Day 3 - Wednesday 29th December

A very early start - another 3 hour night which meant many of the staff and boys were a bit slower than usual.
We headed off at 7am for Norwich, Connecticut, and had a wonderful trip through the Bronx, near Queens and close to Long Island in our luxury coach toward the beautiful town of Norwich. As we were running a little early we had a stopover at Dunkin Donuts - the boys were amazed at the cheap price (3 donuts and a coffee for under $4) and the awesome donuts! A quick visit to Walmart saw me get 27 phones (I'll work on activating them tomorrow) so you will be able to call your sons (or text them) and again, the spending sprees were remarkable, as were the low prices.
We got to Norwich around 11.30am and headed off for a walk through the Indian themed Mohegan Sun Casino (as big as a small town, and in the middle of nowhere) and lunch at either Michael Jordan's Sports Bar or Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville - a huge feed which the boys really enjoyed. Alex was the most remarkable - a HUGE volcano of nachos (see the photo).
Back at Norwich Free Academy, a most beautiful school which, whilst a public school, is almost a private one with a great reputation. Two great basketball courts - one which seated 999 in the stands, awaited us. It was a bit of a mix from a scene out of Glee and the Wildcats from High School Musical - red and white and all. Our boys really enjoyed the chance to play, but their level of exhaustion showed a little after close first quarters from each team. The opportunity to play in front of a huge crowd who all paid to watch us, complete with cheerleaders and a dance troupe was something they'll never forget!
Our Freshman went down 66 to 32 with Seamus scoring 13, Nelson scoring 9 and Jaleel hitting 6. All boys played and really enjoyed the experience. Our Junior Varsity team lost 32 to 77 but played with real heart. Alex, Reid and Marmush all scored 7 and Aidan 5 - again all boys got on the court and had so much fun. Our Varsity team played really well but again struggled with their energy levels and finally lost 30 to 60. Top scorers were Tom with 7 and Pat and Jake both scoring 6. We will be a real feature in the local newspaper tomorrow - can't wait to see the interviews and photos!
The boys are with their billets tonight which has given us a chance to wash the boys' uniforms, and hopefully will allow us to get to bed on the same day we got up!
Tomorrow night I'll try to set up the Flickr account with all the photos we've taken so far - Chris took over 600 at the games tonight alone!
Please understand that we have been flat out so far so the boys will have struggled to have time to contact home - let's hope my plans for tomorrow night will allow us an early night at the hotel!
Enjoy!