Day 8, Monday, January 15, 2007
Klagenfurt, Austria
By, Keva Humbert
                       
Today we departed from Maribor and were on our way to Innsbruck, Austria. The plan was to stop in Klagenfurt and play a couple of matches and then continue on to Innsbruck; so we were in for a long day. The drive to Klagenfurt went by quickly. When we arrived in town we were dropped off and told to be back in a couple of hours. The group of girls I was with happened upon an American girl that was on the opposing team (Katie Steffens who plays with Sarah Morgan at HYPO Klagenfurt) that the white team would play that night.

We walked with Katie to meet Sarah at the bus station. Tim and Cory had asked them to come into town to hang out with us. We asked them both a lot of questions about playing in Klagenfurt and they really liked the town and the team, even though they were not really challenged. Their team happened to be composed of younger girls about 16-18 so they kind of acted as mentors to the other girls.

The town was really cute, not too big and not too small. We decided that we just wanted to have a good sit down meal so they took us to one of their favorite restaurants called Augustine’s, which had really good food. After walking around for a bit we got back on the bus to head to the gyms.

After our team tradition of cappuccino and cocoa, we headed off to play our match against ATSV Klagenfurt. We started the game off by playing way below our potential. Cory then decided to be a coach for 5 minutes and in so many words, told us that if we wanted to play in Europe, we had to be able to play well against a team like the one we were playing. So after that “pep talk” we actually picked it up and split in the end.

By the time we finished it was pretty late and we were starving so we hopped in the bus and headed to a nutritious meal compliments of Burger King. (The other team got to eat Chinese food after their match vs. HYPO.)

We then got on the bus and headed for Innsbruck. The ride took about 5 hours and we got in around 1:00am at Hotel Ibis. I really liked this hotel because the beds were softer, had down comforters and the showers were really nice. Anyway, we got in and pretty much went to bed after a long day of travel.