Spring Exposure Tour, Spain 2007
By Sharyse Bush
Cartagena: March 15, 2007
Well, well, well…Where do I begin? How about with Kelsi (Canada) hiding the fact that she has a minor in English? (hahaha, yes I snitched!) So after a fun night out with the girls, the following morning (Friday) we packed up our belongings, loaded the bus and were on our way to Cartagena. Still semi-adjusting to the time difference, and with most of our games starting around 8pm (then eating dinner around 10ish) most of us would seem to fall asleep within the first 15-20 minutes of our bus rides. When traveling to cities that were at least a few hours or more away, sleep became our best friend.
Cartagena, our next stop, was about a 5-hour drive. I guess it just seemed much longer after stopping for lunch, and finding out our bus driver had gotten pulled over by the “Guardia Civil” (Spanish Cops) because he had driven his bus for too long without stopping. There is a rule that buses and semis have to take a 15-minute break from driving every 2 hours or a 45-minute break for every 4 hours. Oh yeah, his ticket was 2,000 Euros!
After we arrived in Cartagena, we had approximately 1-2 hours before we were to meet 3 Americans who are playing for the Cartagena team: Rashinda Reed, Tiffany Graham, and Kaui Salzman. Some of our team went to the beach to check it out, but most of us just rested in the hotel to get ready for the evening.
The girls were very nice and informative of how life and playing is in Europe. Soon after, we all left for our game which was to start around 7:30pm. The facility wasn’t much to brag upon, but was jam packed with people there to watch the game. We started out playing a little slow losing the first game, but took the momentum we had gained from the first game into the 2nd and won considerably. Still pumped up from winning the second and finally clicking as a team, we won the 3rd game as well. In game 4 we had yet another good start but end up slipping up a bit giving up unnecessary points and lost that game fairly close. Game 5…Do or die. I don’t know what happened, but we died. We did not start off playing fast as we had the other games and it hurt us tremendously. It was one thing after another until we lost 15-8. But overall we were all very happy with how we played and worked together on the court. Losing in 5 games is tough but when you throw 12 girls whom have never played together and finally find a sequence that works, in the end you are fairly happy with the outcome.
After the game, the 3 American girls we played against came with us to our hotel and joined us for dinner. By the time we had finished, everyone was tired and we crashed to get ready for our journey to Benidorm the following day.
Oh yeah: Note to self (and others): Don’t eat the 4 cheese pizza!
