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This
tour was a mixture of two juniors groups: One from Alabama that
landed in Munich, Germany on July 16, and another from Reno that
landed in Ljubljana, Slovenia on July 17. All are here to play
some international volleyball and enjoy the beautiful European
summer. The tour is based for the first five days in Europe's
little gem of Slovenia, and the last five days will have the group
in the Czech Republic. Delegation: Cory
Solomon, BIP Players: Jenny
Burrows July
16, 2003 - Day 1 We arrived in Munich, Germany, at around 10:00 am. Then we went to get our bags after going through customs. After that, we stopped by the restrooms, which were very interesting and unique, before meeting up with Carey, Andi, Mitch, and Whitney. Megan, Angie and I all ate at Burger King while we waited for Cory and CJ to arrive with the cars. We loaded up the cars with our luggage and we were on our way to Innsbruck, Austria. Before getting to Innsbruck, we stopped in Seefeld (host venue of the '76 and '68 Olympic Nordic Skiing), a little village with many shops and ate lunch outside at a little restaurant. After lunch we settled in and went sightseeing through Old Town where the famous Golden Roof House is, a house that was made for a king's wife and whose roof is made of real gold. It began to rain so we returned back to the hostel and started getting ready for dinner at Schnooley's. Schnooley's is a famous tour stop for all tour teams. Our friends on the tour before us gave the owner a jersey from our club and had it hanging in the bar when we got there.
We started out with a salad, and then moved on to a rack of ribs, corn on the cob, and garlic bread, a very non-traditional European meal. After our very good friend and host, Hanz, had served us dinner we started up the music and that's when the fun started. I can not believe we were listening to Garth Brooks singing "Callin Baton Rouge", the locals were singing and dancing and soon we joined them. Most Austrian's are very strict and conservative, but because Schnooley's is a little different than most, some of us were up and dancing on the tables. We all had a great time, but there came a time to call it a night and go home to bed. Tomorrow we drive to Ljubljana and pick up the rest of our squad. I know that this tour is going to be special.
July
17, 2003 - Day 2 We
woke up in Innsbruck at 8:30 to eat breakfast down in the café
of the hostel. We
had coffee and tea and the usual bread and chocolate spread. After packing our bags and loading the cars we made our long
trip to Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Despite the fact that
this is my second tour this summer and I have been in Slovenia
before, I am still amazed at the beauty of the landscape that
makes up Austria and Slovenia. We passed through valley after valley
and through many tunnels winding our way through small hillside
towns. We stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant
that was surprisingly good.
We all tried some of the most famous dishes in Europe such
as schweineschnitzel and kaespaetzle.
After Cory took a short nap in the van we drove a few more
hours until we got to Ljubljana.
My first impression of the city scared me pretty bad when
Corey received directions to find graffiti marked buildings.
We found the hostel and met Tim, Jo, and Whitney, the player
from Nevada joining our group.
The hostel was recently decorated by many European artists,
and is a mixture of an expressive art gallery and historical museum.
It is nestled in the new cultural area of the city. Even though some of our rooms looked like
prison cells (literally, as this building was a former prison)
it has such charm and really neat extra sitting rooms and such
for meetings or resting.
We rested for two hours and then met everyone in the lobby at 6:30 to walk to the gym for our practice. Igor ran our practice "Euro" style with basketball warm-ups and drills that were quite unique. Practice went well and everyone had a good time but the gym felt like a sauna. After practice we walked a few blocks to a small pizzeria. We were served many types of pizza and pasta. We all smelled really bad so we left pretty quickly to take showers and fall asleep. Three more girls from Nevada are arriving later tonight around midnight. Overall I think that the team will have a great time in Europe, not only playing, but experiencing and living in a different culture.
July,
18, 2003 - Day 3 Last night was interesting. After being exhausted, I crashed in my bed as soon as I got out of the shower, around 11:00. When 12:30 rolled around, talking in the room woke me up. I sat up and saw two faces I didn't recognize. One was Sonnie, who had just arrived at the hostel: the other was a girl from Finland. I knew she couldn't be a player, because of her dreadlocks. Apparently, she had slept in our room the night before we checked in, and hadn't informed the hostel that she would be extending her stay for another night. The other players in my room were confused too as they offered the leftover pizza from dinner to the girl. Being half-asleep, I was confused and eventually passed out again. Maybe it was dream? Nope,
as it turns out, the girl was asleep across the room when we were
getting ready this morning.
Bread was on the menu again for breakfast. I can eat all the bread in the world as long as I have Nutella.
From there, the whole group walked up a small mountain
to the Ljublajna Castle. The view from the top of the tower was
great. We could see
the city center and the gym where we had practiced the night before. From there we had free time to look around
the town's markets and vendors.
By 11:00 we were out of the hostel and on our way to Maribor, Slovenia. The drive was much shorter than yesterday. We checked into our hotel and met in the lobby to see what was next. For me, two weeks of laundry was stacking up in my suitcase, and a nap was sounding great to me, so I decided to stay in the hotel. Of course, lunch would only happen if I went to get it, so we walked to a local pizzeria. The other girls went into town to shop At
6:00, we were dressed and ready to go to the gym. We got there and changed out of our street
clothes and into our volleyball clothes. We warmed up for a while, and thanks to our referee, Zoran, the game finally started. We played the OK Benedict team from the
small village of Lenart, Slovenia.
This was the team where two American girls, Brooke Rundle
and Brook Coulter, played professionally last year.
We started well, jumping out to an 11-5 lead, but then
the unfamiliarity of the players on our side of the court set
in. I can describe it best as "mass confusion". Or maybe I just thought that because I
had only played with half the players on the court once, or not
at all.
In game two we started to get more used to playing with each other and looked more like a team. The Slovenians, like all European players, remained extremely consistent and with some great defense finished the game with another win.
In
the third, and final set one of the girls from the other team
went down with a knee injury and since they only had six players,
our mercenary for the night, Angie, played with them. Although we lost the third set, we played a little better and
seemed to finally get into a groove.
Our passing was better and our middles started to connect
better with the setters.
We are looking forward to becoming a team as we get more
used to each other on the court. The scores (25-17,25-15,25-19) did not
make us look good, but it was fun.
It was only day one, so we have much room for improvement.
After
a quick shower, most of us dressed quickly to go eat.
A few of us decided to take much longer to get ready.
It won't take them long to figure it out that there is
no time for drying hair and applying make-up on tour.
Dinner was pizza again, but it was delicious. We talked to each other and got to know each other. DJ Nate-Dog entertained us on the way
home in the van. The
monkey poured coffee in my boots.
Day
4 - July 19, 2003 Today
we woke up bright and early awaiting a day full of adventure,
and believe me, that is exactly what we got. The plan was to go up the Pohorje mountain
in Maribor, and do various activities (some would rent mountain
bikes, and others would just hike down the mountain). We
arrived at Pohorje at about eleven and caught the gondola up the
mountain. After a
great view from the gondola we reached the top and found a little
clearing with just a few buildings.
I was in the group that was going mountain biking.
The trail was really nice, and after a while of coasting
down we were all having a great time.
Just when we thought the journey was over we figured out
that we had to get back to the top of the mountain, and looking
up at how far we had ridden, it seemed like an impossible journey.
Well, needless to say, the saying "nothing is impossible"
was proven when we all made it back to the top.
After everyone was off of their bikes and walking around
it was easy to see that I wasn't the only one that was a little
sore.
We
decided to eat lunch at, Bellvue, a restaurant that was at the
top of Pohorje. After
mountain biking that long we were famished, and glad to see that
we were about to eat a great meal.
The first (and most memorable) thing that we got to eat
was a type of mushroom soup. Now, this was not an ordinary cup of soup.
This soup had it's own unique taste.
After my third bowl of soup I managed to look up and see
that everyone else was enjoying their meal just as much as I was.
After lunch we were replenished, and we headed down to
the hotel so that we would have some time to prepare for out match. We
arrived at the gym and got changed into our uniforms.
We were playing the Nova KBM junior team (Nova KBM is one
of the top two professional Club teams in Slovenia and will be
playing in Champions League, the top European tournament, this
season). The match
was pretty competitive and the two teams were equally matched. Although we played a good consistent game
we ended up losing 25-21.
In the second game we again stayed consistent, ran a much
improved offense, and served well to pull out the 25-19 win.
We took a small break in the third game and came out with
a slow start, but stepped up our level a bit to finish with a
25-20 sin. We lost the fourth game to end the friendly
match, but we were much improved over yesterday and are much more
confident playing with each other.
This match was a great experience for us as we got to play
in a small hall right in the center of Maribor.
The girls on the other team were very friendly, and spoke
pretty good English, so we were able to speak with them and make
some new friends. After the game we all felt that we played fairly well, and
headed off to dinner with our opponents.
We ate dinner at a great little place, Anderlic (a restaurant and winery), up in the hills outside of Maribor. The hills were covered in vineyards, and at the place they were selling traditional homemade Slovenian white wine. A few of us purchased some bottles to take home to family and friends. After saying goodbye to our dinner guests and a short team meeting about our hike tomorrow we jumped into the vans and headed for our hotel. Overall
the day was fun and challenging. We had a great time, took some beautiful
pictures of the scenery and made many memories at the same time.
Day
5 and 6 - July 20-21, 2003 - Part I We
got up in the morning to eat breakfast before we drove the two
hours from Maribor to Bled and then back to Lake Bonhinj. When we got there we began hiking up into
the Triglav National Park (in the Julian Alps!) We left around
noon and it was hot out. We had to scale the Komarca Krag (about
2000 vertical feet in two hours!) It was grueling in the beginning
for the less experienced hikers, but only one person had to turn
around. The group
split up in two smaller groups as we climbed the hills. It was pretty tough to climb, but we knew
we would feel great after we reached the summit. We also knew it would be great exercise, and great training
for volleyball. We
stopped along the way to look at all the beautiful views and finally
we got to stop and eat lunch.
We had packed sandwiches, fruit, granola bars, and juice for the hike. All the scenery was so amazing. We finally started hiking again, and this part was a little harder, but finally we made it. Our cabin, Koca Pri Triglavskih Jezerih, was beautiful. It was surrounded by three lakes and two huge mountains.
We
all felt so accomplished, but ran to use the restrooms.
It soon got cold, so we all changed into warmer clothes,
and got ready for dinner. They served us, of course, bread, sausage,
meaty minestrone-style soup, and salad.
Then we all were so worn out from the hike we crawled up
the stairs to the bunk beds, and passed out, thinking we had the
long journey ahead of us in the morning, and then shortly after
the volleyball practice with the Slovenian National Team Coach.
We were all disappointed to hear later on that it had been
canceled, but it was probably just as well as our legs were jello
and we were exhausted. It would have been an experience of a
lifetime. We are still looking forward to playing more teams later
on when we travel to Prague.
We woke up the next morning around 6:30am and got ready
for the hike down.
We
went downstairs for breakfast again, of course, bread, and cereal.
We finally got moving around 8:00 and went for 3 hours until we
reached Dom Na Komni and got to the downhill trek.
Then we split up again to let everyone go at his or her
own pace. This to me was much easier than going
uphill. We got down
the mountain in one hour and 15 minutes, and waited for the rest
of the groups to finish.
We all felt relieved but very proud that we were able to
accomplish such a trip. We can all now say that we hiked the Alps!
Days
5 and 6, July 20-21, 2003 - Part II As
soon as we left the group we hiked up to a beautiful waterfall
named Slap Savica. It
seemed that this waterfall was kind of set aside from the rest
of the world. It was in the side of a great mountain
and down in an enormous valley.
When we got to the base of the waterfall the climate cooled
down about ten degrees because of the great amounts of cool water
that seemed to fall from the sky.
When we got back down to the car we drove back into the
town which took about 30 minutes. When we arrived in the city of Bled we
checked into a beautiful hotel which reminded me of a bed and
breakfast. The hotel had separate housing, which looked like small
apartments that had their own kitchen and everything.
We walked around the city of Bled, and considering it was
pretty small, there was lots to do including a small festival
we walked through named Festival Bled.
For dinner we went to a great place named Gostilna Prodlisca
and had wonderful food. CJ had some mushroom soup that was unforgettable
and I had a half (literally) of roasted chicken. In
the morning we went to Beldski Grad; a castle on top of the mountain
overlooking the lake. We walked up many cobbled roads to get to
the castle but once we were there we had many activities that
were available to us. In the castle there were activities like
homemade printing (using one of the first types of manual printing
presses), a museum filled with ancient artifacts, and tons of
beautiful sites that you could look at from around the castle's
edge. From there, we traveled down to the most amazing church I have
ever seen. This church
was called St. Martin, and was absolutely beautiful. It had three
main steeples, and inside there were many detailed paintings covering
the walls that literally took my breath away.
After all of our site-seeing was finished we traveled back
to a beach that was right on Lake Bled.
We met the other girls and they talked about how beautiful
their hike was. We went swimming in the lake and swam
to the island that was about a quarter of a mile from the beach. On the island there was an old church
that was built in the 1100's and had a bell you could ring and
make a wish.
When
we traveled back to Maribor everyone was exhausted but trip was
not over yet. We went to the Pizzeria Sidro and had
wonderful pizza and salad at the water's edge. We sat right on the shore of the beautiful Drava River.
This
adventure was awesome, I couldn't ask for a more beautiful pace. Bled was wonderful, with great people
and great food. Day
7, Tuesday, July 22, 2003 Today
we left Maribor and headed to Prague. The road trip itself was quite an adventure.
What was supposed to be a six hour trip turned into an
eight hour nightmare. Ok, so maybe it wasn't that bad, but hail
thunderstorms and the loss of a vehicle made the travel anything
but boring. Of
course we started out with a bread breakfast and then quickly
packed the vans and most importantly said goodbye to our Slovenian
friend DJ Nate Dog. Cory
was driving the first car and Jo and Mitch tried to follow. As we crossed the Chech border, my car,
with Mitch driving, failed to see the rest of the group pulled
over on the side of the road.
We kept driving right past them and then pulled over wondering
where they were. Still no sight of them, we then drove
some more until we realized that we really had no idea where we
were going. Mitch had to use the WC (which I just
found out yesterday, on our sixth day, that it means water closet)
so CJ decided to go out on the side of the road to flag down the
other two cars in hope that they would drive by.
Luckily Cory spotted her and we all met up again. Just
when we thought the drama was over a hailstorm came out of no
where. We had all
commented in our car that a little rain would be nice, and that
hopefully it would cool the air.
Instead we had incredible high winds, along with rain and
hail. With expert
driving we were all able to stay close together, but not without
Mitch verbalizing a little road rage. Eight
hours later we arrived in Prague. It's the biggest city we've been to yet.
It was a nice treat to get to our hotel and have spacious
rooms and time to rest before dinner. We ate at a pizzeria, however pasta was
on the menu for us tonight, thank god.
Dinner was especially exciting for me because I had the
chance to meet my new assistant coach for next year, Oldrich. He is from Prague and is coming back to the USA to coach at
Montevallo. He seems
pretty cool and I'm looking forward to meeting our new Czech middle
blocker as well tomorrow with him.
After
dinner we got a chance to walk around Prague. The city was beautiful at night and the
weather was one of the coolest nights we've had yet. Tomorrow morning we have training and then a match later that
evening. We have
had a couple days off so we are all really looking forward to
getting back into the gym and gaining some more international
volleyball experience. So, I'm out, like a fat kid playing dodge
ball.
Day
8, July 23, 2003 Today
we woke up at the crack of dawn (9:00 am) and had the usual bread
for breakfast. We then drove to the gym in Prague, where
we had a short training session with Oldrich. He ran a typical European training much like the one we had
with Igor in Slovenia. We
warmed up with some relay races and a short game of "Tennis,"
and then peppered with our partners.
When we were finally warm, Oldrich had us do drills that
included hitting, passing, and serving. We enjoyed being coached
by another European because it gave us another chance to see the
differences and similarities in European volleyball. Because we
hadn't played in a couple days it was nice to get back in the
gym and get some touches on the ball.
After
a quick shower, we walked down the street and had an exquisite
lunch of chicken soup, fried chicken, french fries, and banana
splits. Then we drove back to the hotel, where we all took a
little nap.
Two
hours later, we walked to the clay courts, where we played Olymp
Praha Jrs. Some of us were a little weary of playing on the clay
as it was new to us all, but once we started we were able to see
why clay volleyball is such a big Czech tradition.
Many of the gyms are too hot to play in during the summer
months so they have clay court tournaments (many professional
club teams and National Teams play in these tournaments).
We had a rough start, losing game one 25-7, but with some
improved communication, being more comfortable on the court, and
a pep talk by coach Mitch, we pulled it together in the second
game, only losing by about 10 points. Despite some troubles in serve receive in the third game we
managed to keep the game close, but we still lost. We ended up playing a fourth game, which we also lost,
but we had a lot of fun.
Jenny
Burrows won the award for the dirtiest player, after rolling around
in the red clay, not only once but twice, in her effort to save
the ball. The rest of the team managed to stay rather
clean, with the exception of Carey Donald who was pushed down
into the clay.
After
our defeat, we went back to the hotel and showered and then took
the tram to dinner at a local Czech pub.
For dinner we had potato pancakes, chicken goulash, potato
croquettes, and some other things that we weren't quite sure of.
The team that we played earlier in the day met us there
for dinner along with their coach.
It was good to have them at dinner because a few of them
speak English and we were able to make some new friends.
We
all found it weird when most of the girls on the Czech team started
smoking and drinking in front of us.
We couldn't handle the smoke, so the team then went to
the main square in Prague to do a little bit of shopping and sightseeing,
not to mention eating ice cream for dessert.
We passed some weird people (like a man in a Speedo wearing
ski goggles), and a homeless man meditating with a hat in front
of him for money. At 11:30 our rides picked us up and we went back to our hotel
and played "Egyptian Rat Screw" with Carey Donald's
clear cards. We are excited about playing again tomorrow,
and this time we will be inside so maybe we can play a little
better..
Today
we woke up early to go play the Olymp Praha Juniors team for the
second time, but this time we played inside. We arrived early so we had extra time
to do some drills before we began to play. We were given yet another glimpse into European volleyball
when at 10:00 (the time the match was supposed to start) the other
team hadn't even arrived yet.
Although we aren't really sure what happened, the other
team only had 5 players and Jirka had to call his girlfriend Katja,
a former player at Gonzaga University, and get her to come to
the hall and play. So,
at about 10:30 the match finally began. Even
though we were used to this surface, it seemed as though they
were too. We played
three games with them and were able to keep up with them better
than the day before. In
the first game we passed really well, with the help of Whitney
Erb at the libero position. Sonnie made some good decisions and we
stayed with them until 15-15 when they pulled ahead to win 25-17.
In
games two and three we also played pretty well, but the offense
of Sarka "the Shark": Barbokova, and the tough jump
serving of one of the Olymp girls helped the other team get the
wins (25-15,25-16).
Although
they won the 3 out of 5 match we all wanted to play one more game
to get some more playing time. The Olymp girls seemed to drop their level a bit in this non-deciding
game. Again we kept
a pretty consistent level and didn't make very many errors. In the end Olymp won the fourth game,
but we were happy that we were able to play some good volleyball. Following
the match we ate lunch at the gym with the girls from the other
team. We had "Czech"
sandwiches (slices of bread with different spreads, meats, and
cheeses), as well as a meat, cheese, and vegetable plate.
For
the afternoon we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed some free
time. Some of us
took showers and went shopping at the mall and in the city while
some us stayed at the hotel resting and doing laundry.
At
7:30 we all met at the front of the hotel and left to go eat dinner
at Jirka's family's house.
We had some great salad and bread, with what came the closest
to Ranch dressing that we have had the entire time. Then they
cooked chicken and pork out on the grill.
Then they brought out watermelon and some homemade Danishes
that Jirka's mother made.
They were wonderful. Then they brought out a guitar and Jenny
and Melon (the Olymp coach) sang some songs and we all hung out
around the fire that had been made.
Natalie, Angie, and I played croquet. Then all of a sudden we started to feel rain drops, so that
was our cue to leave. We
made it home and went to bed to rest up for the next day of volleyball,
and sightseeing.
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