For spring break, I hopped on a 3-hour plane ride with my lacrosse team and traveled to Clearwater, Florida, for our training trip. We always travel to some place warm (last year we went to Hilton Head, South Carolina) to practice and to play a few games. Our coaches make sure our team enjoys a balance of lacrosse and relaxing/bonding time during our week-long stay. On a typical day, we have practice for 3 hours in the early afternoon and then have the rest of the day to explore Clearwater. Also, we have a tradition in which each hotel room (usually a group of 4 to 5 girls) is responsible for cooking dinner one night for the rest of the team. There’s always an unofficial but definite feeling of competition to see which room can prepare the best meal. Clearly I’m biased, but I think Room 205 killed it with the bacon, spinach, cheese, and mushroom frittatas and oven baked potatoes.

Anyways, here are 7 highlights of my trip that I’d like to share with you!

1. The scenery. The beach, the ocean, the sand, the palm trees, and the sunset.

2. Real barbeque from a local food truck.

3. Hard-core game of bananagrams almost every night after dinner. Fast and furious, amiright?

4. Celebrating a teammate’s birthday at a nice restaurant. Happy 20th, B!

5. Running into the founders of Herr’s Potato Chips at the Tampa International Airport. Mr. Herr himself gave us a coupon! We’ll be sure to use it well.

6. Visiting The Pie Factory. Their key lime pie did not disappoint.

7. And lastly, playing lacrosse in weather that does not require wearing 6 layers on top and 2 pairs of socks. (No hard feelings, East Coast.)

Photo Credit: Christina Hui, Lizzie Kölln, Rin Price-Huish, and Elyse Tyranny