Busy December!

December has been quite the busy month. 7 matches, A trip to Azores, Christmas in Celle, and its not even 2012 yet.

The trip to Azores was one awesome and scenic learning experience. It was a learning experience because before traveling to Azores, I had no clue this place existed! A two hour flight from the west coast of Portugal, this Portuguese island is located in the middle of the Atlantic. I tried to get family and friends to come because its half way between home and Duren, but noooo! :-) Just kiddin... Here is the location... Pretty sweet!

After arriving there, I also found out there was a US military base with roughly 1500 troops. I had hoped to come across some fellow Americans but no dice. I did drive by the base, close enough! Evivo traveled there to play the first round of CEV cup against Fonte Bastardo Azores (most awesome name ever). We suffered a first round loss against the Bastardos but had hopes to even the score when we played them again at home. The hotel we stayed at was 200 feet from the ocean and wow, I forgot how much I miss the water! Every chance I got, I took a dip in the cold water and it was worth it. The weather was very kind to us. Temperatures in the 55-60 F range with the sun shining most days. One day, our team doctor and I took a morning drive around most of the island. Saw some great sites...

 On top of, Serra de Cuma

 Looking down from Serra De Cuma

 Rainbow!

Miradouro Dos Moinhos

The beach was incredible. And every moment our team had free, I made sure to get out and reacquainted with the ocean. About a quarter mile from our hotel, we found some big waves. I went there on two seperate occasions with Hauke, Matze, and Tomas. Tried to swim out to the big waves but the rocks along the ocean floor were too sharp to even start the walk out. But we still had fun pretending...

 Too rocky to start swimmin out...

 Wheww! Surfs up!

 Sehr schon!

Hauke parting the sea...

Beach Video! (the video quality is disappointing!)

But as I mentioned before, we went to Azores to play volleyball and it was a shame that we lost the first match. But there was still hope, the following week we were playing Fonte Bastardo again at home and if we won at home, there would be a "Golden Set" match played immediately afterwards. Personally, I had the opportunity to start in this match and I was more than pumped. The stage was set for an exciting match. Our crowd gave great support with some loud cheering and some hateful whistles at the other team (awesome). Going back and forth throughout the whole match, we knew it would come down to the deciding 5th set. But in the 5th set, the victory went to the Bastardos and thus we were eliminated from the CEV Cup. Bummer. 

For the Christmas Holiday, I was invited to Hauke's home in Celle, Germany which is very close to Hannover. Celle is a pretty historic city. With buildings in the city center older than America! Hauke and I arrived on the 23rd and met his Father at the Christmas market for some Glühwein
and to walk around. It was very easy to get into the Christmas mood with all the booths set up with Christmas decorations and yummy food. Glühwein is basically hot wine. Which is good to have when it is cold outside. Warms ya right up!

Night time at the Christmas Market

Hauke and his family were great. We celebrated Christmas Eve with his mothers side and had a traditional German dinner. With two small ovens on the table, each person had their own small tray and designated spot in the oven. You take a healthy (big) piece of cheese, load it with whatever kind of meat, vegetable, or fish... melt it in the oven on your tray... then transfer the melting goodness to a cooked potato on your plate... and you repeat this process until you are full- or my my case, so full I was sweating from satisfaction! 

Christmas in Germany is celebrated mostly on Christmas Eve evening compared to Christmas morning in America. But that didn't stop us from celebrating on Christmas day! We met at a Chinese Restaurant call the " Große Mauer" (Great Wall) for a 4 course lunch/dinner that included soup, make your own spring rolls, duck with rice, and ice cream.  Again, so tasty! 

The 26th, We celebrated with Hauke's father side and had another lunch/dinner at a pretty cool place with an endless amount of food... Did i mention, "I never went hungry on this Christmas trip?" soon after, we went to Hauke's Uncle house for some cake and played Kinect on Xbox and had a blast.

Hauke and I suiting up

Hauke and I took one of the mornings to walk around the city... here are some pics

This Building is from the 1500s!

This is a government building...If you can see the gold balls on top of the building, they were used as a, "fire safe"...any important documents were kept there in case of fire.

This is where knights met back in the OLD days for duels... duels like- two horses running at eachother, each knight holding a long stick, and BOOM one knight falls and the crowd cheers. So cool

It was really nice spending time with Hauke's family at Christmas time. Being away from my family and friends is difficult during the holidays but having a family to spend it with made it very memorable and fun. Having the three day break was good too. And now we are back in Duren practicing and preparing for our next match on Wednesday, Jan 4... 2012! Holy crap, its almost 2012!