Spring Exposure Tour, Spain 2007
By Kelsey Anderson (Blonde) and Kelsi Andrew-Wasylik (Red)
Benidorm: March 16-19, 2007
(Kelsey Blonde): We arrived in Benidorm on Friday afternoon. This was our only day completely free from volleyball. It was really warm which was exciting because it was so cold back home. The girls hurried and put their swimsuits on and went to the beach. A few girls laid out on the Mediterranean beach while others walked the boardwalk, which had a lot of souvenir shops. There was a beautiful sunset and then a group of us met up for some tapas and warm drinks because after the sun went down it got cold.
While the team was site seeing, Olivia and Lindsay had the great opportunity of getting to practice with the SuperLiga team in Benidorm and meeting the American on the team; Michelle Knox. Michelle then accompanied us for dinner back at the hotel where the girls bombarded her with their questions about her experiences in Europe. Some girls went out to the discotecas for a fun night of dancing.
(Kelsi Red): First off I have to say that having two Kelsi/ey’s on this tour is fairly weird for the both of us, so the girls have designated Kelsey Anderson as “Kelsey Blonde, and me, Kelsi Andrew-Wasylik, as “Kelsi Red”. Now that that’s settled, on to the day’s events. We were all fairly hypnotized from the bus ride and suffered a minor culture shock upon our arrival to Benidorm. The way Tim explains it, it’s not really Spain. Benidorm is like Daytona Beach, only everyone is over the age of 60 and either British or German. There is nothing truly authentically Hispanic about this city, but it was 20 degrees Celsius and sunny so we were all pretty thrilled. Those of us who ventured to the Levante Beach ended up walking the boardwalk and lying out - taking full advantage of the night off.
After some shopping and sun, Shanna, Gillian, Kelsey Blonde and I all decided to have a pre-dinner snack of pizza and coffee at a beachfront café overlooking the water. The sunset over the mountains was breathtaking, and once we realized we were now freezing, we headed back to the hotel. On our way back, there was a street carnival with small rides and games booths, and……… CHURROS CON CHOCOLATE.
This was crucial because there were a couple of us who had been on a mission for churros since Monday when we were in Toledo. Apparently, churros aren’t served before 5pm, and are not served after 10pm, so we were always out of luck. It’s a good thing we had Kelsey Blonde to point and scream in such a high pitched voice (“CHIURROS!”) that dogs came running and people on the street stopped to stare. Ordering the churros was an experience in itself, but finally we were able to taste the (evidently) rare Spanish treat. They were all right, kind of like a huge French fry of deep fried dough, with a cup of hot chocolate. After the mission had been completed we made it back to the hotel for dinner, and to mentally prepare for volleyball the next day.
(Kelsey Blonde): In my defense, I had been searching for days asking almost every place for churros con chocolate since in Madrid one of the girls had tried it and said it was good. I was just extremely excited! I would have called it more of an excited yelp than a high pitched scream, but it was loud and really funny.
Saturday I actually spent the morning wondering Benidorm by myself, which was really fun and refreshing. I finally bought some presents for my family and some for me, a purse and hat! Then I just sat on a bench at the beach and “people watched,” which was interesting. On walking back to the hotel, I found the best store with cute, crazy clothes in it that I would later take Kelsi back to and realized how many old people were walking around at an incredibly slow speed.
That afternoon we had a team practice and the gym in Benidorm. The gym was nice, with four full courts and many nice locker rooms. We practiced for about two hours. We mostly worked on setters connecting with the hitters, communication, serving, and serve receive. We played a game called “Mondo Ball”, which Paula explained to us. Five players are on the court and all can hit and block. It was fun and made us start talking to each other. Overall I think it was a successful practice and much needed for our setters to start finding their hitters.
After the game, we showered and watched the team in Benidorm play. They are called “Visual Home Benidorm” this year after their new sponsors, and are a SuperLiga team. It was really fun to watch them play. They played against Albacete. The games were intense and close. The Benidorm team won the first two but during the third game their amazing libero got injured. This changed the game completely, without her passing they ended up losing the next three games. Since they lost they only placed sixth in the league and Albacete locked up the #3 spot. We were tired from our day out and practice and sitting on the hard cement bleachers for five games was hard but it was great to get to watch such good volleyball. It was the most professional experience that we have seen. There was an announcer, cheerleaders, and many loud fans. We took cabs back to the hotel, which was scary because they took us down these narrow roads at a very high rate of speed. I was just glad to be back at the hotel alive and getting to eat!
(Kelsi Red): After the match we went back to the hotel with Michelle Knox to eat dinner and ask her a ton of questions about her Pro experience so far. After dinner, Michelle and a few girls hit up the town for St. Patty’s Day festivities. I really needed to use a computer in order to book a flight to Denmark and had to sneak into a neighboring hotel in order to use the internet. That was single-handedly the worst web experience of my life, and ended up getting so flustered and annoyed at the Spanish keyboards and browsers that Kelsey Blonde immediately suggested finding a bar when I was finished. We decided to make use of the unusual mix of bars and clubs, and create our own mini pub-crawl along the street that led to the beach. It seemed that every place we stopped at was having seniors’ karaoke night, but we would try and mingle with them anyway. We ended up walking up a street with all British establishments showing numerous football (that’s soccer to you North Americans) matches, and advertising super cheap drink specials. We stopped at a place that had Stella Artois in the window - we just happen to both love that beer - and were relieved to find that this bar was more of a hole-in-the-wall Spanish place. Only meaning to stay for one beer and some pizza, we ended up having custom made drinks from the bartender, taking pictures with the baristas, playing several games of pool with no rules, and hanging out with local police officers while they took shift breaks. On our way back to the hotel we ran into Maggie, Sharyse, Lindsay, Shanna and Tiffany coming back from their nights out, and we exchanged some fun stories in the lobby before finally calling it a night.
(Kelsey Blonde): After our fun night out, I slept in so I would be ready for our big match. We had planned on playing the junior team at Benidorm. However, since the team had lost the night before their punishment was to get up and play us.
They might not have been excited but we were pumped to play such a high caliber team. We played four games against the Visual Home team. I think that we played the best so far against them. The first game we struggled on passing and putting the ball away but by the second game we started to hang with them. The team was just so smooth and controlled and when given the chance slamming the ball. But our team did a great job of fighting back and showing what we had. The best part of the game was when their outside went up for a hit and nailed Megan in the head. Her hair fell in her face and she yelled, “It’s up!” We almost won the fourth game we were ahead until the twenties when they finally pushed ahead with some good serving. We were sad that we were done playing and wishing that we could play some more because we just started getting in a groove. Playing with everyone was great and we were a good group of volleyball players.
After the game of course we had to eat and then we were on our own. I took Kelsi back to that cool store I talked about before and we both bought some cute clothes and the later found a great deal on the cutest shoes ever. I need to stop buying stuff, running low on dinero. Most of the rest of the team went to the beach and crashed out for awhile until they woke up because it got so cold. Overall a good time in Benidorm.
(Kelsi Red): On a non-volleyball note, I would just like to say for anyone who reads this and plans on playing in Spain, or anywhere else in Europe, make sure you bring along your own favorite products from home. I was in need of some bath stuff, but apparently no one in Spain uses face wash or things of that nature. In fact, in local stores, the “personal hygiene” aisle is usually full of liquor. Another weird thing is that in supermarkets, the milk is rarely refrigerated. It was seen most often just hanging out on the shelf, so when we saw it in a cold container of some kind we almost felt obligated to buy it. That’s all for now, off to Madrid tomorrow!
