A German Thanksgiving

Maybe one of my favourite holiday’s is Thanksgiving.....not the last Thursday of every November like they have in the US but the Canadian Version which falls on the second Monday of the month of October. This year was the first year that I was unable to celebrate Thanksgiving because I had just returned back from my Grandfather’s funeral and wasn’t fully prepared to do the whole cooking a turkey and making the side dishes. However when American Thanksgiving came around I was more than pumped to cook! All we needed was a venue and some dinner guests!! Megan and Jon stepped in to be the hosts and my roommates plus a handful of the hockey players were the guests! Therefore on Wednesday night it was decided that at Megan and Jon’s would be the multicultural thanksgiving.....even more perfect because it was our day off.

Thanksgiving is so important to me because it was always the holiday at my house that everyone enjoyed....it didn’t drag out over a couple of days so it was fast and relatively painless! Also the true definition of Thanksgiving to me is being able to celebrate all the successes of the previous year and be thankful for all of the advantages I had in the previous year. But more it was about appreciating those around me in my family, something that I am truly thankful for now that I am older and away from home. I have a pretty amazing family and I couldn’t be prouder to have them!

The preparations started at 2pm in the afternoon. Megan, Michele and I headed out to do the grocery shopping but more we were in search of a turkey!! We were able to find one there was only one problem.....it was frozen into a solid rock! After our shop we headed home to Jon’s negative attitude that we weren’t going to be able to cook a turkey from frozen.....I was out to prove him wrong! The finished product, success!

We flash defrosted it for 2 hours in the sink in cold water and then put it in the oven after I had to pry open the legs to remove the neck and the gizzards. Then it was into the oven when I crossed my fingers hoping that I wouldn’t mess it up. In the mean time we prepared all the side dishes while I continued to watch the turkey with a keen eye! At 8pm I removed the turkey to let it rest....praying that it was cooked but wasn’t over cooked. Luckily it was done to perfection and our Thanksgiving was ready to begin.

Our Spread!!

Our Thanksgiving in Germany was a little unorthodox but it included all the regular foods, turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies, the dreaded brussel sprouts plus stuffing flown in from Canada and good company so that’s what made it fun. We had 3 first timers (2 German Guys and our Czech roommate), 2 American and 5 Canadians.....it was quite the cultural experience.

The whole group minus Jana

We had to explain to Jana (our roommate) the importance of stuffing yourself until you couldn’t even move. Typically Thanksgiving is the one day of the year where you can eat so much food and not feel guilty about doing it. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around that concept and only had one plate of food compared to the two full plates that the rest of us had.

The Perfect Well Balanced Plate

As a group we were able to plough through most of the food (minus the veggies) and everyone could barely move but I hope they were all happily full and in the Turkey comma!! After the eating we left the dishes for the guys to finish and headed to the Banhof for a little dancing in an attempt to even burn off a few of the calories!

I couldn’t have been happier to cook and am happy that the cooking of my first Thanksgiving dinner alone went relatively easily.....good thing there was a few of us helping each other yet! Next year I will be sure to buy the turkey they day in advance and defrost it overnight!!

Sinsheim, Stuttgart and Snow

For the second time this year it snowed here!! I’m not talking a little dusting like we get in Vancouver and then it melts later that day I’m talking over a foot of snow just that day. I wasn’t too keen on all the snow being here because we had to drive to our game in Sinsheim about 2 hours north of us. But more I was nervous the club would say no to us keeping the sponsor mobile for the night as we had intended on heading out in Stuttgart for the night. Luckily the snow let up in the afternoon and we embarked on our trip to Sinsheim with our trusty Tom-tom (GPS) care of Megan and Jon.

We arrived in Sinsheim about 2 hours before match time and sat around until the other girls arrived 30 minutes after us. Our coaches seemed a little on edge before the game....they are very nervous that we might lose and it carried over to me a little bit today. During warm up I was a nervous a lot more than normal. I wasn’t sure if it was because we had a bye last weekend or that we had only worked on hitting combination plays in practice all week (something that is not my forte) or the vibe our coaches were giving off or just plain old nerves. Either way I needed to shake them before the game started!

Game 1: We started the first set a little slow....and by a little slow I mean really, really slow. We were passing well however we were struggling to put the ball away. If I could guess we had 6 or 7 hitting errors in the first 16 points of the game allowing Sinsheim to go up 14-8.

The start of the comeback!

We then got our act together and put together some nice plays and slowly climbed back into the game where we never looked back and took the first set by a score of 25-19.

Game 2: This game was by far our best over game of the night. Even though we struggled a bit on passing we were consistent in all other areas especially serving and defence. We were able to get the other team out of system and force them to set their outside hitters whom weren’t as strong as their middles or right side. There was one play I specifically remember....the rally must have been 30 second long both teams digging all the hard hits and no one able to put the ball away until we finally did. We were by far the most consistent I have seen our team play defence ever considering we are typically not the best defensive team! We won this game 25-23 although it felt as if we won by way more!!

Game 3: This game was our best serving set of the match. We basically served them off the court and won the set handily 25-14.

One of the few plays we actually had to convert in game 3 to win!

Our setter was a little all over the map with her set location so it was a good thing that we served well and didn’t need many opportunities to put the ball away. Another 3-0 victory which was greatly appreciated by everyone considering the past 2 matches we had been up 2-0 only to lose game 3! It was a good learning opportunity for our young team as we put the team away the first chance we had!!

Everyone was very happy that we won as we are now 6-0 and clearly in first place as we are the only team that is still undefeated!! We even had a cheering squad at the game. My friend Kelly who plays for the 1st team in Sinsheim came out to watch and Megan tagged along for the road trip. From the club we had our manager, our PA announcer, our Physiotherapist, the club president’s husband, our manager’s girlfriend and our setter’s 5 month old baby boy! We almost brought more fans than were at the game for the other team. It is definitely different than the 1000 people we play for at home every weekend! It will probably be a little quiet at our next game as well as we are on the road in Wiesloch! The best part will be having my own cheering section there in my mom and my uncle who arrive on Thursday!

After the game we headed into Stuttgart to celebrate the victory with a night out on the town. In Villingen there isn’t a club to go dancing at so we (Michele, Jana, Megan and I) were all very excited to hit the D floor! We heard that the place to go was Perkin’s Park on the hill in Stuttgart so after meeting up with one of the guys from the basketball team and his friends we headed to Perkin’s Park where we danced until the wee hours of the morning.

Me with Michele, Megan and Jana at Perkin's Park

It was a good thing we didn’t head home until the next morning because it snowed for the whole night and the roads were very dangerous.
The weather was nice all day until the evening when I went to the hockey game with Megan to watch her boyfriend Jon play. We walked to the game from her house and I have never been so frozen before I got to the game on our 15 minute walk. As I mentioned previously the arena where they play has 2 open walls that let all the cold air in and you feel like you are at a pond hockey game. Well tonight in addition to it being cold it was also snowing outside and the wind was carrying the snow onto the ice! Only in Germany! Megan and I managed to find a spot to stand that wasn’t directly in the freezing cold wind so the game was moderately enjoyable. Unfortunately the guys lost 4-3 in one of the worst refereed games I have ever seen. It seemed like every face off one or both guys being waved out, the linesman was having some serious difficulties that night. Schwenningen was down 3-2 early in the third when they tried to mount a comeback with Megan’s boyfriend scoring the tying goal only to have the other team score a couple of minutes later when the puck deflected off an arm and into the goal. It was a tough goal to lose on. Other than taking 2 hours for my toes to defrost and being driven home in a blizzard it was a good evening and I couldn’t have been happier to watch hockey! Hopefully they’ll get back in the win column next weekend!
Until next time.....Tschus!

Euro Cup Match in Friedrichshafen

Thursday night our coaches decided to give us the night off practice so we could instead drive about 1.5 hours to Friedrichshafen to watch a European Cup Games between VfB and Iskra Odintsovo from Russia. A quick definition of European Cup is the champions of all the European leagues playing against each other during their club seasons for the Euro Cup. It's a pretty big even throughout Europe, as this game was broadcast live on Europsort!

We arrived at the gym 30 minutes before game time because our assistant coach really wanted to see hitting warm up. He was like a kid in a candy store! He had the biggest smile ever on his face and would get all excited when the player had an amazing hit. I would define amazing as hitting the ball inside the attack line (3 meters) for these players. They made it look too easy leading Michele and I to discuss how men’s volleyball players have become too big and athletic therefore raising of the height of the net should occur. This could create more rallies and allow both blockers and defenders to have a chance to stop the attacker.

After hitting warm up we took our seats in the 3^rd row on the home team’s side.....I have never sat so close for a volleyball match.

It was neat because you could see all the hand signals from the setter, and minor movements and adjustments the players made as the ball game to them. I was pretty pumped to be so up close to the game!

As for the game, Iskra Odintsovo boasts one of the best players in the world Giba from Brazil. He was FIVB player for the year in 2007 and was the FIVB World Championships MVP in 2006. He was also a member of the Silver medal Brazilian team at the 2008 Olympics, basically he’s pretty unreal. He also overcame leukemia as a child and a drug suspension in 2002 for testing positive for marijuana.

Giba in Action

He was amazing to watch play. When he would attack he would jump look directly down on the blockers because he had jumped higher than them and hit the ball off their hands and out of bounds. It was as if time slowed down when he attacked. I can only imagine being able to do that! He was so calm and collected as a player....even after a bad play he would gather his team mates together and rally them for the next play. I’m not sure how he would do that being that he was the only player on the team that didn’t speak Russian; but whatever he did seemed to work and his team almost always rebounded from an error.

As for the actual game Iskra Odintsovo won 3-1, something that was expected to happen. The won a first tight game as the home team came out fighting with a lot of passion in front of a crowd around 3500. However they were not able to maintain that fight and got smoked 25-16 in the second game. I was worried that the match was going to be over in 50 minutes, but luckily VfB came out and won game 3, 25-22 forcing a 4^th set where the Russian club team calmly disposed of the home team 25-22. Besides the large amount of service errors the match included some huge blocks by either team, some unbelievable block coverage and even a couple of rallies that were longer than 10 seconds. When these players did make digs it allowed for some very entertaining volleyball! I would definitely consider going to another leg of Euro Cup later on in the season if our schedule allows for it!!

Be sure to read both posts from today. Sorry for doing 2 at once, but the lack of internet doesn't always allow me to post whenever I write them! Tschus.

5-0!!!

On Saturday we played another home game in front of another large crowd. This week is was only about 1000 people compared to the 1100 that we had out the week before. We thought that because there was so many people at the game we should play to 5 tonight so that they could get their money’s worth (keep in mind our games are free). Konstanz was sitting at third place in the league and looked more athletic and skilled than any of the other teams we had played so far. I was a little more nervous for the game than normal because our starting right side had a sprained ankle forcing her out of the line up, and my roommates Michele and Jana were both either sick or injured. I wasn’t sure if the girls would be able to make it through a whole game but we only play once a weekend so I had faith that they would be able to suck it up for the match.

The game started off rather slow for us. We shanked the first pass of the game but were still able to keep the play going but ended up losing the point. I was very nervous for how the rest of the match was going to go....but we ended up pulling off the first set victory winning 25-18.



We managed to win game two 25-20 and then lose games three (17-25) and four (23-25). We shouldn’t have lost them but we let our emotions get the best of us. We were struggling with passing and a few of the girls on the team were getting very nervous and uptight. I knew that we were going to be okay we just needed to calm down and relax. We were doing a pretty good job of attempting to get on track but we were still unable to pull out a win in the 4th set forcing us into our first 5 set match of the year!! Compounding the emotional rollercoaster our team was on was the refereeing. This may have been the worst officiated game I have ever been involved in. The ref was calling balls out that were in and in that were out. They missed ball handling, net calls, antenna calls and blatant touches. The missed touches were the hardest ones to swallow because both Michele and I had one each at crucial points in the game. They were also both identical.....we hit the ball off the middle blockers hands and it sailed up into the air 2-3 feet higher than when we hit it and then out of bounds. How they missed that was beyond me, but they did! The only positive about the poor refereeing was that it was bad for both sides.

After losing set 4 we needed to refocus and forget the previous errors if we were going to be the first team to 15 and win. We started the set off well going up 4-0! That was great because we had the side out advantage and all we had to do was trade side outs for the rest of the game. We stayed up when we changed sides at 8 and then were up 13-10 looking to close the match out. We let them get to 13-12 where we had a huge side out to go up 14-12. Serving with a chance to win the match Konstanz came out with a huge kill. We would have to finish the game with a side out.....which is exactly what we did, off a missed serve. We took the 5th set 15-13 and are still undefeated for the year at 5-0!

Victory!!

After each game the club holds a small press conference with the coaches of both teams and a player from each team. Surprise, Surprise it was me who got chosen to be involved; time to show off my German that I had learnt so far......luckily they said I could speak in English! I don’t think they would have appreciated me asking how they were, (Wie geht’s?) and where they were from (Woher kommst du?). It was definitely interesting standing there and not understanding a word anyone was saying but that’s kind of how it has been the entire time that I’ve been here.

I may look disinterred but I am actually trying to translate every word they are saying.....it was very difficult.

Needless to say it was a good thing we won again as the managers and sponsors are once again happy. Also, hopefully we left the fans with something to remember us by because our next home game isn’t until the 20th of December.

Learning to Drive

Yes, it may seem a little ridiculous that I am 23 years of age and don’t know how to drive......trust me I do know how to drive! I just don’t know how to drive manual yet. I could blame my parents for never teaching me or not having any manual cars but truthfully I never really wanted to learn I was happy in my own little bubble of automatic driving.

My roommate Michele volunteered herself to be my driving instructor. I don’t think she knew what she was getting herself into. But I think she did it because she may have felt it was time for me to pull my weight in the driving category as it always seems to be her driving! I was so nervous about driving as I never have been behind the wheel of a car that shifts manually. After the brief introduction as to how to shift, when to clutch and change gears we were off on our way. I calmly pulled out on Färberstraße and started driving. It was going very well and I was even able to park and start up again. Then it happened......stalling. I started having trouble finding the sweet spot in the clutch, but it did get better as we continued driving. I even conquered starting on a hill at a light without stalling, I may have left a little rubber behind but that was better than rolling back into the bus behind us! The best part was getting lost trying to go to McDonalds. We get right beside the McDonalds but couldn’t turn into the restaurant so we had to drive around in a big circle until we got to a different entrance. After McDonalds on the drive home I was much better only stalling at one light! All in all it was a good first driving experience and we’ll see how I do next week, maybe I’ll even be able to drive when other cars are on the road!

Win Number 4!

This weekend was home game number three and our fourth game of the season. I was also very lucky to have a visitor for the weekend....Kelly! We met on tour in Slovenia in August and she is playing about 4 hours away in Sinsheim. Her team had the weekend off and she thought that she would pop down for a little visit. I was so pumped to have her here and I hope that we were able to show her a good time in Villingen!

Saturday started out very quite as it was another of the many German holidays. How I would have loved to be a high school student here in Germany. They are 6 weeks into classes and then they get a week long break and another holiday. I think that is a little unfair...we only had spring break. So for most of the week it was busy around town and it was nice to have the change of pace on Saturday. We decided that since Kelly was here we would do something touristy. Apparently there was a tower just up the road from where we lived that looked over the entire city so we thought that we would check it out. Sure enough there was a tower that gave some of the most spectacular 360 degree views of the town and the Black Forest. Someone even told us that it is one of the tallest towers in German. That I don’t really believe but it did take a lot of stairs to get to the top so who knows.

If you look really close you can see two towers on the left. They are of the Catholic Church that is located in the center of town.

The town of Villingen looking West of the City Wall

The Black Forest in the horizon

After our tourist walking excursion it was time to get ready for the big game against VfR Umkirch. It is always nice to get to the gym and have no idea about the team you are playing, they’re not so big on scouting and preparing a game plan, its very different compared to University!

We have to arrive at the gym 2 hours before game time and about 15 minutes after we arrived the other team showed up with their cheering section complete with about 20 people, 2 drums, a tambourine and an air horn. I could already tell that this was going to be a loud game. After our 90 minute warm up the gym was beginning to fill up and the game was ready to commence. Before each game we are introduced by Jergan our announcer for the game......they play "Final Countdown" from Rocky and we run in from the locker room which is located opposite to our bench. Its not my favourite thing to do but the fans love it, all 1100 of them for this game!

Nothing like free admission, food and booze to get the fans to come out!

The gym was so loud that I could not even hear Michele when she was 5 feet away from me. The DJ (yes we had a DJ) was pumping the tunes throughout the whole game, it was kinda cool experience but I was really glad that I took two Advil before the game started!

Game 1: We had a slow start to the game but were still ahead for most of the game. About 10 points into the match our right side sprained her ankle while trying to move backwards to pass a ball. I don't remember seeing it as I was trying to pass the ball because it had gone over her head. I passed it and then looked down to see Julia grabbing her ankle and I knew that this was not a good thing. Her substitution was Vio who looked so scared and nervous but eventually she got into the game! We struggled with passing for most of the game but were able to pull out the victory 25-23. An emotional first set but I'm glad we were able to pull it out.

Game 2: This one should have not been as close as it was....another 25-23 victory. We made a lot of small errors and the kept on digging our attacks. They may not have been the biggest team but they were scrappy on defense making us work to get kills.


Game 3: This game I would prefer not to talk about. All I will say is that our passing fell apart and the sets we were gettting were trap sets, meaning it was either too tight, too far outside the antenna or in my case too fast and low. There was a lot of tipping and not a lot of passion and heart on our side. We lost this game, I believe the score was 20-25.

Game 4: Between games 3 and 4 our coaches yelled something in German at us and apparently it worked as this was by far our best set. I started the game off with a 6 point serving run and we never looked back from there. We took this set easily with a 25-16 victory, scores that we should have beat this team by each set. But never the less we did get our fourth victory of the season....a perfect 4-0.

Celebration of Victory!

The fans are happy, the managers are happy and hopefully we can go for number five this weekend against Konstanz.