Blog numero dos

To Poland and back

After a 15 hour bus ride to Poland, we finally made it to Hotel Amber. Hotel Amber was the nicest 3-star hotel I have ever seen. This place had a really nice layout with an outdoor garden and our team nearly had a whole wing to ourselves. I forgot to take pictures…

Poland (at least the city I was in: Olesnica) was a pretty cool place to play volleyball. Volleyball is a top spectator sport in Poland and it showed. The fans at these practice matches were passionate, crazy, and loud. All the money raised from these matches went to a special needs girl. The support for her was really great. Our team played against Trefl Gdansk and Skra Belchatow. We also got a look at our first league match opponent, SCC Berlin. I was particularly excited to play against Skra Belchatow because of their high profile in European volleyball. In the past, I was always eager to watch Skra on streaming volleyball websites: But to play against them for a first time would be something I would remember for a long time. Skra has some high profile players. Bartos Kurek (who was resting after playing with the Polish National team) and argueably, the best opposite player in the world, Wlazly (Picture Below). Our team suffered a 3-0 loss to Skra and a 3-1 loss against Trefl Gdansk: but I believe we played well against the two teams. Its important for us to have some tough opponents before the season starts because our first few matches in the league are quite tough. When all the matches were over, it was so awesome to see the fans scramble to get autographs and pictures with our team as well as the other teams. Volleyball support in Poland is unmatched!

Wlazly for SKRA Belchatow

We left Poland and traveled back to Germany… where on the way, we stopped at the border for what I thought, was a bathroom break… I walked around a building to find a bathroom, returned to where the bus was, and what do ya know, the bus is gone… I was left behind without my passport, phone, or wallet. Thank God I was near a police station. The people I met inside could not speak English, so after some internet identification (I have a Wiki page??) we were able to make progress. Only when my teammates decided to watch a movie on the bus and turn on English subtitles for me did they say, “Wait, where is Joe?!” and realized I was left behind. What a day!

So we continued on to a sports school in Breitenbrunn, Germany to prepare for our first league match against SCC Berlin. This sports school was the main training center for the Olympic Weight Lifting team of Germany. Placed in the mountains/ hills, it took our bus driver some time to navigate the roads to the school, but the scenery was incredible. Churches placed on a hillside, each house was unique, and everything was GREEN.  After arriving there, some teammates and I went for a walk in the woods full of pine trees and shell-less snails (Note to self: Do not step on a snail without a shell, it is narrrsty) We trained like we normally do throughout the week and had a team BBQ before leaving Thursday morning.

We got to Berlin Thursday afternoon and had a practice that day in their arena which is comparable to Scott Trade Center in St. Louis. It reminded me of Boise State with all the orange and blue colors. Our match was Friday night and it was a crazy one. There wasn’t an empty seat in the arena of nearly 5,000 : by far, the largest crowd I have ever played for. Coordinated cheers from the crowd created an electric atmosphere for the entire match. Our team came out strong and won the first set 25:21. We lost the next two sets 17:25, 18-25. We won the fourth set 25-21 with lots of momentum moving into the 5th set. In the 5th, SCC Berlin had match point at 13-14 when I was subbed in to serve receive. The pressure was on but I passed near perfect and we battled on to win the set 18-16 and win the match!

Packed house!

Evivo winning is newsworthy on the train!

Here are some pics from our website… click on the first one “30-09-2011-Berlin”
http://www.evivo-dueren.de/bilder.html 

Here is a video summary of our match…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRETSdW9Lus&feature=player_embedded

We were given the weekend off and I got the chance to stay in Berlin and see as much of the city as I could. Berlin is flooded with history and cool sites to see. On Saturday, I did the touristy thing and hopped on a site seeing bus that went around the city. Berlin was crowded with people because it was a holiday weekend in Germany. October 3, 1990 (Reunification Day) marks the day when East and West Germany officially came together and Berlin became one city. The bus was fun but I felt like herded cattle…saw most of the sites and decided which one I wanted to see again on Sunday.  Sunday was fun, hopped on a river boat tour (and thanks to a credit card machine malfunction, it was free :-) After the boat tour, walked around and got some famous “curry wurst” which is a delicious sausage with curry ketchup as well as some good-tasting Doner.  Here is the collection of pictures from the trip… turn on the captions!

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3837755021/a=2054888021_2054888021/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Relaxin...

This week, I have finally started my German lessons. Tobias Wendt is my teacher and he usually teaches English. This is the first time he is teaching German so we are taking the lessons one day at a time. Pretty cool dude. We have gone over some common phrases to use in small conversations and I am using a free online course at the moment. Schon!

Thanks to ESPN America, I have also been able to watch the St. Louis Cardinals and how amazing! The Rally Squirrel is incredible, the team is constantly proving people wrong (Ahemm, ESPN analysts, Aheemm). Next game is Sunday against Milwaukee for game 1 of the NLCS! Yew!

Our next match is Wednesday October 12, against Chemie Volley Mittedeutschland. Los Gehts Evivo!

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