ate their pack lunch of sandwiches, apples, and chocolate wafer cookies as they explored.

 The girls were very excited to have some time to explore downtown West Sussex (I got the impression that they wanted to get away from myself and the coaches...How could they be sick of us already?).  We gave them a little over an hour to walk around the quaint downtown and do some shopping.  Some girls enjoyed traditional English tea, while others treated themselves to ice cream and fudge.  Another group of girls stopped in the local grocery store to purchase some snacks, but mostly to stock up some English sweets (Cadbury chocolates, Mars bars, etc).

We headed back to the bus around 3:00pm to make the journey back to campus.  The ride back to campus took about 45 mintues to an hour and once we were back the girls had the option of relaxing in their rooms or taking part in an optional training session.  About half the girls decided to chill out while the other half headed to the field to work on reverse chips and drag flicks.  Let's just say our GK Ali got plenty of action this afternoon while in the net.

Matt and Tom took the girls that wanted to work on drag flicks (since he has scored about 200 drag flick goals...I only know this because I asked him today) while Harriet and Dave worked on reverse chips with the rest of the group.  Of course we had girls that wanted to learn both so they had a chance to try both.  During the hour session, all 4 coaches walked around providing feedback to the girls on things that they could tweek to improve their shot.  Dave even took video of the girls working on their reverse chip so they had a chance to better understand the feedback they were receiving.  Currently, the girls are enjoying a swim at the campus pool to help work out some of the soreness in their muscles.  Day 3 was great and we are excited for our first match tomorrow at Lewes!