Travels With Peabody: Basel Swim Meet

On Saturday we drove the 1+ hours to Basel to watch Sophie in a "local"swim meet. Some of the other meets are in Luxembourg and Warsaw so Basel seemed close. This is one of the draw backs of International School sporting events. Then tend to be all over the country if not continent! We got up early on a Saturday, and headed off. Some important things we learned as we are newbies in the swim parent world.
            1) Wear shorts or at least bring them. The temperature in the pool viewing area was approximately that of the tropical rainforests of Malaysia. We were bundled up as it is January in Zurich and were puddles about 10 minutes into the meet. Noah eventually just took his shirt off.
            2) Bring plenty of reading material. The meet started at 10:30. Sophie first hit the water at 1:45 where she swam for 47 seconds. Plenty of time to catch up on reading!
           3) Bring flip-flops. Shoes required to enter the cafeteria to buy food and snacks, no shoes required to enter the pool area. Noah and I took our winter boots on and off about 25 times.
           4) Make sure you know how many heats there are in your child's event before you congratulate her on getting second place! (Second her her heat does not mean second in the event when there are 4 heats!)
           5) Ear plugs would be a plus. 100+ screaming middle and high schoolers for 6+ hours is headache producing. If you forget ear plugs make sure you have some Advil for the ride home.

Overall it was a great meet. ICS got third place and Sophie had a fantastic swim in the 4x50 free style relay. She put her team into second place (see note about congratulations being awarded before understanding the heat system!) One thing we know for sure is she already swims better than either of her parents!