Carlos' blog...

27 March, 2008 | 12:03

Hello everyone, Carlos here again…

This time I’m writing from Miami. We got here on Friday and it rained quite a lot on Saturday and Sunday. The good news is that the sun is out now, and the tournament is about to begin.

We’re staying in a beautiful house in Key Biscayne, really close to the club. I decided to stay a few nights in Dani’s apartment though.

Dani is an old friend of ours. He used to live in Barcelona before moving to Florida to study in the University of Miami. We call Dani, “The Fat”, although in fairness, he’s in pretty good shape.

He plays No.1 for his tennis team and is currently ranked No. 4 in the country in terms of College Tennis. We are very proud of him, and I always look forward to seeing him when I’m in town.

On our second night here, The Fat came over to the house with a board game called Cranium. It’s cool: kind of like Pictionary and charades but with some trivia questions thrown in too. It has some weird challenges, like for example you have to draw something with your eyes closed, and someone in your team has to guess what you’re drawing.

Andy, Dani and me played against Jez, Miles, A.I and Kim. We got smashed….

Because I stayed with Dani, I pretty much had to go with him everywhere. He made me sneak into one of his classes in the University, which I did last time. It’s fun to see what its like, learn some stuff and generally just get into the student vibe.

The funniest thing was to see just how diligent Dani was; taking notes all through class. His notebook looked like this after a 50 minute lecture…

 

 

If you look a bit closer at the paper, it looks like this…

 

 

Nope, it’s not drawing lessons for toddlers but a Geological Science class.

Apparently The Fat was trying to show me how Andy was supposed to draw a deodorant with his eyes closed on the game of Cranium we had the night before. I hope his teacher is not reading my blog.

Just in case, I have to say it’s one of Dani’s favourite classes.

We then went to the tournament site to see Andy’s practice with Mario Ancic, who turned out to be one of his possible rivals in his opening match. They will probably get a slightly bigger crowd if they play again…

 

 

 ….hope you’re not getting tired of my considerably impressive tennis picture skills…

 

 

…I know I’m not, Rob probably isn’t either…(Rob: only just woken up after the first paragraph actually, so no big deal)

 

  

The other two days Andy practiced with Dani. I’d love to see those two play doubles together sometime. Anyway, time for the most important bit of the blog.

I can’t help but mention probably the most legendary 5-a-side indoor football team of all time. With an unbeaten record of 1-0, beating a team of athletes from the University of Miami 5-1.

 

 

Back Row: Jez Green, Andy and Dani The Fat
Front Row: Me (Most Valuable Player) and Miles Maclagan

I might as well taken a picture of myself, seeing that I did everything and carried the team on my shoulders.

I’ve probably done that joke to death already, so - in fairness - I will say that everyone played great. Don’t want them to kick me out of the team and replace me with someone less arrogant but not as talented. Someone like Rob for example.

There’s also been some tennis/football going on. I’ve had the privilege of being Miles’ protege for the last few weeks; part of the most fierce and respected tennis/football tandem seen in recent years.

We won a pretty interesting bet yesterday against Jez and Andy. For the benefit of my next blog I hope that they do the right thing, and take their medicine like adults.

Catch you later

Carlos