G’day.
Apologies for not writing. I don’t really have an excuse as I have simply been swimming, sleeping, and lounging around the hotel as my only form of entertainment. I guess I just haven’t been writing as there have been a lack of events to report!
Training has been going well. I had to quickly build back up in yardage again after NCAA’s last week, but I am again coming off of that, so I have been having fun doing shorter workouts.
We have gotten to have two dinners out of the hotel and away from the buffet food. The first night, a group of us went to a small, private-owned restaurant called Savvas. My dinner was delicious, but the highlight of the night was by far trying something completely new. We noticed that there was an entrée on the menu called “Crumbed Brain,” so we asked the waiter what it was about. He told us it was fried lamb brain, and that he would bring it out for us on the house to try! It was definitely not something that I will ever eat again, but I am proud to say that I have tried lamb brain.
The other dinner out Dana Vollmer and I went for sushi, and then went to see a movie afterward, where we ran into several of our teammates who had the same idea. We ended up seeing “Music and Lyrics.” It wasn’t amazing, but it was definitely a cute and enjoyable movie.
The only other adventure that we have had outside of the hotel and normal training schedule was our beach/shopping day. Most of us took Sunday off last weekend, so a couple of people on the staff at USA Swimming organized to take some of to the beach. However, the weather definitely didn’t want to cooperate, and it was a little chilly to stay, so we then went to some local surf stores and took a look around. I didn’t end up buying anything, but I still had a fun afternoon!
We only have two more days here at our training camp in Geelong, Australia. I am definitely enjoying not having many responsibilities, but I am really looking forward to going to Melbourne and start focusing on racing! I am swimming the 100 and 50 breaststrokes, and if all goes to plan, the 400 medley relay as well. I haven’t seen the psyche sheets yet, but I believe I am the 2nd fastest in the world behind Leisel Jones, who happens to be one of Australia’s superstars. I am looking forward to racing her in her home country, where I am pretty sure the Australians will be enthused about our race.
Until next time! I’ll be sure to keep my eyes open for any kangaroos or koalas to report to you about!

Hello from down under! We arrived only a couple of hours ago. The flights went fairly smoothly… I started in San Francisco and had a 13.5 hour flight to Sydney, which I managed to sleep for about 12 of those hours. It’s helpful that I’m still recovering from the NCAA Championships a couple of days ago; my body welcomed the sleep. We then had a layover in Sydney for two hours, and waited for the people arriving from a flight out of LA to join us before jumping on another hour-long flight to Melbourne. Once we landed, I was immediately overjoyed because it’s about 80 degrees farenheit, the sun is shining, and our hotel is overlooking a beautiful harbor. My kind of location!! We just had some lunch (it’s about 1:45 in the afternoon on Thursday here, but 7:45 at night on Wednesday at home in Cali), and have another couple of minutes before we’re going to explore the Australian pools for some training! Thanks for reading, I’ll be sure to update you all as mufh as possible.

Cheers!,
Jessica

A couple of Swim Stars will take the reigns and provide updates on Swim Stars Live. Fans will be treated to some behind-the-scenes perspective during the FINA World Championships through the newly launched “Star Blogs” feature.

Swim Stars Jessica Hardy and Katie Hoff have signed on to blog from down under. Their exclusive blogs will cover any topic they choose as they compete at the FINA World Championships and Duel in the Pool.

Team USA leaves for Australia today, so keep an eye on Swim Stars Live, in the coming days, for their first entries!

NOTE: Due to unforseen circumstances (and our general bad luck), Katie will not be able to participate in this feature during the World Championships. Our apologies.