Jamies Journey: Split, Croatia

volleyball

2011-12-24T05:48:00.000-08:00

Here in Croatia, as in many of the countries with professional volleyball they have the Championship and the countrie's Cup series. The Championship is basically a normal season, goes from September to April. You play every team home and away, one in the first half of season and then again in the second half of season. For the Cup you play one of the teams in the league twice in a row, once home and once away, the winner of these games advance to the next round and play the next team that won home and away.The Cup ends in Decemeber. So by the end of season you could have won the Cup in December and the Championship in April. As of right now our team is in 1st place in the Championship and we are still in the Croatian Cup and we play the semifinals Dec 27th.
There is also the European Cup. That is when you play other teams from other countries and it is just like the Cup here in Croatia, you play one game home and then one game away. The winners advance to the next round and team. You may be thinking what happens if one team wins at home and then they lose away. Well if the series is tied 1-1 there is a golden set, one set to 15 and the team that wins the golden set moves on.
So for our European Cup game we drew a team from Russia. This team from Russia has a 4 million dollar budget. One of the top teams in the Russian league. They were one of the tallest teams we have faced. And there is USA National Team middle blocker Foulake on the team. This team is a high calibar team, obviously.
We played them at home first. From the practice the night before to the warm ups the next day before the game we knew they were all business. You can tell by the way they acted and warm upped that they were a disciplined team and good at what they did. Even though we knew we were the underdogs and no one expected us to win we went into the game with confidence and energy. Besides this is what we were waiting for to play a team with some tough competition and really see how we can play as a team.
We were so pumped for the game and it was the biggest crowd we had so far at one of our games. Before our first serve of the game the crowd was clapping in unision to get us going. It was so awesome to see and hear because that was the first time they had ever done that. Of course they cheered during the game after points or great plays but not before the first serve. It was just a good atmosphere all the way around.
The first set was one of our best sets that we have played. I think we surprised the Russian team with how well we could play. We went after them strong with our serve which gave us a chance to have a strong attack. We ended up taking the first set from them! It was so exciting! The next three sets we lost. They served much tougher and their block was huge. But we never gave up and we fought all the way till the end. We lost 1-3 but everyone was very happy with the way we played. We recieved a compliment from someone saying that it was good to see how much heart this team has because never before did thhey have this, in past they would have given up but they were proud of how we played.
It is so rewarding to hear that from the fans and also gain some fans from that game. It was awesome to play with such a high level team and just to play some good volleyball. I love this sport!!!
After the game we were all on such a high from the game and the energy from everyone. It was also our setter Kiki's and our libero Mickey's birthdays. So after the game in the locker were 2 champagne bottles ready to be popped open in celebration of the game and for the birthday girls!

me and the birthday girl Mickey

Split and Vukovar

2011-12-24T05:29:00.000-08:00

Just for those of you who dont know where Croatia is or Split here is a picture of Croatia. Down by the palace in the center of the city this is a big mural on one of the walls. The city of Split is in the little cove along the coast. I have been to the island of Brac and Hvar which I think you can see from the picture, they are the two closest and bigger islands on the map.

Here in Croatia they celebrate a day of rememberance for those who fought for their freedom. I cant remember the exact day but it is towards the end of November. Our Croatian friend Z likened it to our 9/11. The main ceremony takes place in Vukovar which is where the fighting toook place. But here in Split there is a street named after Vukovar, which is Vukovarska. On this day all the people of Split light a candle and place it out on the the Vukovarska street in rememberence. It was pretty cool to drive down one of the longest main streets here and see it lined up with candles.

Lil Piece of Home

2011-12-20T14:47:00.000-08:00

I LOVE getting packages when Im overseas...its the BEST!! My mom and dad had sent me a birthday package but it arrived a few weeks later but I didnt care I had stuff from America in it!

Is it surprising that the best part of the package was the tuna and mayo?! the food here just doesnt taste the same! And its always good to catch up on whats going on in the magazines! Loved and use everything in the package!
Thanks for the presents mom and dad!!

Movember

2011-12-20T14:20:00.000-08:00

Reese, Kiki, Becci and I, along with Mark, an American who plays for a mens team for a town right next to ours,headed out one night to go explore the palace at night. We came across this bar where after you took a shot of Croatian tequila you were then presented with a mustache.
Of course we all thought this was awesome and ordered one right away. We each got our own little mustache!

Later that night we headed out to a club close to our apartment. We walked in and found out it was a good night to be there. The mayor of Split was in attendance so they had free appetizers and 2 really popular singers were there and performed a few of their songs. The people there were taking pictures with the singers and singing along to the songs. We thought one of the singers looked like a Croatian Tony Danza ha! The other one was a little bit older and just as crazy!

an 80's Halloween

2011-12-20T13:55:00.000-08:00

Here in Croatia they dont celebrate Halloween like we do in America. But us Americans wanted to celebrate it anyways. The only problem was coming up with our costume. It was hard because no stores here sell actual costumes, except for a colorful wigs or mask here and there. So we had to think of what we could easily do with what we had brought. We all had some workout pants, some off the shoulder shirts and some headbands and put the hair in a side pony and we were good to go, 80's Halloween!
But the costumes werent enough. We decided that we needed to make an 80's workout routine to LMFAO "Party Rock". We made this dance up in 5 minutes before we left to go out. We headed out and since the next day, November 1st is a holiday here the whole town of Split was out that night.
But basically we were the only ones dressed up, except for the few who purchased some of those colorful wigs and masks. But we didnt care. We went up to the dj and requested LMFAO "Party Rock" so we can do our dance. A few songs later the song came on and there we were in the middle of the dance floor doing our workout dance. The rest of the night was fun and we were glad we had a chance to celebrate a little American holiday!

Birthday and Bowling

2011-12-19T15:14:00.000-08:00

Another birthday overseas. Never expect too much but they also turn out to be good days. This year was also one of those times. My birthday fell on a Saturday this year and we played in Zagreb, which is about a 5 hour bus ride,on Sunday. So we were stuck on the bus for my birthday.
Over here in Europe if it is your birthday you have to provide the treat. So for my birthday I brought back with me some funfetti cake and frosting to make for the team. I figured they would love to have some American treat. Becci and her mom bought me some candles for my cupcakes so I would have some candles to blow out.

When we got to Zagreb we got to the hotel and had dinner and they surprised me with a birthday cake and they all sang happ birthday to me in Croatian. The president of the club also let us go out for a few hours to walk around Zagreb and celebrate a little. So all of us girls piled into a few cabs and headed out for a bit. It was nice to be able to celebrate my birthday a little bit on the actual day with the team. When we got back to the hotel we had a team cheer and then headed to bed.

We woke up the next day and headed to our game which we won in 3!

The following day we had off so Kiki, Reese, Reese's brother in law Jay, Z, Becci and I went bowling at the place next to our apartment called, Octopus Bowling. We have come to spend many a night at this bowling alley. The owners and workers there are so awesome and friendly and it is always a good time there!

Leslie's Wedding Weekend!

2011-12-19T12:21:00.000-08:00

What is a maid of honor to do when her sister is getting married the same time she is playing professional volleyball overseas?! Buy a ticket home of course! I had made sure in my contract before I left for Croatia that they knew I needed to go home the weekend of my sisters wedding. Thankfully they agreed to it and I was able to get home on a Thursday night and leave Monday afternoon so I could be there for everything. (I even missed a game that weekend! But they won in 3!) I am so thankful that it all worked out and I was able to be there for my sister and take part in the maid of honor duties!
The first night I got home my first stop on the way home from the airport was Del Taco! It never tasted better. My mom and I then headed to the mall to get last minute wedding stuff, like my dads suit jacket. I hit the hay pretty early that night cuz I was exhausted from flying all day.
Friday morning my mom, my little sister, the bride to be and I went and got massages. It was much needed and a great way to prepare for the weekend ahead. We then stopped and got In&Out and then met up with the other bridesmaids to get the bachelorette party started! First stop was to get a little pampered and get manicures and pedicures done. Once we did that we all met up at Alicias house and got ready and had some yummy snacks (thanks for the best whipped cream ever Aaron!)Once we were all ready as maid of honor I felt it was my duty to embarrass the bride a little bit, so we played a few games and had a few presents for the bride to be.

After the lil party at Alicias house we headed out to dinner at the Public House in Temecula. It was a great place and a fun atmosphere for us girls to enjoy dinner at.
We then decided to walk the streets of Old Town Temecula and see where the night would take us. We ended up going to one of the bars there and had a great time dancing and laughing with each other!

Saturday morning we headed back to Temecula for the lunch rehearasl. It all went pretty quick and smooth and we got things done and figured out right away. For the lunch we headed to Baileys and enjoyed some delicoius food and our time together before the big day!

Later that night we had family come over to our house to have some food and drinks and just hang out with each other since it is rare to get everybody in one place. I was so excited to see family from Idaho and Arizona who I hadnt seen in forever.My little cousin Emma was so excited to be able to "workout" with me and the other girls were so excited to go to a wedding! It was great having them all around! And the girls were a big help the night before the wedding helping with decorations and babysitting Mia!

The Big Day! We started off with all the bridesmaids getting our hair done in Hemet, taking over the salon. Kellie and I were the first 2 done and took off to get some last minute details done and get to the wedding site to finish preparing the Maid Of Honor speech. Believe me I was stressing over it. I had planned something great but didnt know if it was going to work and I had no back up plan, so it had to work! I was worried all the way up till the reception. But once we all got to the wedding sight the bride to be was relaxed and ready to go. We got ourselves ready and took pictures, had lunch, laughed and danced. Everything was coming together perfect and we were minutes from walking down the aisle. The cutest little flower girl was the only little minor worry for a second. She was riding down in a wagon sitting on her bumbo, but she has fallen asleep right as we were about to make our entrance. Thankfully my mom and dad woke her up and she stayed awake for her o so cute ride down the aisle. The wedding was beautiful and it went perfect. Now it was time to party!

The wedding site was called the Longshadow Ranch winery in Temecula and it was a beautiful place. The reception setup, the food and the decorations were perfect. After dinner was speech time. Like I said I was still worrying about my speech but thankfully the awesome DJ was there to help! I had prepared music with my speech and he was able to download his music to his setup and he nailed every song! My little sister and I got a lot of compliments on the speech and I am just so happy that it went over well, especially with the bride! The rest of the reception we danced the night away, especially my dad! We were all sad when the dj said it was the last dance of the night.

The whole weekend was special and absolutely amazing to be there for. I dont know what I would have done if I had missed it. The bride looked the best I have ever seen her, the wedding was perfect, there was alot of laughter the whole weekend and many unforgettable memories.I loved seeing my family, family from other states, my best friend and many other friends who mean so much!

Coronas!

2011-12-19T12:08:00.000-08:00

Each year it is hard to find great Mexican food places over in Europe. When you are overseas you definitely start craving things you cant have and Mexican food is one of those things. They have a place here called Texas Durango, a croatian tex mex, so while Beccis mom was here we tried it out. Surprisingly it wasnt that bad and the margaritias were strong but unfortunately no where near close to California Mexican food tho. So we decided to have a mexcian dinner night. Kiki and Reese had us over at their apartment and cooked a yummy dinner with chips and a 7 layer bean dip and enchiladas. (Most of the ingrediants were brought from American, cant find good beans here!) And of course had to have some Coronas to complete the dinner!

more from the Palace

2011-11-17T09:59:00.001-08:00

Beccis mom got to come out here for about 2 weeks (yay!) and it was great having her here. Of course it made me miss my mom but it was nice to have a few meals cooked for us and a mom around. While she was here we took her down to the center of the city where the palace is. We have gone down there a few times but theres always more to look at and new things to see. So we went down there one afternoon and it was beautiful day. The weather had been raining off and on recently so we were happy to have a sunny day. We walked around the palace, looked at the shop stands and then got some pizza and sat out by the water. It was nice relaxing day!

Femme Fatale

2011-11-17T09:12:00.000-08:00

Britney Spears! Where can you go and see a Britney Spears concert with floor seats for only $60 dollars(300 kuna)? Croatia of course!! Becci and Reese are huge Britney fans so one weekend all four of us piled into Kikis car and drove the 4 hours to Zagreb for the concert and then drove the 4 hours back from Zagreb right after the concert. We werent the only ones who werent from Croatia to see Britney there, we bumped into alot of people from Italy, there were people from Austria and Slovenia and Im sure many other nearby countries. We found this out as we were waiting in line to get in. I am now a little more thankful for the security and organization in America. We got to the arena about 2 hours before the concert and we walked right up and there were a couple of lines already formed but we walked up to some other doors that were gonna be opened and then all of a sudden we were swarmed with European people crowding us to get to the front. It was not worth being so close to close with the Europeans smoking and singing their national anthem (Italians) so we decided to head to the back of the line and wait.

We had general admission tickets for the floor so we knew once we headed in that it was a free for all. So as soon as we got in we hurried to the floor seats and it wasnt even that full. So we got good seats right behind the VIP section. We were surprised that the arena was not full. But these Europeans are really agressive at trying to get to the front or if someone tries to get in front of them. Craziness. They love their Britney. The opening act were 2 American girls, Paris and Destinee, who did a good job. Britney did most of her classics and all of her new stuff. One of my favorites of the night was "I Wanna Go", the crowd all had balloons and she pulled people up onstage with her and the place was going crazy. The last song she sang was "Till the World Ends" and even when she left after the encore pople were still singing the song for a good 10 minuts. She put on a pretty entertaining performance and even brought her 2 boys out on stage with her at the very end.

Dubrovnik

2011-11-11T14:47:00.000-08:00

There is a city about a 3 hour drive from my town of Split called Dubrovnnik. It is one of the many tourist cities here in Croatia. One of our last free weekends before our season started us "foreigners" decided to make the trip to Dubrovnik. The drive was definitly amazing. We took the scenic route and drove along the coast for awhile and then we went through hills and some countryside and also on the highway, so it was quite the journey but worth it. We also had to drive through Bosnia for about 15 minutes. They even stopped us and asked for our passports!

Alot of cruise ships port there for a day so people can walk through the "Old City". The Old City is surrounded by fortress walls and inside the walls are old churches and buildings, tons of little shops and cafes and even some apartments.When we got there we had to find a place to park, which took us forever to find which is typical here in Croatia. Once we parked we had to go find where our apartment was for the night. We were carrying all our luggage and backpacks and ice chests for what seemed like forever. We had to go meet the lady from the apartment but we got lost with her directions so she sent her 8 year old daughter to come find us. Finally we found out apartment right outside the Old City walls. Here is a view of the Old City from out apartment.

As soon as we unpacked we headed straight for the beach. Here the beaches dont have sand, they have rocks and pebbles but if you want you can buy a chair and umbrella for 70 kuna, which is almost 15 dollars, so we settled on the rocky beach. But the day was still beautiful and so nice to relax on the beach.

After the beach we headed back to our apartment to get ready to go out for dinner and then walk around the inside of the Old City. We all love Mexican food so we saw this cute Mexican restaraunt, Chihuahua, and had to try it. It was definitely the spicest Mexican food I have ever had! But it was still good and the people there were very friendly even giving us a shot of some Croatian honey alcohol.

After dinner we walked around the inside of the City Walls admiring the old buildings and churches promising to come back tomorrow to get some souviegners.

We went back to the apartment for a little rest before we checked out the night life inside the fortress. How many people can say they went to a club inside a fortress?! We played a few rounds of catch phrase and then headed out. We had a great night dancing and meeting new people!

The next day we woke up and headed straight for the beach. While we were laying out we saw a big group of people settle down near us. We at first just thought it was some tourist group but it turns out a man was proposing to his girl. He got down on one knee and she said yes. Then out comes a man with a Bible and they get married right there on the beach. After their ceremony they all hung out at the beach and then a little while later we saw them have a reception at a local restaraunt. It was cute.

After the beach we headed back into the Old City walls to do some shopping and lunch. It was awesome to see in the daytime too. It really is incredible and beautiful seeing the old bulidings. After walking around for an hour or so and when everyone had bought their souveigners we headed to one of the little cafes in the narrow ally ways.

The weekend in Dubrovnik was by far one of the best places I have been to and it was an awesome weekend trip. I had a great time relaxing at the beach, seeing some old architexture and embracing some more of the Croatian culture!

Hajduk (Hi-Duke)

2011-11-05T04:28:00.000-07:00

It will come as no surprise that the biggest sport here in Croatia is futbol(soccer). And the town of Split loves loves their soccer team, Hajduk. Everywhere you go you can see their symbol from the team or the team name written across a wall, a buliding, in the stores and plenty of Hajduk jerseys around town. So our president got us tickets to the big game coming up. Hajduk would be playing their rivals, Dinamo from Zagreb, who is the best in Croatia. This would be my first ever professional soccer game. I knew soccer games in Europe had crazy fans and the fans here in Split did not dissapoint! Our president made sure to get us seats in the safe section. The fan section in the stadium is crazy. People come the night before and morning of the game to store all there flares and signs. There is no parking near the stadium so we had a taxi drop us off and the place was packed with people drinking and hanging out outside since there is no alcohol permitted in the stadium. To kind of give you an idea how big this game was there were over 900 policemen at the game to keep in under control. Reese, Kiki, Becci and I went out that morning and got our Hajduk shirts, had to be in white the teams color and the donkey which is the teams mascot, to make sure we were prepared for the game. The beginning of the game was a big production with alot of the fans participating from their seats. The fans in certain sections had signs to hold up at cetain times and there was confetti everywhere. Right from the start of the game the crazy fan section was loud and didnt stop till the end of the game. We were in the "safe" section but near the small section for the visiting team as they were pretty loud themselves with their synchronized cheers and moves. Throughout the game the crazy fan section would throw out flares onto the field. At a certian point in the second half they all threw their flares out onto the field at once. They had to stop the game for about 5 minutes to get all the flares off the field. The place went crazy when Hajduk scored the first goal but then seconds before the 1st half ended Dinamo scored to tie the game and that would be the final result of the game. It was a fun game and Im glad I got to experience my first professional soccer game!

Lttle Virgin Mary Fair

2011-11-05T03:43:00.000-07:00

Back in September(I know I know, Im way behind on my blogging)was our first holiday here in Croatia. It was a day to honor the "little Virgin Mary" and they also had a Little Virgin Mary Fair that the whole town went to.

They had little booths set up selling all sorts of religious bracelets, statues, rosarys,candles and tons of other things related to the Virgin Mary.They also had booths selling all sorts of things like woven baskets,wooden kitchen supplies,lavender leaves,toys for the kids and many more things you can think of.They also roasted veal and sheep in front of everyone and then butchered it there in front of everyone too and then sold it.

And of course at a fair you have plenty games and rides. We tried out a few of their games, most of them were copies of what we would have in America but they had more of home made versions of our games.

They had alot of rides, just like at a fair at home. So we decided that we had to try out the swings, the only ride we could really trust, although that was a lil shady too. It is basically a free for all. You go buy your ticket then stand anywhere around the swings and as soon as it slows down you rush the swings and hope to get a seatt, there is no fence or any assembly to it, a free for all.We were lucky enough to get four in a rown. And if someone is not careful walking by the swings they could easliy get hit, especially since there are no rules. We saw guys grabbing the chairs in front of the them and pushing them out further and also 2 guys kept getting there swings tangled up. No rules.

But it was a fun night out with the girls and experiencing a lil bit of the Crotian culture.

Here for Volleyball

2011-09-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

After all my posts on my blog about going to the beach, going out, sightseeing you may start to wonder if I am really here for volleyball or vacation?! But yes I am still here playing volleyball! We started our practices the last week of August, just doing light practices and only one a days. It was a chance for us to meet all the girls and the coach and get a feel for playing with each other. The first week of September we started doing double days. Ironically I love that we are practicing twice a day. Otherwise I would be bored. And it is helping keep me in shape for all those beach trips we are making! :)
But we are working hard. My schedule usually goes like this: wake up for practice or weights in the morning, head straight to Vas Kutak, which is this great restaraunt that we eat lunch at everyday.Some of our favorite meals are the gnocci,grilled chicked,spaghetti and calamari. So after lunch I usually head back to our apartment and catch up on emails,facebook and tv shows and then try and take a nap. I am really bad at the napping part,I fal asleep for about 30 minutes, but Ill tke what I can get. Then it is back to practice at 7:45 till about 10:00.The only thing I dont like is practicing so late at night, it makes the days seem so much longer. But I really like the girls on the team as well as our coach.
We play in one of the nicer gyms in the league. It is a big arena which holds about 15,000 people, although I dont think we will be filling it up for home games. But it is a great place to play. We are all excited to start playing some games!

the Island of Hvar

2011-09-18T08:24:00.000-07:00

First off let me say that we have been treated really great here the first few weeks. After practices we would go grab a drink and bite to eat with Z and another sponsor named Ante and also with the president of the club Mirko. One night they had all of us foreigners out to nice seafood dinner. It was amazing! All sorts of seafood, we had shrimp, oysters, mussels, octopus, tuna and bunch of other stuff I didnt even know. But I sure loved it. One night Ante said we needed to go to the island of Hvar, one of the best islands here and a big tourist island as well. Ante is head of all the ports in Croatia so he knows what he is talking about. So we all said absolutely! So he set up a whole weekend for us to go to the island of Hvar.
We took a 2 hour ferry ride to the island of Hvar where Ante was there to pick us up. He then drove us about 15 minutes thru windy and hilly green forest all while along the coast to the city of Hvar. Once we parked the car and got out and saw our first view of the city we were blown away. It was really really pretty! Just the structure of the buildings, the church, all the palm trees, the water and all the yachts lined up in the water was awesome!

After we walked around for awhile Ante told us we would be heading to a small exclusive island where people go to get away and they also have hammocks there for people to sleep on. To get to this small island we had to take a small boat to get there. So we fit 8 of us into this little boat and headed to the island.

The plan was for us to stay the night on the island and sleep on those hammocks but once we got there we decided that it was too cold to stay the night. We went exploring the island which took about 15 minutes because it was so small! But they did have some peacocks, rabbits, bunnies and even a donkey on the island. But we had a great time on the small island just hanging out with each other, swimming, enjoying the view, the sunset and having a nice dinner. The dinner was amazing! The steak there was delicious!

After dinner we headed back to the island of Hvar so we could go to our condo that we had for the night and get ready to go explore Hvar at night. All of us headed out to a cafe and had a good time soaking up the atmosphere and talking with each other. We ended up going to a few popular places and had a good time out! We ended the night with some greasy Croatian cheese pastry, that was good but not good at the same time ha! We found out that we had just missed Prince Harry by a few days and Beyonce and Jay-Z by a week. I guess this island really is one of the best!

The next morning Becci and I wanted to go to the church service at the big Cathedral but we werent allowed in because we were wearing shorts. So we met up with the others for some breakfeast and people watching. Then we headed out to another port on the island. We had another delicious seafood lunch there. We had bread with sardines on it,lobster patte,fish,octoupus,squid and shrimp. Now with the shrimp you had to peel it yourself as well as break the head from the body. AND then you had to suck out what was inside the head. As disgusting as that sounds I had to try it,Im in Croatia! One of the port workers that was with us ate the head of the fish. For dessert we had some fruit including yellow watermelon.The lunch was great!

After lunch we headed to a different beach, as we are driving Ante tells us it is a nudist beach! But thankfully everyone there was clothed and we enjoyed our time swimming in the water, laying out and eating some icecream!

Pub Crawl

2011-09-18T08:10:00.000-07:00

We were getting a little anxious to get out of the apartment and go see the city of Split at night. We also wanted to go meet people from Split and any other tourists that were here enjoying the city. All four of us "foreigners" decided what better way to meet people and see the downtown city of Split than a pub crawl?! So we ventured out on Saturday night to the center of the city. The first person we meet is the energetic leader of the pub crawl. His name is Hula and we found out that he plays handball at the gym where we practice! We have run into him a few times at the gym since. So it is nice to have our first friend here! We then ended up meeting people from England, Portugal and the Netherlands thar we talked to and danced with all night. We went to 4 different places around the center of the city and then ended up at one of the bars near our apartment. It was a great night to get to know each other, meet new people, make new friends and also see the city of Split!

Brac Beach

2011-09-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

The first weekend Becci and I wanted to go explore but mainly go explore one of the thousands of islands that Croatia has. So we hopped on a ferry and took an 45 minute boat ride to the island of Brac.

We were told that it has great beaches and one of the highest rated beaches in all of Europe. Unfortunately we wouldnt be able to go the best beach there because you need a car to get there but we still found an amazing beach there. The water there was soooo gorgeous and clear blue and it was not too cold. The only thing here is that their beaches have rocks, not sand. So if you want to go in the water you need to wear water shoes or flip flops. We didnt know that so we had to walk on the rocks to get in the water and also in the water. But it was worth it to go floating in the Adriatic Sea!

They also had jet skis to rent, banana boats, you could go tubing and lot of other things to do. Becci and I layed out and enjoyed the water for a few hours and then went and had lunch (cheeseburgers!) at one of the small cafes.

We then went back to the port and walked around the little shops they had and ended our beach trip with some gelato. It was a nice and relazing weekend at the beach!

Welcome to Split, Croatia

2011-09-18T06:49:00.000-07:00

So on Tuesday August 23rd I left Hemet, California and headed to Split, Croatia. It would be a long day of traveling. I would stop in Phoenix, Philidelphia, Frankfurt and then Split. Thats a lot of stops and changes and opportunities for my bags to get lost. It was also nice because I didnt have long layovers in any of the stops, just enough time to grab a bite to eat and get in line. I was only worried at the Phoenix airport because as I was baoarding the news came on about the earthquake in the east coast and they were shutting down a few airports, including Philidelphia. But everything worked out and I landed in Philidelphia with no problems. I got excited as I boarded my plane to Frnakfurt, it was not full at all and I had the whole row to myself! Plus a nice and friendly flight attendant. The flight was smooth, I watched 2 movies (Lincoln Lawyer and Water for Elephants, just in case you were wondering) and then slept the rest of the way. Even in Frankfurt I didnt have a long layover which is nice when traveling so far. In Frankfurt I met up with my roommate and future teammate, Becci, for the first time. We hopped on the short flight to Split and arrived safely and to both our enjoyment so did our bags! As we were walking out of baggage claim we saw a guy holding up papers with our names on it. After a few minutes of trying to understand and pronounce his name (Zeljan), we gave him the nickname "Z". So "Z" and his friend loaded up our luggage in two cars and we headed to our home for the next 9 months.
It is always nerve racking to find out where you will be living for the next 9 months. We dont pick out the apartment or get to see it before we leave so its always an anxious part of the arrival. As we were driving to the apartment I was getting very hopeful because we were heading toward the water. Yay! Our apartment is really close to the water so it is easy to walk to the beach. The apartment is small but my roomie and I each have our own room and it is a great location. (I will have a post for the apartment with pictures soon!)
So Becci and I got settled into our apartment and later that night Z took us out to dinner. Right down the road there is this cute cafe and restaurant that overlooks the water. So we went there and it was delicious. Becci and I knew we would be back here alot. The next day Z and the president of our club Mirko took us sightseeing throughout the city. We went to the highest point of the city to a beautiful lookout spot to see the whole city.

Then they took us to the Diocletian Palace which has been there for 1700 years. We got to walk around inside the Palace. We kind of likened it to Venice but without the water because it had narrow streets and walkways. It was pretty cool! Of course there are lots and lots of small souveigner shops for all the tourists. Here is a close up of the Palace from the lookout point.

In the Palace's backyard there was a statue of a great philospher of Split. The belief is that if you rub his toe and make a wish it will bring you good luck and your wish will come true.

It was nice of them to take us around and it was great to see parts of the city. Later that night Z took us to where we would be playing and also to meet some of the girls from the team since they were practicin that night. We werent practicing yet because we had to get cleared with a medical exam first. But both Becci and I were anxious to see the gym and meet the girls. The girls were super nice and friendly and even spoke English! The gym is pretty big and hold about 15,000 people. After the practice Z took us to get us some late night fast food. He claims there fast food is the best, it is pretty good but Ill take Del Taco over it anyday. :) But that night we had chevapi. The best way to describe it is basically sausage in a pita bread with their special sauce. It was pretty good. Ill have to take a picture of it next time i get it.
The next day the other 2 "foriegn" players arrived. Reese who is also from California and then Kiki who is from Slovenia but she speaks fluent English and also can speak Croatian. We met up with them for lunch at this restaraunt, Vas Kutak, where we will eat everyday for lunch for free.
All in all it was a great and interesting first few days there!

Split Decision

2011-09-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

Well after a year off of not playing professional volleyball I have decided to up and leave one more time. I am so blessed to be able to go play another year. I was not ready to be done with playing volleyball, I missed playing the game so much! I am so thankful for the year I spent at home in California, I loved my time there. It was awesome to be able to see my family whenever I wanted, go to and be in some weddings, travel to see friends and also to rest my body. I also got to stay close to the game of volleyball by coaching 2 club teams out in Temecula. It was a great experience and I am so happy I got to coach there. I also had a blast playing beach volleyball this summer with my partner Dana who I met coaching club. Being around volleyball and coaching it made me realize that I still want to play. So I emailed my agent telling him I wanted to go play again. He found a few teams that were interested and he got things going right away. It all kinda happened really fast. One day I emailed my agent about 2 weeks later I was signing a contract to go play.I was super excited that it had all worked out and so happy that I would be traveling to a place that I had not been too. I signed a contract to go play in the city of Split, Croatia. I had heard great things about Croatia so I was sold! I tried to soak up as much time with family, friends and home (home being things like In&Out and Del Taco) while I could before I had to go. As much as I loved my time home, I love volleyball and cant wait to play!!
Here are a few pics from this past year at home that I was so happy to be a part of and will miss so much!!!
Reanne and I on a boat tour in Chicago!

Family at Christmas time!

Kellie and I at the Zac Brown Band concert!

Leslie and I at the Angels game!

Viper Volleyball!

Superbowl!!

Mini UCR volleyball reunion!

Alicias wedding!

Spending quality aunt/niece time!!

i say hello, i say goodbye

2010-06-30T19:56:00.000-07:00

As a professional volleyball player playing overseas every year there is one thing that you must do every year that does not get easier, saying goodbye. You go there not knowing anybody, not knowing the town, not knowing the culture, and not knowing what the team will be like. But come April you have made many friends, have your facorite places in the town, take some of the culture home with you and have to say gooodbye to your team who has become like family to you. You see them everyday. You go through ups and downs with them. You experience the highs and lows of playing volleyball with them. You win and lose with them. You go out and play wii and crazy card games with them. You make lasting memories with them.

This past season was no exception. Some of the friendliest people I have ever met. The girls and the town were so welcoming and everyone on the team clicked right away. Whenever you walked through town at least one person would say hi or talk about the last game or the games coming up. The support the team had from each other and from the town was a great feeling! I think this is one of the reasons why we did so GREAT this season!
I will miss this team more than any other team I have played for. But I know that I will keep in touch with most of them for a long time to come! From the first meeting of the girls at the practice and trying to remember all thos Finnish names, the "carnival" we had at practice, crazy nights at the best place ever..Cirkus, paintballing in the woods, cider and carpo lonkero and tequilla shots and blueberry shots (yuuuuuuuum!!!), "mita muuja, mika boogie" all the time, hockey games, road trips and bus rides,snow and sauna parties, winning the silver medal and to the friendships made; it was an unforgetable season!

So to the amazing girls and teammates of HPK, the fun coaches, my favorite coaches kid Ville, the amazing announcer, my favorite bartender in Hameelinna who makes the best hot chocolate in town Teemu, one of the nicest guys I have ever met Lasse, to the fun and hot hockey players who had an amazing season, especially #38, to the best basketball team that Hameenlinna ever had, my tall friend Ettu or Eddy, to the amazing town of Hameenlinna, to the wonderful delicious pizza at Koti pizza,to my friends that work at Subway since that was my go to when i was hungry, to the workers who constantly were working in my apartment, to the doctor who reminded us of "teddy" from prison break, to that lil kareokee bar, to that great Apollo bar in Helsinki and to that cute lil reindeer place: thanks for a fun and memorable 8 months!! I love you all and will miss Finland so much!!

more final pics

2010-06-08T11:47:00.001-07:00

great fans!!!

here are some of the professional pics from the finals.

The Finals!

2010-06-08T11:32:00.000-07:00

We made it to the finals!! yay!! We faced a tough tough team, Salo. We ended up losing in the finals but hey a silver medal is not too bad!At the end of the game we lined up at the endline and recieved our silver medals and roses and then went to congradulate the other team. We had some up and downs during the finals but it didnt diminish what a great season we had. I loved playing with these girls and it was one of the best seasons I have ever had! Even though we lost in the Finals we still had a great time and enjoyed playing our last games as a team together. Here are some of the pics from the Finals.

MoM's visit

2010-04-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

My mom arrived in Finland safe and sound. The day she came it was snowing! So right away she got a taste of what I have been living with the last few months! The day she got there i still had a practice that night since we had started the finals. But I think it worked out perfect because she needed a nice long nap! The next few days we just walked around my town and I showed her what my life has been the last 8 months. We walked around the castle, around the lake, went shopping a few times,went to a hockey game to watch my friends in the semifinals, ate at the lunch place i eat at everyday, visited my friend/bartender at the bar next to my apartment and showed her a few of my favorite things in town.

Once the finals ended we were able to go outside my town to the bigger cities. We spent a day shopping and walking around Tampere, one of my favorite cities. It was perfect weather for sightseeig and walking around. We also ate at a yummy restaraunt for dinner that has great food and also brews its own beer!

One of the days my friend had hooked us up with a day at a reindeer park! I was so excited to go see the reindeer and have my mom see them too. What comes to mind when you think Finland....reindeer!! So we had a great time at the reindeer park feeding the reindeer, petting them (they were so friendly!), learning to lasso a reindeer, trying some reindeer food and then finally the owner of the reindeer park insisted that I try on some traditional outfit worn by the Sami, a group of people that live up north in Finland. The owner of the park was real nice altho he didnt speak much English, but we made it work and im sooo glad we got to spend the day there!!

The last part of our trip we headed to Helsinki for a few days. My mom, Thais,Anni(libero on our team) and me stayed at one of the girls on my teams home and they took us sightseeing thru Helsinki. We walked around and saw many churches, museums, the parliament, and went to one of the bigger shopping malls. We then had some nice Finnish meals at her house that her mom had cooked for us!!

We had a great time while my mom was here visiting but I think we are both looking forward to going home!!

sidenote....

2010-04-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

My mom is coming on Wednesday and staying for 2 weeks and then we will leave together on the 21st!! I am soooooo excited for her to come out here and see where I have been living the last 8 months, meet the team and amazing friends that I have made here, watch the finals and just experience life in Finland!

Playoff update!

2010-04-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

Going to the 'ship!!! HPK is in the finals!!! We had a great semfinals series, taking the series to 5 games. We won 4 and lost 1. The first 3 games were close going back and forth and those 3 games going to 5 sets. The last 2 games that we played our team definitely came together and played great to win in 3 sets! It was nice to get done with the semis in 5 games so we would have at least a week to rest. We had played 5 games in about a week!

We start the Finals tomorrow against a really tough opponent. They have gone undefeated the whole year! It is a best of 7 series. Our team has been playing great lately and we are all excited to play in the finals and have a chance to break their undefeated streak! One team, one dream!!! Simply the best!!

Happy Easter!

2010-04-05T13:25:00.001-07:00

Happy Easter everyone!! Out here in Finland they celebrate Easter all weekend. Everything is closed all weekend, except for Sat. and everyone is spending time with their families. I spent my Easter weekend by practicing, weights, spending time with some of the girls, and even trying some Finnish specialty foods for Easter. One dish was an appetizer called Mammi, and they say either you hate it or you like it, but most people hate it and if you like it, it is because it is an aquired taste. But to my surprise I actually liked it!! :)

On Easter Sunday I decided to make myself a nice yummy Easter brunch. I made an egg and bacon casserole, deviled eggs (my favorite and i always make them for easter), apples, oranges and cinnemon rolls. It was delicious!

Once again I am away from home on another special hoiday, but the great thing about this holiday is that I can celebrate it one on one with my God! It was a great to take time out and thank Him for the life He gave and the life He has given me. When I was cooking I had my worship music on and when the song Above All by Micheal W.Smith came on it really made me stop and think about the events of His death and resurrection. It is amazing to stay still and think about His love,sacrifce and power!

Above all powers, above all kings, above all nature and created things,
above all wisdon and all the ways of man, You were here before the world began.
Above all kingdoms above all thrones, above all wonders the world has ever known above all wealth and treasures of the earth, theres no way to measure what Your worth

Crucified, laid behind a stone, You lived to die, rejected and alone, like a rose trampled on the ground, You took the fall and thought of me above all

war in the woods

2010-03-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

Paintballing!!!! When my coach announced that we were going paintballing as a part of our team bonding day I was not jumping up and down with excitement like some of the girls. Paintballing is one thing I told myself I wouldnt do..why would you purposely go and get yourself hit with paintballs that hurt and left bruises for days. But the coach assured me we would have some protective gear.
So that Saturday the team loaded up in the cars and headed to the paintballing place. I think most of us were expecting some kind of course or area lined out for us. But we get there and we are in the woods. We are paintballing in the woods with like 2 feet of snow. So we get all our gear which is just like a camouflaged jumpsuit which garnered no protection or padding whatsoever, so i wore my big jacket and sweats underneath for some extra padding. The they gave us our helmets, which didnt have a anything to protect the back of our heads,which led me to more worrying about my safety. And sidenote the helmets were so bad because they fogged up so fast so you couldnt see anything!
So the rules were pretty simple,it was just like capture the flag. We were divided into 2 teams, the blue and orange team. Go blue! There was 7 on each team. We played 3 rounds for 20 minutes. So one team went to one side of the woods and the other side of the woods and the man blew the whistle and we were off. Since I was so afraid to play this dreaded game I offered to stay and play defense and guard the flag. Really I just wanted to find a good hiding spot and stay hidden so I wouldnt get hit. Well my planned worked. I hit behind this huge rock and was perfectly hidden and I nailed our assistant coach before he could get the flag! yes!! But that round ended in a draw, no one got the flags.
After the first round my competiive side came out. I wanted to go and sneak around and try and capture the flag. So the whistle blew and I made my way around the outskirts of the boundaries, hiding behind trees and rocks and laying low in the snow. It is very hard to be fast and agile while every step you take there is snow up to your knees. So I made it close to the flag and all of a sudden someone was shooting at me. The only way I was safe was to stand behind the tree as still as possible and wait it out. Finally, they stopped shooting at me and went on to someone else, thats when i turned at started firing at her, and I got her!! Ok so I was that much closer to the flag. As I was making my way over there I saw my coach, who was on my team creeping forward to the flag, so I thought Ill go and join him. As I was making my way over there I started getting fired upon from 2 different angles. So I quickly hid and started firing away. But then I ran out of paintballs!! I saw some lying on the ground that must have fallen from the gun so I tried to grab them and put them in my gun but then it hit me! I got hit in the leg by the enemy! Right as I got hit the whistle blew. Time was up and it was another draw. But when the final players that were playing that round made it to base, me and a teammate from the blue team realized we were shooting at each other!!! haha!
Third round. Our strategy was to have 2 players go and get the flag and everyone else stay on defense, well right away our 2 offensive players got shot and alot of their players got shot, so I decided to go and get the flag. I was going on the outskirts again and almost made it to the flag but it was gone, another teammate of mine had it and was taking it to our side but time ran out and it was another draw!
I was so happy when it was over and I had only gotten shot one time and it didnt leave a mark or even hurt! But I was a sharpshooter for my team. I had hit 6 people the whole day! The girls said I was a professional shooter ha! Im glad I got out there and faced a fear of getting hit with a paintball! It was a fun day!

After our day in the woods we got to relax with a team dinner then a sauna party. After that we headed over to Thais' apartment to play some games and get ready to go out. We were playing dance dance revelution on the wii and some crazy card games. Once we were all ready we headed out to our favorite place, Cirkus! This was the last time we were able to really go out and have fun as a team before we focused completely on playoffs! We were now ready for playoffs to begin!!

Mita muija, mika boogie!

2010-03-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

Fintelligens, you have probably never heard of them unless you are into Finnish rap, but they are definetely a great group! Their new song that just came out is one of the teams favorite songs and we sing it all the time, although me and Thais know only 4 of the words, mita muija, mika boogie. Which means something like how are you feeling tonight or whats your swag like. Anyway, they were having a little concert in Hameenlinna so a few of us decided to go. It was a fun time and the concert was pretty good even tho we didnt know much of what they were saying but the guys in the group, there are 3 of them, were so entertaining and you could tell they loved what they were doing. One of the guys was just up there smiling the whole time, i know thats not kosher in the rap world, but who knows maybe in the world of Finnish rap its cool. He was our favorite guy by far tho so the smiling paid off. Im not a huge huge fan of rap but I just might be a huge fan on this Finnish rap group! the song in the video is the first part of our team song!

CaRnIvAl!!

2010-03-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

Our Brazilian teammate, Thais, has not been home for the big celebration Carnival in her country in a few yrs so we decided in honor of her we will have a carnival day at practice. We all dressed up in crazy colors and costumes and practiced! It was so much fun to have something like that to make practice more fun, somtimes after many months of practice you get bored, so it was a great pick me upper! To make things that much better there was a mens volleyball game right after our practice so we had an audience while we were all dressed up! One of the guys asked the girls if we were dressed up as some sort of punishment!!!

its a celebration!

2010-03-15T05:59:00.000-07:00

For Valentines Day I decided to make the team a goody bag full of fun things. I put some cute lil pads of paper in there, cute pencil and a lil heart sharpener, some candy from home that my mom sent me, some lil heart candies and then i also made rice krispy treats!I also had lil cards in the bags too. I handed them out to everyone on the bus as we were leaving for a game,( against Orpo the 3rd place team),wishing everyone good luck, since i still couldnt play because of my ankle. Most of them never had rice krispy treats before but they all loved them!I think my goody bags helped because we won the game in 5!

After the game the team decided to all go out and celebrate since that win had secured 2nd place for us! We had so many things to celebrate that night: the win, someones birthday,someone got a new job, one of our players that was injured all season played in her first game, it was carnival in Brazil, a "hen party", and we have a great and fun team! We started the night off at Kata's apartment playing sing star! Ha what a entertaining event that was! Sing star is basically karaoke at your apartment. Then we headed out for a night on the town! Fun times with the team!

a lil R and R

2010-03-15T05:33:00.000-07:00

Yay!! We finished off league in 2nd place! It was a great season and we played some great matches. And I was very happy to be able to play in the last 2 matches of the season! I didnt want to go into playoffs after my injury without playing in some matches to get the rythem of the game back. My ankle is doing pretty good, it still hurts when i make certain movements, im still a lil slower than normal and it still swells up after practices, but its getting better!
Since we finished league in 2nd place our team has a bye until the semifinals, which start on March 24th. So we got about 2 weeks off before we have to play the first game. It is definitely a much needed break. Playing non stop volleyball for about 7 months in a row can take a toll on your body and everyone has aches and pains so it was good to be able to take some time off and just rest. We had practices and weights but very light and no jumping. The playoffs will be brutal on our body because the semis and finals are a best of 7 series and we play the games pretty much back to back. There is a possibility that we can play 14 matches in about 3 weeks. But hey thats what playing a sport is all about, who can rise up to the challenge and play their best!

So during my time off I mostly rested, slept alot,watched alot of movies and took some walks around town. The weather is changing for the better and the sun is coming out of hiding alot more now! Dont be fooled tho, it is still about 0 degrees out, but it was so beautiful outside! Here are some pics from my walk around the lake, which is till frozen over.

seriously?!

2010-02-16T12:32:00.000-08:00

So I have been living in my apartment for about 6 months now and I have been dealing with this renovation for about 6 months now. seriously? It is not so much renovating as it is fixing the water system. But whatever they are doing is loud. They are drilling and hammering constantly. For 6 months. Not everyday the last 6 months but it has been going on for that long. But lately it is everyday starting at 7:30 in the morning. seriuosly? And every morning at about 7:30 I get woken up and think Im going to have a heart attack. Seriously,it freaked me out for the first few days, then my body just got used to waking up that early. I would try putting my music on to drown out the noise, hardly ever works. Now I am one who doesnt complain much about anything, my dad will second that, especially after i told him about this little problem and he told me to tell my team to get me a new apartment, but seriously now I have to complain on here. I can live with it for a week, a month but for 6 months...seriously?! ok so the other morning i wanted to show everyone what the drilling sounds like so here you go, you be the judge and see if you could deal with this drilling everyday and morning...seriously?

invincible...or so I thought

2010-02-06T16:23:00.000-08:00

After 13 years of playing volleyball I have never had an injury that has kept me out of the game until now. In the first 10 points of the first set of a volleyball game a few weeks ago I went to go hit a ball and landed on the other team's middle blockers foot, which was clearly on our side of the line, and twisted my ankle. I went to the doctor the next day and took some x-rays and found out that I ruptured a few tendons and had a slight hairline fracture. I went and got a second opinion and he said the same thing. So I have been out for about 3 weeks now. I was on crutches for about a week and a half. I sat out 2 games so far and will miss one more and maybe one after that. I am going to try and start practicing light this week and see how it feels. It is still pretty tight and stiff, only a little swollen around the ankle bone and only a little painful. I am hoping that I will be able to play on it soon! I miss playing and I really dont like sitting and watching from the sideline!! So please keep me in your prayers!
Ok caution, I posted a few pics of the ankle, before looking at them Im throwing a caution out there for those who dont wanna see my feet! :) and I thought normal crutches were hard but try walking in the crutches i had in the snow!! It usually takes me about 7 minutes to walk to practice and with the crutches it took 25 minutes!! I am so thankful to be walking on my own two feet again!

more snow...and lots more of it

2010-02-06T15:56:00.000-08:00

One morning I woke up and looked out side my window and noticed that it had snowed alot during the night! So I decided to go and walk around the town because the snow everywhere was just so beautiful! The nice thing was that it wasnt too cold outside, maybe only -12 degrees! I never thought I would say that! But it has been amazing living here and experiencing all that a cold and snowy winter has to offer! Before I came here I didnt think I would like it, but I love the snow!!

Wii team party

2010-02-06T14:33:00.000-08:00

We started off 2010 with a win! So after the game the team decided to go play some Wii at Thais' apartment and then go out as a team afterward. It was such a fun night! We had a great time playing wii and watching each other swing our arms around trying to beat each other at wii. Definitely some bruises and some sore arms the next day! heres a few videos of the girls playing wii, very entertaining!!

after we were done playing we all headed out to our favorite place, Cirkus!Always have such a fun time with my team!!

New Years Eve 2009 in Helsinki!

2010-02-06T03:19:00.000-08:00

I flew back to Finland on December on the 30th and arrived on December 31st. Me and the other foreigner on my team, Thais from Brazil, decided to get out of our small town and head to the big city for New Years Eve. We had decided to meet in Helsinki in the afternoon so we could walk around and sitesee before we headed out for the night. Things didnt go quite as planned. I arrived at the airport at about 2. Took a taxi to the hotel and tried to call Thais to tell her where I was. But my Finnish phone was not working! Thais didnt know the hotel name or address. So I ended up eamailing her a few different times trying to tell her what was going on. I was extremely jet lagged so I took a nap and hoped Thais would find her way here! The phone woke me up at about 8 and it was Thais saying she was at the hotel! yay!! It turned out her Finnish phone wasnt working either and she had to have her boyfriend check her messages for her. But finally we were both at the hotel ready for the night!
We first went to the store to get some drinks and then stopped at the Mcdonalds to get a quick dinner. Once we were all ready we took a taxi and went to downtown. The night was a typical Finnish night, cold and snowing! There were fireworks going off everywhere. We ended up walking around outside when it was midnight but there was plenty of people outside to celebrate with. The first two places didnt really work out for us so then we walked around for a bit and found one place that looked promising. We walked in and from that point on we had a blast!! There was a live band there and so many people! We had a great time!!
The next morning we had an amazing buffet breakfeast at the hotel!! It was perfect! This was both our first time in Helsinki and we both loved it and cant wait to go back!

snow...and lots of it

2010-02-06T02:43:00.000-08:00

When I arrived back in Finland after spending the hoildays in California there was tons of snow to welcome me back. And not to mention freezing weather. I believe it was about -20 degrees! Here are a few pictures of the snow in my town. One of the pictures is a few of my teamates walking to the gym.

christmas time in cali

2010-01-08T04:37:00.000-08:00

It was soooo nice to be home in California for a few days! Especially Christmas time. I love Christmas time, the decorations, the food, the atmosphere and going to church where you can celebrate with everyone the love of Christ! My dad and I
(everyone else in the fam was working and at the airport) went to the Christmas Eve service at church and it was nice to see people, sing carols, and listen to the message. The pastors message was for us to remember that Christmas is not our birthday but Jesus' birthday. We dont always get what we want on Christmas because it is not our birthday, but we get the things that we need. On Jesus' birthday He wants us to celebrate Him and remember Him, but the thing that we need the most in this world is Jesus' salvation. That is Jesus' free gift to us.

While I was home we had a Christmas party at our house and it was so much fun to hang out with family and friends that I had not seen in a loong time. We had a great time with food, games, music, catching up with each other and smores!!

Alumni basketball game. All I need to say. We dominated. I wasnt expecting to play for a few reasons but I couldnt resist playing with my friends again, I even had to borrow a pair of guys shoes. Thanks Jason! It was fun to go back to the little gym at put on that old bcs jersey and play bball again. So many good memories in that little gym. The game was alot of fun, especially because one of my best friends, Janelle, who I played with in high school was there. We both realized, after she took a hard foul, which Janelle is famous for and plus it should have been called charging, that it has been a few years since high school and our bodys arent so easy to bounce back from something like that. The guys game was after ours and they put on a good show also. It is always nice to see old friends from high school and also to see so many still interested in the lives of BCS people
.
My mom, sister and I headed out to San Diego one of the days I was home for a girls day out there. We had lunch at our favorite sushi place, which was amazing. Then we went down to mission beach to hang out. We walked along the beach, got ice cream and played a few video games. It was such a fun day and I loved spedning it with my mom and sister, Kellie.

I loved my time being home. I loved spending time with my family and friends. I tried to cram in seeing as many friends as I could in the short time I was home, but didnt get to see everyone. But it was so awesome to see everyone that I did see and that made me not want to leave! I miss being in California!

end of 09

2010-01-08T04:18:00.001-08:00

Once again I did a little shopping in the city of Tampere. I did find stuff for my family to take back so I was a happy camper. While my friend and I were walking around town we went to this little street market they were having. They were selling all sorts of stuff from shoes, ornamaments, kitchen stuff,choclates and jewelery. There was also some guy selling some roasted peanuts. In one of the pictures I am standing in front of Santas corner but sadly he was not there, we just missed him. :(

On December 19th we played in the Finnish Cup finals, unfortunately we lost. The team was a good team but we just couldnt get enough energy to finish. But hopefully we can redeem ourselves at the end of the season. On the way home we all were excited that we would have a few days off for Christmas break so we started the celebration in the back of the bus. All of us girls piled in the back of the bus and where we were playing card games, drinking some ciders and laughing alot! While we made a pit stop for a bathroom break/get more drinks since you are not allowed to buy alcohol of any kind after 9 pm, the bus driver thought it would be fun to scare all of us girls in the back and he started doing donuts and spin outs in the parking lot of the quickstop!! ok scary on a few different levels because a. we were in a big charter bus b. there is snow and ice on the ground c. this guy was crazy. He probably did this for about 5 minutes with all of us screaming/half laughing/holding on to our drinks and fearing we were going to tip over. After we made it home safely the team went to the sauna where our owners had provided a late dinner and drinks for us.
The next day I was leaving for home!! But all the girls insisted I come out with them, so I went home and finnished packing the last few things i needed and then headed out with the girls.We had a great night! I was gonna go out with the team and catch a bus at 4:20 to the airport because my flight was at 8 in the morning, but one of my friends offered to drive me and thankfully he did because he helped me out at the airport because it was soo crazy and busy there. At the airport in Helsinki I ran into one of the other Americans that plays in Finland and we were on the same flight to London. Unfortunately for her, her flight to NY was cancelled so she had to wait another day to get home. While I was waiting in the London airport I ran into one other American girl that was playing in FInland also and she was on the same flight as I was into Dallas, so we kept each other company during our layover and then we sat next to each other on the flight. I was thankful for these girls for making the flight home a little better! I finally made it to Cali and the first thing to see off the plane were my dad and mom! It was soooooo nice to come down the escalator and give them hugs, even tho they had no big welcome home signs. next time.

trip 2 North Pole..santa can you hear me?

2010-01-08T04:08:00.001-08:00

road trip!

one of the teams we play is all the way in northern Finland, the Laplands. It took us 9 hours to drive there but it seemed to take forever to get there because we had so many stops along the way. We left about 11 and then drove for an hour, stopped and picked up some of the players that live in a different city, drove for a few more hours, stopped for a practice, drove for an hour and then had dinner, drover a few more hours and then stayed the night at a hotel. The next morning had breakfeast and then we were out th door. We stopped at one of the girls parents house for some coffee/tea and some goodies. Then we drove another hour and we were finally at the gym.

Now before we left for the trip I was told there was tons of reindeer up there so I was hoping to spot some while we were there. While we were driving one of the girls say look over there and there were about 5 or 6 reindeer in the woods. It was so awesome. Then a few minutes later there was one standing on the side of the road just chillin. The next ones we saw were standing in the middle of the road, apparently they cause alot of accidents. But I was sooooooooo happy to see some reindeer!! It also gets really cold up there, i think it was about -25c while we were there. There was also tons of snow up there, the drive up there was absolutely beautiful with snow on all the trees.

After the game the team and coaches stayed at this cabin. It was nice to all hang out together and have a good time! After our we had our breakfeast, we left about 9 and headed to the bus for the long ride home. Not before we played in the snow a little bit more! Here are some pics from the trip, sadly none of any reindeer, next time we go there im def telling the bus driver to pull over!

dont call me scrooge

2009-12-10T14:54:00.000-08:00

As I sit here writing this entry I am listening to my Christmas playlist, just got done watching one of the movies on my Christmas list,drinking some Glogi and eating some cookies. What is Glogi you ask...well it is this Finnish Christmas drink that is so yuumy, it taste like Christmas in a glass. Really when you have your first sip of this drink you cant help but get in the Christmas spirit! You can either have it hot or cold, i prefer it cold, but always with some cookies! :) I am hoping to bring some home somehow so everyone can try some!

The other day I was walking by a lil store and it was selling a bunch of candles for real cheap so I decided to see what else the had, my lil Christmas corner was not doing Christmas in Finland any justice so I decided to browse the store to see what I could find to spruce up my apartment with. I ended up leaving the store with a bunch of candles, some garland, a mini Christmas tree and some ribbon. I ended up only spending maybe 10 euros for everything! Success! Now my Christmas corner has turned into a Christmas spread! :)

I am happy to say that I have most of my Christmas shopping done already, with the exception for my mom and lil sister. But the other day we had the afternoon off so I headed to the town of Tampere and met some friends there so we could shop and see if we could find anything there. Sadly I came back empty handed but now I have a few ideas what to get, I head home in about a week so that leaves me plenty of time to finnish my Finnish christmas shopping! :) The city of Tampere is easily one of my favorite cities here, it is one of the bigger towns, all the Christmas lights were up,people walking around and even some snow started falling! We finished the night with a good dinner and a few drinks, it was an end to a nice day off!

tis the season

2009-12-01T12:31:00.000-08:00

I cant believe its already December!!! I have been here for 4 months now and it seems to have flown by, which im extremly grateful for! I found out that I get to come home for Christmas!!!! I am coming home December 20th and staying till the 29th, it a short trip but it will be worth it to spend Christmas time with my family and friends!
Here in Finland Im already getting into the Christmas spirit. I made myself a Christmas playlist and I am watching a Christmas movie a day, sometime more than one, until the day I leave for home. So far I have watched Its A Wonderful Life, which I had never seen before and yes i did shed some happy tears at the end of it and I also watched A Christmas Story. I have plenty of Christmas movies to keep me busy, alot i havent seen, but here are a few: a christmas carol, holiday inn, miracle at 34th street, scrooged, gremlins, twas the night before christmas, a charlie brown christmas, four christmasas, frosty the snowman, home alone, santa clause 1-3, the polar express and plenty of others! let me know if i need to add some to the list!! :)
i bought this countdown to christmas calendar thing at the store and you punch out the days until christmas and there is a piece of chocolate behind each square, but instead of a countdown till christmas, my countdown is until i leave for home on the 20th! my friend saw that i was making a christmas song playlist so he bought the Frank Sinatra christmas cd. how cute huh?! and then the red box was from my secret santa on the team that bought me some candles.

more vball

2009-11-29T13:49:00.000-08:00

in the last few weeks we have had a lot of volleyball games, luckily we have won them all!!! but it was nice to have a week off to rest a little, we were playing saturday, wednesday, saturday and wednesday games. it is hard to stay focused, in good rythem and shape when you hardly have time to practice. but the most important game we played was the Finnish Cup semifinals. We won the game so we are playing in the finals on December 19th!!!

team bonding

2009-11-29T12:56:00.000-08:00

a few weekends ago we had a free weekend..yay!! so we decided to spend the day as a team bonding day and it turned out to be a loooooong day and night but it was alot of fun!
First stop was a few games of bowling..i have to say i dont suck too much at bowling, i think it is my special technique of bowling.

after bowling we headed to the mens hockey game. we had good seats and tried cheering for the boys with our hpk volleyball cheer but it didnt help too much , they lost the game. but we had a fun time watching the game, eating free food, drikning cider and trying to see how cute the hockey guys were under their masks!

after the hockey game we went and crammed everyone in this little apartment for our little christmas party. they do not have thanksgiving here so they start the celebration of christmas in november already! so we had a secret santa exchange, wore our santa hats, played some games, ate some more food and went into the sauna.we had one girl that was helping us during practices and games acting as a team manager and she was leaving us but as a parting gift she bought some finnish alchol an wanted to have a goodbye shot with everyone. now this is not the besttasting stuff i have ever had but the finnsih sure do love it! we had a fun time laughing at peoples crazy gifts, the skills of the girls during the game and at each other!

after our party all 14 of us girls got ready to go out in that little apartment. we managed to set off an alarm and had a policeman come and stop by but i think once he saw all of us girls he just told us to have a fun night and we did!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T11:08:00.000-08:00

Happy happy thanksgiving!!!

a few things that I am thankful for:

*for truly being a "dekiewiet"... i, like my dad and his dad, my grandpa, are happy enjoying the simple things in life. I am happy to say that I am like my dad in that way. My dads daily routine hardly ever changes but one thing that never gets old for him is to just sit outside in the backyard just watching the scenery and the sun go down. of course with a few beers in hand.

*for the part of me that is a fikse...the past year or so has been a difficult one for the fikse family but i remember someone telling my mom and a few of her of sisters that the fikse family was one of the nicest families they have ever met, even during the hard times. my mom is definitely one of the nicest people i know, even in the hardest of situations, i pray it has rubbed off on me

* for my amazing parents...growing up my parents were always there for us and supporting us. my mom said she doesnt know how she got lucky with 3 good girls but we are the lucky ones with parents that raised us the way they did.

*for sisters...they say that sisters are your best friends, my sisters and i have gotten alot closer over the years and now i can say that both my sisters are my best friends. they are the ones you can be yourself with and still love you.

* for friendships, old and new...those that have been there a lifetime, a few years or just recent friends, i have learned so much about myself and about others from each friendship. those close friends that have been there through everything and have loved you no matter what happens along the way.

*for experiences...i never imagined when i first started playing volleyball that it would take me to the places it has taken me. each experience has taught me more about myself then i could ever imagine, good and bad. for the opportunity to do something i love everyday and experience different cultures,people and Gods world while doing it.

*for HPK volleyball...this season has been a tough season for many players to find good teams, but i am so happy to be with a team that i have so much fun playing with and hanging out with outside the gym.

*for my health...although i complain about bad knees and bad back, i am definitely still able to do all that i want, play volleyball and much more.

*for change

*for taking chances and trying new things

*for strengthening my relationship with my Savior

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ~JFK

free time

2009-11-18T14:01:00.000-08:00

I have been scrapbooking alot lately in my free time, which i have alot of!! This is what my floor looks like when I start scrapbooking, one big mess!! But I like to have everything out so I can see what Im doing with all the pages! But I am so happy I brought all this stuff with my, I finally get to catch up on my scrapbooking!! and I got another package in the mail!! yay! this package had a lot of goodies in it! thank you thank you! I had to go pick this one up at customs and they made me open it and everything and apparently they thought i was a drug dealer because they wouldnt let me take my 2 bottles of ibuprofin with me. Then I had a bag of Skittles in there and they were questioning that too, they asked me if I was going to sell them..and I told them no way!! the whole bag is for me!!!

m.e.

2009-11-08T12:05:00.001-08:00

Im just a bit excited about my hair being long! My hair does not grow fast at all so it has taken awhile to get this long. It hasnt been this long since high school! I usually do my hair maybe 3 times a month so it was nice to see how long it was when I actually spent time on my hair! :)

Here is Finland for each game they award points to the players that stand out that game. They give 3 points, 2 points and 1 point and with those points you get prizes! Here I am sporting the prizes. For one point I got a red beanie, 2 points i got that bright crosswalking guard vest and for 3 points i got the flashlight head thing, which I actually have used to read in bed at night! :)

Hameelinna

2009-11-08T11:48:00.000-08:00

ok so it has begun. the freezing weather. the snow. walking carefully so you dont slip and fall from ice or slush. here are a few pics of the snowy town!

this is a view from my apartment window.

i took this as i was walking to practice...

i took this as i was walking home from practice...this is my apartment complex on the corner there.

Birthday Day!

2009-10-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

Happy 26th Birthday to me! o man 26 years old. crazy. But it was a good birthday! Woke up and went to practice where my team sang happy birthday to me in Finnish. Then came home and baked a birthday cake for my team for after our night practice, which everyone devoured after practice! My cake says happy birthday in Finnish, hyvaa syntymapaivaa. In the bottom left corner you can see a lil piece missing, I had to try my cake first before I let the team eat it! But everyone loved it and it was delicious!

In the afternoon my coach brought over a washing machine for my apartment! yay! Now I can do my laundry at my place instead of walking to the gym to do my laundry. double yay!

Then I went to night practice where they sang to me again but this time in English, but the girls also had a present for me. They got me a candle and candle holder for my apartment, a magazine in english and some yummy Finnish candy.

After practice I went over to the place next to my apartment,Birger, where some friends of mine work and like to hang out. I also got a great present from them too. There is a store in Helsinki, Behnfords,that sells American foods so one of my friends bought me some oreos, mac and cheese,marshmellows,pop tarts and peanut butter! A lil taste of America here in Finland. It was an awesome gift!
I also had my birthday package from home and that had a bunch of goodies in it also! It was a great birthday considering Im away from home, but thank you for everyone who wished me a happy birthday! You made my day! :)

love getting mail!!

2009-10-20T04:28:00.000-07:00

Yay!! So I got a birthday package in the mail today from home!! yay! i love getting packages in the mail when Im away from home!! But I am going to be patient and be a good girl and wait to open it on my birthday! It will kinda make it feel more like my birthday if I have presents to open!! Yay!!

HPK ~ first home game

2009-10-17T02:46:00.000-07:00

Here in Finland there is the Finnish Cup and then the Championship. The Finnish Cup is a tournament that goes on during the beginning of the championship season, where we play the Cup games every few weeks. If you lose in the Finnish Cup you are done and do not play anymore games, so you play till you lose, just like in regular tournaments. The Championship is just like a regular volleyball season. We had our first regular season home game last night against the team that won the championship last year. Unfortunately we lost in 3 :( but we had a huge huge crowd. After the game someone told us that there was probably 1000 people at the game, which is alot for a volleyball game. But the crowd was awesome and really into the game! There was one section of guys, all ages, wearing bright orange shirts right behind our bench cheering for us and heckling the other team. It is fun to play when you have a crowd that is into the game, and they promised us they would be back for more games.

Our team name is HPK and our team colors are black and orange. I really like playing in our gym, its not to big but not to small. Here are a few pictures from the game last night. Here we are waiting for them to introduce us by name. The next picture is my friend translating everything for me during the opening ceremony of the new club team because this was our first home game with this new club.

the team getting together and cheering before we start the game, you can see the guys in the orange shirts right behind our bench, they were loud and i have no idea what they were saying!

here are a few during the game and of me hitting the ball.

more randomness

2009-10-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

OK so I have to cook for myself everyday now which I am not used to because last season I was living in a hotel and they had my meals prepared for breakfeast, lunch and dinner, but this year is a little different. Like I have said before it is hard to go to the grocery store and find exactly what you need because I do not know what the labels are saying. I guess alot and have had a few hits and a few misses. Milk -hit. Mayonaise -miss. So I decided to have the "Tuna Test". ( I love tuna and eat it all the time at home. ) I bought tuna a few weeks ago and I just did not like it, so I decided to buy a few different kinds of tuna and test them out to see which one I liked and would buy from now on. Ill let you know the winner when I complete the test.

I also have added a few more months onto my scrapbooking calendar, October, November and December. My wall is slowly but surely becoming more decorative

As many of you know my all time favorite candy is Skittles. I love love Skittles. But unfortunately they do not have Skittles here in Finland, none that I have found anyway, and plus they never taste as good in other countries. But many of you may or may not know that I have a weird OCD when it comes to my Skittles. I have to, have to eat them in pairs and when I come to the end of the bag I have to have the same amount of each color and then I eat one of each color so they all still have the same amount. Weird, yes I know. But I was talking to my friend Trey on skype and he was making fun of my OCD with Skittles and then I had to show him what I have done with the Skittles that I have left from what I have brought from home. He got a good laugh about it!The sad thing is I would probably have done this if I was in California too! :)

night out with the girls

2009-10-12T12:18:00.000-07:00

We had the weekend free one weekend so a few of us girls got together for dinner and for a night out. One of the girls on our team made some pizza for all of us and it was yummy! Then had some ice cream while watching Big Brother Finland. I never watched that show Big Brother at home but here i guess it is quite popular because they have a channel where you can watch it 24/7.

So after the show we headed out and were going to meet up with some friends at one place, then preceded to go to a few other places. The cool thing is that I know one other American that is playing here. She played with the USA national team the same time I was playing there and me and her were actually roomates in the dorms in Colorado at the Olympic Training Center. We lived together for 3 months before she ended up leaving. I havent seen her since we both were playing with the national team. She also played for the team I am playing for last year so she knows alot of the girls and some people in the city where i am. So she came to visit the girls and her friends here in Hammelinna so we all met up and had a great night together. It was nice to meet her friends here in the city because they were really nice and one of the guys works at the coffee place/restaraunt/bar that is right next door to my apartment and he invited me to stop by anytime. Its great to have more friends in Hammelinna!

Here are a few of the girls from my team! I love how everyones hair color is different! Too cute!

Here is my friend Tess, my friend from the states who I roomed with in Colorado. It was good to see her! We play her team this week, which is a really good team so it should be a good game! Hopefully we get the win tho! :)

1-0

2009-10-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday we had our first home game of the season. I was excited to start playing and only a little bit nervous. The atmosphere in the gym was great, there were alot of fans there, more than I expected and also they were louder than I expected. They really got into the game. It was a good game with lots of good rallys, it went to 4 sets with the 4th set going to 33-31 points when usually first to 25 wins. We kept going back and forth, point for point for a long time. But in the end we won the battle!! It was an exciting game and definetly fun to play. At the end of the game we lined up at the end line and they announced the Player of the Game and I won it for my team! My prize is a trip to Stockholm on a cruise boat. I am very excited to use my awesome prize! After the game we had dinner altogether which included the womens ice hockey team and the pepole that run the club. They wanted us all to meet and start the season off with a celebration. It was a fun night. Finland is a fun place to play and they really make it an event to go the game. This weekend the womens ice hockey team was playing so since they supported us at our game a few of us went to go watch them play. This season we will have to go work at the games, doing tickets, the music, stats or opening and closing the penalty box. But we just went to watch this time. I am not a huge fan of hockey but I figured Im in Finland so I am obligated to go some games. Our team ended up losing 2-1 in the finally 4 minutes. I couldnt tell you if it was a good game or not because I do not know much about hockey. But it was good to go do something different. After going to the game I am still not a fan of hockey. I was waiting for them to do the flying "V" like in the Mighty Ducks, but it never happened, maybe I will have more luck with that when I go to a mens game! :)

random things

2009-09-26T08:09:00.001-07:00

I am back from France and had a good time there, we did good in the tournament and played some tough teams, even played a team where there were 6 americans on it, a few who I played against in college. But thankfully we beat them in 3. :) Today we have the day off to rest up for our first home game of the season tomorrow! Im excited! Sorry I dont have any pictures to post of our time in France, I dont know how many times I said in the van, oops forgot my camera.

So today I decided I didnt want to stay in the apartment all day so I headed out to the store to buys some things and on the way i went to a lil farmers market that was goin on right by the gym. Mainly it had all different kinds of food, mostly fish, but it was cool to walk around and see what different kinds of food they made. They sold other hand made crafts too like baskets, handcarved stuff, paintings and jam.

Now that I am finally settled into my apartment there were some things that I needed to get, so I went to the store, kinda like a target it you will. I finally bought a shower curtain..much needed, always had to clean up the wet floor after i would shower. I usually spend alot of my day on the computer whether it is on facebook, youtube catching up on reality shows, or watching dvds that I brought myself. But just recently I was told about some websites where i could watch movies and tv shows. The movie website costs money, but very very cheap and the website where i watch shows is free! I am very happy about this. Now I can spend hours watching tv shows that I have missed and now will be able to stay caught up! Currently I am on last season of Greys Anatomy and I watched the 1st episode of Glee.

Also during my day off today I decided to scrapbook a calendar. It will serve a few purposes,1.) to help decorate my apartments bare walls and 2.) so I know what is going on during the week. So far today I only did August and September.

On the way home from the store I passed the McDonalds, you can always count on McDonalds for a yummy meal when overseas. So far I have only made the trip to Mc Donalds once in the 2 months that I have been here. So far so good! My goal is to not go there as much as I can, but its right by the gym where I practice so sometimes its just calling my name!

off to france!

2009-09-16T13:24:00.001-07:00

Off to France!! I am writing this a few hours before I have to wake up and leave to catch the plane ride...we have to meet at the gym at 3 in the morning and then our flight is at 5 in the morning...we are flying to Latvia, then to Belgium and then taking a train to the city in France...its gonna be a long traveling day. We have a tournament this weekend in France and the opening ceremonies are Thursday night and then we start play on friday afternoon and play the rest of the weekend! Its going to be another volleyball filled weekend..lets hope my body doesnt fall apart by the end of the weekend! :)

This is our teams travel shirt. Our team is owned by an organization that also run the mens and womens hockey teams here. We get to go to the womens games for free but mens games we have to pay. Im not a big hockey fan but its the number one sport here so I better not mention that to anyone. The name of the organization is called HPK, which is now our team name. Our colors are black and orange...cant miss us walking in the airport with these shirts! :)

happy birthday!

2009-09-14T07:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my mom!! She is one of the best!! Wish I could be there celebrating in the fun of her birthday weekend, especially since they went to 2 places that I love, Bennihannas and Disneyland!! But I hope they had fun and she had a great birthday!!! love you mom!!

This last weekend we had our first tournament of the season. Man am I exhausted! We played 6 games in 3 days. I havent done that since college and I forgot what it was like to play that many games in a short amount of time, and of course the last game of the tourney went 5 sets! It used to be fun when I was in college and younger but now my "old" body cant handle it! ha! But it was alot of fun and we ended up 3rd in the tournament. It was good to start playing some real games and see how the team worked together, we played well but still have alot to work on. But I am excited for the season! This week we are off to France for another tournament! We live on Thurs morning bright and early and play fri, sat, and sun and then come home. It is going to be another looooooooong weekend full of volleyball!! :)

home sweet home...for 8 months

2009-09-03T11:27:00.000-07:00

On Sept 1st I finally moved into my own apartment! yay! I was so excited, after sleeping on an air mattress for a month and living out of my suitcases I was so happy to finally move and unpack and get a good nights sleep! So after our morning practice my coach and a few of the girls on the team helped me move into my apartment. I actually have some furniture in my apartment! I have a bed and a chair and one of the girls gave me some of her desks to use. Plus a tv with about 4 english channels! :) Some of the shows that are on out here are the Mentalist, Lipstick Jungle, CSI, reruns of Friends, Scrubs,Simpsons, some reality shows and Americas Funniest Home videos when Bob Saget was still the host. So while my coach and I went to go get my stuff from the apartment that I was staying at the girls started getting my place ready for me. When we got back they had done it all! So it was an easy moving day and I was finally at my home for the next 8 months! Its a cute lil place, kinda like a studio apartment, just one living area, a kitchen, bathroom and a walk in closet. I like the place and the only bad thing that I have found is that the key and the door dont exactly work all the time for me, i sit there for like 2 minutes trying to open my door and then the upstaris people walk really really loud but other than that Im happy with it! Now its time to decorate it and make it a lil more like home!

this is what it looks like when you first walk in.

this is the view from the kitchen

My lil scrapbooking table and I already put some pictures up of family and friends for a lil home feeling before I decorate some more. Here is my lil kitchen, as you can see there is a pot on the stove, thats my spagetti dinner that was so yummy!

this is the look on the way out of my place and to that tricky door..the bathroon is right around the corner there and the walk in closet to the left.

on my shopping list : shower curtain and hangers

So now all my apartment needs is some visitors! All you would really need to bring is an air mattress to sleep on! :)

If you can translate it....

2009-08-25T12:16:00.001-07:00

The other day at practice the local newspaper from Hammelinna did a story about me playing for the team. They took a few pictures and a guy interviewed me, and thankfully he spoke english very well! Although I do not like doing interviews and stuff this time I did not really mind because I have no idea what the article would say since it was all in Finnish! ha! He asked me typical questions like how am I liking it here, what was my first impression of the team, how do you think the league is here in Finland, what kind of player am I, how do I like living in a small town and if I was excited to start playing. So I hope I answered everything so that he could understand and translate it into his article easily and correctly! Maybe I will have to spend a day on the internet using google language tool to translate the article so I know what it says!

But everything has been going good here. We practice everyday except for the weekends but preseason is about to start and then it will get pretty busy traveling and playing in tournaments. We will play a few tournaments here in Finland and then one in France. It will be fun to go to France again. We do weights on Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning and then practice at night and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays we practice both in the morning and night. Im excited to be doing the weights again with the team, so much easier and better to work out with a team then all alone! I will finally move into my apartment on Sept 1st! Im so excited! I can finally unpack my stuff and settle in and no more sleeping on an air mattress! yessssss! So I will post some pics of my new place when I move in a few days!!

Kaisa's Birthday

2009-08-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

It was one of the girls on my teams birthday on Sunday so on Saturday night she had a few of us over to celebrate her birthday. It was nice to actually get out of the apartment where Im staying and go out and have a good time. We went over to her apartment and had some cake and ice cream and other snacks and drinks while hanging out. We attempted to do some new version of Twister where your left foot does what the guy says and the right foot does what the girl says, but the only problem for me was that they both were talking in Finnish, so I definetely lost out on that one! ha! But it was a fun night being able to hang out with the girls outside the volleyball court!

Kaisa, the birthday girl is sitting next to me. She turned 26, 2 months older than me, so im not the oldest on the team! yay! There are 3 other girls on the team in their mid 20's while the rest of the team is pretty young 18, 19 and 20.

cute lil town

2009-08-16T02:05:00.000-07:00

So I have been here in Finalnd for almost two weeks now and I had 4 days off in a row. One of the girls from the team was having a wedding so most of my team was gone in a different city so I was on my own for these 4 days. Now this town is not too big and I had no idea what to do or where to go. So I went and ventured out on my own and just see where it would take me. But there were some things that I needed to do first. As of now I am living in the girls apartment that got married so I will be here for two weeks while she is on her honeymoon, so I cant really unpack my stuff yet but I needed to get some neccesities, like food. So I went to the grocery store by myself, which was interesting. In the other countries I have been in it has been somewhat more easy because the languages I could understand or they were close enough to English where I could get by, but not here in Finland. The labels on the food are not written in English, where as the other countries had English labels. Most of the things that I bought I kinda picked bacause of the pictures and a few English words here and there, like cheddar or cheerios. But when I went to go by the milk, I had no idea what kind I was buying. So there I am standing in front of the milk section just staring at all the different kinds of milk cartons deciding how I was going to guess which one I should take. Well I just went with the most plain simple looking carton. And it was blue and the kind at home that we get has a blue lid and label. ha! So I figured I couldnt go wrong there. So I ended up taking that one and hoping I didnt end up with soy milk or something like that. But when I got home and had cereal the next morning I was pleased to find out that I had done a good job and picked the good milk! Succccesssss!!

so then I decided to go walk around the town a little bit. There is a huge 7th century castle here that the coach and his wife took me to the first week I was here but I didnt have my camera with me so I didnt take any pictures so I decided to go walk there yesterday. The town here is super cute and there are cobblestone and rock roads everywhere you go.There is also this huge lake here that runs all the way to other cities like Tampere that people take boats on. Super cute town. We will see how I feel in a few months when there is snow on the ground and that lake is frozen over ha!

there was also a fair going on this weekend so I walked around the fair and looked at what they sell here at a Finnish fair. They had tons of clothes, hand made baskets, jewelery and bunch of other things. There were old cars, buses, army vehicles and a stage with performers going on. There was a bunch of food stands and places to eat, but I didnt try any Finnish food just because I dont know exactly what I would be eating. Once I am here a lil longer and get more used to the food I will be a lil more adventurous. It looked like the whole town came out for this event.

As I was walking around earlier in the day I walked past a pizza place and sounded good so later that night I walked around the corner and ordered me a large cheese pizza. (margarita pizza as they call cheese pizza out here.) It was delicious! Dont worry I didnt eat the whole pizza in one night! :) The man at the pizza place was super nice and really tried his best to speak English, he did a good job and I know I will be back there alot more in the next few months!

happy anniversary

2009-08-16T01:56:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say Happy One Year Anniversary to one of my best friends from college, Ashley! I cant believe one year ago we were laughing, crying, dancing and celebrating at your wedding! It was such a fun day and Im so happy for you and Scotty!! Love you!

aunt and uncle

2009-08-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to post something close to the heart. My aunt Eleanor had major surgery yesterday to remove cancer from her lungs. The recovery from this surgery is long and painful so please remember her and my uncle Bill in your prayers and they deal with this daily. I love you guys!

Short Summer

2009-08-13T05:34:00.000-07:00

Wow did my summer fly by! I felt like I had just gotten home from Cyprus, it went by too fast! Although it was short I got see alot of family and friends and travel around a lil bit. Although I did see alot of people there were some people I wanted to see but didnt get to see :( I had a great time road tripping it up to Idaho with my dad to see some family, with a short stop in Vegas with family to see my cousin graduate, a trip to San Diego to see friends at a my friends wedding reception, a trip up to Hume lake to see my best friend Reanne, a trip to Venezuala to see friends there, some beach trips and close trips around home to visit with friends and just hang out. It was a short summer but one filled with good times and fun! Here are a few highlights from my summer.

The Blog Is Back

2009-08-13T05:04:00.000-07:00

Ok its been awhile since I have done the whole blog thing but since I am once again in a different country it was time to start up again. One reason being is that it takes up a few hours of my day and keeps me busy so I dont get to bored out here and the other reason being so I can keep family and friends updated back in the states. So where am I you ask? well the answer to that is Finland. Ya i know crazy, me beach loving, sun loving girl is in a place where that doesnt really exist! ha! But time for a new adventure and new experience.

I arrives here in Hameelina, Finland on Tuesday, August 4th. The little town of Hameelina is small but very cute. It is also a very close train/bus ride to other bigger cities like Hellsinki and Tampere. I have already been to Tampere and loved it. So I have been here about a week and have finally gotten adjusted to the time difference. The first few days I was up at about 4 in the morning. But the weird thing here is that right now it is light out most of the time. It probably gets dark around 10:45 and lasts till about 4 in the morning. But in a few months time it will be the opposite, i will have no daylight. That should be interesting. When I first got here the sun was shining outside and all the girls were like dont expect that too last too long! And they were right, it was sunny for about 6 days and then the rain came. I was living in the a hotel the first week but right now I am living in a players apartment while she is on her honeymoon for 2 weeks, and then I will have my own apartment..finally! Im ready to unpack and settle in.

The first week of practice was real good. The girls on the team are super nice and they all speak English, which is a huge blessing! The coach also speaks english and the girls seem to like him as a coach. I was excited after the first practice watching the girls because they were good! Last year this team placed 3rd so I am really excited about the season. I watched the first practice because I landed early in the morning and they had lost my luggage! So i was without my luggage for 2 days, so I had no practice clothes, shoes, kneepads, or anything! The airlines gave me this cute lil overnight bag with toothbrush, toothpaste,(which i already had cuz i always travel with my toothbrush,toothpaste and an extra outfit in my carryon,u learn a few things when traveling so much) deoderant,a shirt, face wash,brush and comb. But the team gave me some shirts and spandex and shoes that were about 2 sizes too big for me to practice in. But finally I got my luggage and I was happy practicing in my stuff.

On the weekend we didnt have any practices so the coach and his wife, who is also a player on the team, invited me out to their house near Tampere for the weekend because there was a beach tournament going on and also the mens national team was competing in a tournament there. The girls brother is a player on the mens national team and is one of their best outside hitters. The place was packed for the mens game. The first game we watched went 5 and the second went 4. In the beach tournament there was a girl on our team who was playing in it so we went to cheer her on. It turned out to be a fun weekend watching some good volleyball.

Despite being jet lagged, losing my luggage, practicing in shoes too big, my first week in Finland has been a good one and a good start my season here in Finalnd!

what a trip!

2009-04-22T01:38:00.000-07:00

ok so i have been back from my trip with my cousin for about 2 weeks now..unfortunately i was not able to go to egypt because i had to come back to cyprus and play in the semifinal game of the cup, which we lost but we held our own against the number one team and it was probably the best we played all season. But my trip to Greece with Alicia was AMAZING!! we had such a great time! I would be posting pictures now but my camera broke the first day there, but luckily my cousin is a great photographer and she took some wonderful pictures!
The first day we got there we wanted to get started right away so as soon as we landed we took a taxi to our hotel, which was a nice hotel for being cheap and the receptionist was awesome, he told us where everything was and where we need to go. The first day we decided to go up to Mt. Licabecca, which overlooks the whole city. We didnt know that it would take us climbing up many hills and about 500 steps, yes i counted, to reach the top of the mountain, but it was definitely worth it! It was a spectacular view! We then hit up the flea market to check things out. The next day we decided to go see the sights nearby, which included the Acropolis, the temple of Zeus and other tall statues, some museums, cemetarys and other cool things. The third day we went to see the Temple of Posiden. We had to take a bus to get there but the ride was along the coast and beautiful. We decided to make a day of it and had a nice relaxing lunch and then go take some pictures. While we were taking some pics we found this lil trail and so Alicia and I, being the adventurous ones we are decided to folow the trail and see where it would lead, well lil did we know that we would end up climbing down this huge, i think 295 ft cliff...ya i didnt tell my dad about that one...but also very worth the scary trek down the hill, we got down to the water and there were lil springs everywhere and gorgeous rocks. It was awesome. The last day we decided to check out the islands of Greece. So we headed out on a boat to the island of Agnea. This is a cute small lil island where it was nice to enjoy a lunch and walk around and take some pictures. We saw some lil French boys playing some volleyball so Alicia and I jumped in and played with the lil boys for awhile. The whole trip was amazing and we had such a great time just walking around and enjoying the sites, a new country and just talking and hangin out. Some of the things I will remeber are the nice people we met, eating lunch and dinner and having the Acropois be the view we saw, nurse Alicia helping an old man after he fell and him being so nice that he kept wanted to give us directions everywhere, to be caught up in the middle of a protest rally with all the policemen decked out in the full gear with shields and gas masks and also we were in the middle of a poilice chase. It was an exciting and fun trip!! I cant wait until my next adventure with Alicia!!

for pictures of the trip check out Alicias webpage.... http://www.afikse.wordpress.com

Greece and Egypt

2009-03-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

Ok as of tomorrow morning I will be off to Greece for a few days and then off to Egypt for a few days!! My cousin Alicia Fikse is coming out for the big adventure! I have always wanted to go to Greece and I love to travel so I am super excited!! If you think about it say a lil prayer for us!!!

Boys will be Boys

2009-03-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

So the mens team qualified on Tuesday night for the final four of the mens Cup! It is awesome to have both the mens team and womens team in the final four of the Cup! It was a real exciting and close game! They ended up playing the team that my Canadian friends are on. All season they did not win against them but they won when it really mattered! So the next day they decided to celebrate a little since they had 2 days off in a row, a big deal to a volleyball player towards the end of the season! So we went to the beach for lunch and a few drinks. These guys are a lot of fun to hang out with and joke with, it really made the time here more enjoyable and go much more faster. So Avil and his wife and son,Tete, Siso,me and Pablo, who is from Argentina and was on the team that the guys beat, had some fun at the beach. It was a nice windy day and we had fun just goofing off! Me and Avils son, Sander, played hide and go seek and collected some seashells while the other boys...well you can see form the pictures what they were up to!!

hotel living

2009-03-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

I figured I would put up some pictures of the hotel where I have been living the last 5 months. It really is a nice hotel,great location and the food is good and the people there are all really nice. Right across the street from the hotel is the beach and i love to go there and relax and also go running on the path next to the water. So beautiful!

CaRnIvAL!!!

2009-03-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

The last week of Febuary we celebrated Carnival here in Cyprus. Carnival is like our Halloween,except the trick or treating, instead everyone dresses up in costume and goes to a big party. It really is a big celebration. Every year our volleyball club throws a big Carnival party for the players, coaches, sponsors, supportors and fans. It is tradition for everyone to dress up and have a date to the party so the men from the mens team ask someone from the womens team to be their date. My date for the night was Siso, a mens foreigner player from Venezuala. Me and him have become good friends and we have usually have movie night, and his favorite movie of mine has become The Mask of Zorro. So we decided to go as Zorro and Elena. So I headed to the stores here in search for the perfect Zorro costume and Elena costume. It turned out to be easier than i thought. The first store I went to I found a Zorro costume right away and as for me my friend Andrea let me borrow stuff from her for my costume and i just needed to buy some accessories. I have to say me and Siso were probably the best looking couple in costume there! ha! Other people dressed up as cowboys-cowgirls, flappers, babies, minnie mouse, singers and all sorts of other things. The night started with a dinner and then some dancing. Now here they celebrate Carnival for 2 weekends in a row, so we decided to go out after the party since we were all dressed up in costume, but once we got to the club we were the only ones dressed up! ha! The clubs werent having there big celebrations until the next weekend so we really stood out as foreigners in our costumes ha! Here are a few pictures from the night...

2009-03-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

The othe night it was Svetlanas birthday,the foreigner from Bulgary on my team. So instead of celebrating by goin out to a club or something she wanted to hang out here at the hotel. So all of us foreigners, men and women, crammed into her room for some snacks and some drinks to celebrate her birthday. Here in some European countries the rule is that if it is your birthday you must provide the food, drinks or candy. So Svetlana provided us with plenty of snacks and drinks to last about 10 people all night! It turned out to be a fun night with all of us foriegners hanging out and having a good time. It is always fun to hang out with just the foreginers because we are all in the same situation here and we understand what everyone is going through. Here are a few pictures from that night.ok here is everyone....me, Micheal, from russia, siso from venezuala, svetlana from bulgary, tete from venezuala, avil from estonia, batman,his nickname, trainer from bulgary and adrian, svetlanas boyfriend

2009-03-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

Soooooooooooooooooooooo for Valentines Day a few of us decided to get out of our city and explore a new city here in Cyprus. We eneded up goin to a city called Agai Napa, which is popular during the summertime for tourist, especially the young ones, but during the winter months it is literally a ghost town. It is known for its beautiful white sand beaches and the bars. There are literally bars on top of each other. I guess that is why it was named the number one party spot in Europe a few years ago. But we just went for the day to see the beaches and walk around and do a lil shopping. There was also a old castle there that we went and explored a bit. We spent about 3 hours there and then drove back to Limassol. We then enjoyed a yummy Valentines dinner at the hotel and we decided to stay at the hotel that night playing cards and drinking some champagne. It turned out to be a great Valentines Day.

living the life

2009-02-28T07:44:00.000-08:00

I love playing professional volleyball overseas. I am so blessed with my life. I get to see the world while doing what I love the most. I know many people think it is glamorous living the life of a professional athlete, dont get me wrong I love it and wouldnt trade it for anything, but sometimes it gets a lil boring and repetitive. Here is a typical day for me here in Cyprus.....I usually wake up around 7, and go to breakfeast. Yes I said 7, I know it is hard to believe I get up that early for breakfeast for two reasons, one is to mainly beat the crowd for breakfeast and 2 is that I go right back to sleep after I eat. So I get breakfeast, come back to my room and sleep till about 1030 or 11 and then I go workout or go running on the beach, I come back and shower, go to lunch about 1230 or 1, then it is back to my room for a lil nap, then it is off to practice, dinner, another shower and then watch a movie or hang out in the lobby before I head to bed. This is pretty much what I have been doin since I have been in Cyprus. Some days I head to the beach, the store, walk around and play with some of the kids here. One of the foriegners on the mens team has a 6 yr son named Sander and the trainer for the mens team has a 7 yr old son that I play with. One is from Estonia and the other is from Bulgaria and they both only know a lil english. So they communicate with only a lil english and thru hand motions. They love when I play pool with them, ping pong, love playing games on my phone but mostly love when they run towards me and i catch them and spin them around. Two of the cutest kids and I love playing with them.

Now Cyprus is a popular place for the elderly of England to come and vacation. I have met some really nice old couples who stay here for up to 5,6 weeks on vacation. Now let me tell you this is the place to be for old couples to come and have a fun vacation. At night this hotel is always hopping! Every Thursday night is karaokee night here. These people are not shy, especially with a lil alcohol. I have never seen so many old people a lil tipsy! ha! But they go on for hours singing and I love to watch them. Other nights they have live music and games and other theme nights. One night we came back from practice and the old people were doin the conga line around the hotel lobby and out the doors. It really is a good time for them and it is nice to see so many people still in love and having a great time after years and years of marraige! I know where I am goin for my 50th anniversary!!

update!

2009-02-28T07:28:00.001-08:00

Wow! So after months and months of not writing on here i figured it was time to update everyone. First off I havent been updating this for awhile because we lost the interenet in our rooms, my computer charger is broken and i would have to pay to use the interenet so I borrow my friends computer when I want to use the computer.Excuses, excuses, excuses right.. But no more excuses I am goin to try and update more often.
OK so I guess i should start from where I left off, which was around Christmas time. We had a break in the season for the holidays and I was able to come home for about 2 weeeks to spend Christmas and New Years in California. It was great but I was also so jet lagged the whole time! I basically was a hermit in Hemet and went to bed early and woke up early. But I did get to see a few friends and have a good time with them! Right before I left for Christmas the president of my volleyball team sat me and the other foriegner player down and talked to us about a situation the team was having. Alot of the girls had a probem with the coach and they had decided to fire him, leaving me and Svetlana with a few options, leave Cyprus and find another team or we could come back and I would be the coach. Well, that was a surprise to me. I had ran a few practices for the coach because he missed practice so the girls told the president that I was a coach and they liked the practices I ran. Well, I couldnt say no to the girls because the team would have folded so as of right now I am the coach and a player. It had been a good change. We have had as many as 14 girls at a practice where as before we could not even get about 8 girls to come. The girls all love the practices and love learning about volleyball.
Here is Cyprus they have a championship and then they have another thing called the Cup. The championship is just like regular playoffs and finals and everything. The Cup is only for the top 4 teams that qualify for it. You play 2 games with a team and the winner advances to the Cup. My team made it to the playoffs and lost in the quaterfinals. But we did win and advance to the Cup. So we are one of the 4 teams playing for the Cup. We wont play the Cup games until the middle of March or end of March. So keep your fingers crossed for us!!!

Thanksgiving in Cyprus

2008-11-27T04:47:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Although I am in a different country that does not celebrate Thanksgiving I figured I would still get in the Thanksgiving spirit over here anyway. There is not much I can do in the food department because I live at a hotel and they make my food every night, so I cant go to the store and prepare a delicious Thanksgiving meal....I am goin to miss all the food that comes with Thanksgiving, especially the stuffing and the pumpkin pie....mmmmmmm! I cant be with family or friends...I cant eat the good food...I cant really decorate for the holidays...I cant watch any football games...and I cant go shopping the day after Thanksgiving with all the sales...but what I can do is say what I am thankful for!

First off I am very thankful for my family, whom I love very much and miss everyday!! The phone calls and interent talks arent enough! But I am thankful for their support and encouragement whenever I need it and the understanding of my dream to let me go live across the world. You guys are the best! I wish I was there to celebrate the holiday with you guys!

I am thankful for my friends who are always there, even when Im a world away! Thankfully we have skype so I can see your pretty faces whenever I want! :)

I am thankful that God has given me the opportunity to play volleyball overseas. It is a dream come true and a life I never imagined would take me where I am. I am thankful that I have been able to see the world at which He created!

I am thankful that I live in the USA. As I go to all these different places I meet so many interesting people and people that are so different from me. I learn about their lifestyles back home, they way they react to different situations and I see things that they believe in and the way they understand life. I am thankful that I can learn from all these different people, but mostly I learn to be thankful for the place where I live and the way in which I was brought up.

I aam thankful for the small things in life. Whenever I go away to a foriegn country I must adapt to their way of living. Many times it is very different from the life we live in the states. I have learned not to take so many things for granted. I am thankful for the water we have everyday,(here in Cyprus they are goin through a water drought and they must conserve water. Every household gets a certain amount of water per month. Thankfully I live in a hotel where I have water to use everyday.) I am thankful for dryers. Pretty much in every foriegn country I have been to we have to hang our clothes out to dry. I am thankful for my nice, comfy queen size bed at home. I am thankful for an organized driving system, honking the horn is used way too much here. I am thankful for Del Taco and In and Out. I cant wait to get home and wait in line at the drive-thu! :)

I could go on and on of what I am thankful for. I have been very blessed and I am thankful that we have a day to celebrate everything we have in our lives! I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!!

Fishing Trip

2008-11-05T06:52:00.000-08:00

Along with womens volleyball the city of Limassol has a few men's teams. On the men's team that is associated with my team there are 4 foriegners, 2 from Venezuala, one from Russia and one from Estonia. They all speak English and are fun, nice guys. Usually in the morning me and the other foreigner on my team, Svetlana, practice with the foreigners from the men's team. Most of the time they try not to kill us when they hit. Most of the time. There is another mens team that uses the same gym that we do and they have 2 foreigners from Canada, Steven and Pascal. The first day that I met them they told me they had just downloaded the newest episode of The Office, needless to say we were fast friends. So when Steven's friend came to visit they planned a fishing trip and asked if I wanted to go along. Of course I said yes. Any chance to get out of the hotel and I was goin to take it! So we woke up early and headed out to the docks. We really didnt know what to expect but as soon as we stepped on the boat the captain was really cool. Captain Angelos and his son Gregory made us coffee and we had a lil breakfeast and then we started fishing right away. Ok so I have fished a few times before and figured I would do fine but then when you go fishing with Canadians its a different story. Apparently they go fishing alot. But i was the second one to catch a fish! But they were just warming up. By the end of the day each Canadian had about 15 fish to their name while I came up with 5. Ha! Its a lot harder than it looks. Not only did we go fishing for fish but we also were trying to catch octopus. We ended up catching 4 of them. That was pretty cool to see and to touch the octopus. The captain asked if any of us wanted a tatoo from the octopus, of course we had no idea what he was talking about but then he put the octopus on my arm and the octopus suctioned itself to me and when the captain finally pulled it off, there was long red marks on my arm. I was the only one to have the octopus give me a "tatoo" so I felt a lil bit better about only catching 5 fish. :) The lil guy didnt want to let go of me!!! On the way back to the docks the captain let me steer the boat back into the harbor. Dont worry I didnt hit anything!

When we got back on dry land we decided to go cook the fish that we caught. I was not about to touch the fish, cut the heads off or scale the fish so I let the boys do all the work. We then sat down and watched an episode of The Office while we ate all the fish. The fish turned out to be really good and it turned out to be one the best days here in Cyprus!

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-11-05T06:37:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago it was my 25th birthday. I wasnt planning on doing anything special for my birthday but it turned out to be a great birthday! I woke up that morning with a few texts from friends and family wishing me a happy birthday, so that was a great start. But then for most of the morning and afternoon I went to the beach and relaxed. Then my friend Costas, who is my coach's brother and also grew up in southern California, took me out to get some coffee and tried to teach me backgammon and some card games. We had the day off on my birthday so he said that he would figure out something for us to do. So later that night he came and picked me up and we went to a lil restaraunt and there was the team and some of the men's team waiting to surprise me! They had planned a surprise dinner for me! I was not expecting it and was totally surprised! They had dinner, presents and a cake for me. The cake was delicious!! This is my coach, Gabriel, cutting my cake. The other girl in the picture is our setter, Andrea and my closest friend here. She is from Romania.These are a few of the girls on our team...me, Andrea, Svetlana, Dimitria, Costantinas and Carolina.It really turned out to be a fun and surprising birthday! Thank you all for the birthday wishes!

Cyprus

2008-11-05T05:59:00.000-08:00

Hello all!! I took the advice of many and now have a blog so I can keep everyone updated on how things are goin out here in Cyprus! The 25 hours of travel out here were not so bad, I slept most of the way. I landed in Cyprus at about 1 in the morning and thankfully my luggage arrived at the same time too! I had no idea who was goin to pick me up but the president of the club came and picked me up and thankfully he was holding a picture of me so I knew who he was. It was only a half hour drive to the city I would be staying in, Limassol. He dropped me off at my hotel and I crashed for a few hours. The next day I woke up and got to see outside my window and I was right on the beach! Here was the view from my room!

I aslo had my first practice with the team that next night. Everyone was real nice and the best part is that all the girls and my coaches speak English! :) We then had our first game, even though I had only practiced with the team once, but we won in 4! The team is young but we should do well. There is another foreigner on the team, Svetlana, and she is from Bulgaria. We usually practice once a day so that leaves me plenty of time to enjoy the nice weather out here! I have already tried a few of Cyprus' popular foods and I would have to say that I have liked everything I have tried. I do not have a car here but I have a taxi that takes me wherever i need to go. I have met some really nice people here that have taken me for some coffee and have shown me around the city. Everyone has been real nice and has made an effort to make me feel comfortable out here!