Budapest - Day Two

---

We met in the hotel restaurant at 8:30 for breakfast this morning. This breakfast is also buffet style but without quite as many options as Eger. After breakfast we met Ben and Sergey and headed to the pool. Ben and Sergey took the boys through a two hour Hungarian style practice involving many conditioning, passing and shooting drills. It was nice to see that they pretty much do the same things we do in practice just with greater intensity. There were some new drills they ran with the boys as well that we can use back home. The boys had a good time and were exhausted. I know the mom’s aren’t going to want to hear this but some of the boys including Brian and myself and starting to get a little sick. Mostly just sore throats so hopefully it will pass. We are going to stop by a pharmacy later.

After practice we headed into town to have lunch. We went to a small gyro restaurant and it was very good. However, Ben quickly noticed that we only had 17 people and that we were missing someone. At that time I noticed I had a missed call on my cell phone from James Altmann. I called him and apparently he didn’t notice when everyone else got off the bus and he stayed on for an extra stop. It was no big deal and Ben went and got him and returned him to the group. It was bound to happen at some point with all of the changing busses and metros, I just didn’t think it would be James.

Lunch was very good and after we headed back to the hotel. Ben set us all up in what they call their TV room. Basically it was a very small room with no air conditioning and about a 10-inch black and white TV. It might have been smaller. Ben wanted to show us a video of a BVSC match from this past year and point out some things in the video.

After the video session we got back on all the busses and headed once again to the pool for the second part of the clinic. This time after a brief warm-up they had the boys do a few more shooting drills and then worked with them in some team tactics in front court offense and defense and man-up and man-down situations. Again, a lot of the things are the same as what we run but it is always good when you can get it reinforced from some professional Hungarian water polo players.

The clinic ended around 8pm and we headed back to the same restaurant as last night for dinner and some more gypsy music. Dinner tonight was pasta and meat with some sort of rice and raisin dessert that was topped with raspberry or blueberry syrup. It definitely was a lot different than any dessert we have in the states. After dinner we stopped by the pharmacy quickly to get some throat lozenges and then headed back to the hotel to go to bed. Everyone is exhausted.

Tomorrow we will not be playing water polo at all and I think it will be good for the guys to get a little break. Ben’s girlfriend, Dora, is a licensed tour guide and will be taking us around town showing us all the sites like Hero Square, Castle Hill and many others. Hopefully everyone will be feeling better after a full night’s rest.

---