The month of January

I arrived back on the 2^nd of January after one of the worst flights of my life over. I got sick on the plane and have never felt like such crap in my entire life. And to make things better I left the keys to my house in Williams Lake and my contacts didn’t arrive in the mail before I came back! But the best part of my return was the 3 practices we had for three straight days! That definitely made the return more enjoyable. After the first day I could barely move I was so exhausted from the jet lag, the training was fun it was not fun to tell my body to do something and it not do it because I was so exhausted. As for volleyball in January it didn’t go so well. We had 3 league games and we lost all three of them. Had we won at least one of our matches we would have finished 5^th in league and then we wouldn’t have been matched up against Post Vienna in the first round of playoffs. How our playoffs work is we have the top 6 teams from our league qualify and then the two Austrian teams that play in MEVCA (Middle European league) join us for our playoffs to determine the Austrian Meister or champion. Being that Vienna beat Klagenfurt, the other MEVCA team, we will be matched up against them in the first round of playoffs starting on February 20^th.

To start off January we travelled to Innsbruck to play Tirol. We had beaten them 3-1 in October at home so we were optimistic about our chances against them. However we didn’t play as well as we should have and lost 3-0. It was a big blow and we had 2 tough weeks of practice because of it. But the best part of going to Innsbruck was that I got to go to Mittenwald, Germany to see the Chyzowski family. It was a great 2 days there. I played and played and played with the kids.

My Girl Lucia and I

We played board games, computer games, played hockey, played in the snow and went skiing although I didn’t go the kids did. It is amazing how big they have grown in the past year and half that I have known them and I can’t wait to go back and visit again!!

The next weekend we had a Styrian cup game on the road. After the game our coach took us to the Therme for the evening something my body definitely needed!!

A very fuzzy photo of the Therme. Still haven't figured my camera out after a year of having it.

Then on Sunday Carla came to visit and we went to watch a Canadian, Jeff, play volleyball against the team from Graz. It was nice to have some Canadians around and a great way to relax on my weekend off.

That next weekend we played Dornbirn at home. We had a great first set winning 29-27 but the next 3 sets didn’t go so well and we ended up losing 3-1 putting us in 6^th place and matched up against Vienna. Even though we lost a few of the girls and I went out for a night on the town! It was a blast, rolling into your house at 6am after Kehbab is always the best way to start a Sunday.

Eva and I getting ready to head out

The last league game was in Wels against Wels. We lost a hard fought game in 5. Although we lost it was a good game for our team because we had been training really hard for the past three weeks and we were finally seeing the results. We even had a couple of chances to win the match specifically in the 4^th game when we started the game going down 15-8 and we lost 26-24. Losing was not so fun but the game was a lot of fun to play in. I also stayed that weekend in Linz with Carla and we had a relaxing time together . We did a lot of chatting, eating and most specifically dancing!! It may be the last time that I was going to be there for a while so I figured we better do it up right that weekend! It was a blast for sure but it was also nice to get home to Graz and get ready for playoffs.