Thursday April 17 ::::
With about four days left on the tour, Tim mentioned the idea of running a small "tour" in Spain for girls who wanted to extend their stay in Europe for another week to ten days. Many of the girls had school or jobs they needed to get back to, so with just three of us (Lindsey Kretzmann (Toledo), Angela Lewis (Sac State), and Joanna Fielder (Michigan/Vienna Post Telekom) we packed our stuff into Tim's Opel Vectra station wagon and hauled off to Spain. And thus began the France/Spain "Apres ˆTour", a.k.a. "Team Spain".

We planed to drive to Biarritz, a little more than half way, then wake up the next morning and finish the drive to our destination, Gijon, Spain. We quickly made it through Holland and Belgium and upon our approach to France, Tim informed us that there was a change in plans: we would be stopping in a little French city called Evreux to train with a National II (the third level in France) team. Evreux is a nice little city full of beautiful tulip arrangements, and after a walk along the creek and a quick look at the Cathedral, their player/coach, an ex-Russian named Loudmilla, picked us up and took us to the hall. They only had three girls, as their season had just finished, but it turned out to be a really good training for us. The entire staff, including the manager, president, vice president and secretary, was all there. They were in need of an outside hitter or middle, and maybe a setter. They ended up offering a contract to Lindsey (she would later accept an offer in the Netherlands) and will hopefully hire some other American girls from Tim later. It's nice that we were able to see the team and meet the management, as this will give some future player a frame of reference for the team if they get an offer. Also, Tim was able to meet a new team in person and Angela and Lindsey had their first training with a "real" European team. Having played in Europe for a year I know how important and beneficial it is to train with as many teams as possible because it gives you the opportunity to see the various ways European teams are run. Following training we drove about an hour south and stayed the night in Tours, France.

Friday April 18 ::::
The goal on Friday was to try and make it to Spain, but stop and train somewhere in France along the way. While waiting to hear back from some
teams we spent the afternoon strolling around Bordeaux, including a nice lunch at a French Brasserie. Unfortunately we were unable to find a team to train with that wasn't out of the way so we decided to finish our day with a late afternoon/evening visit to the gorgeous coastal city of Biarritz. We enjoyed Sangria and Jamon Serrano (a type of ham) sandwiches while watching the waves break and the sun set over the Atlantic Bay of Biscayne. We snapped a few team photos and drove to the nearby city of Bayonne to check into our hotel for the night.

Saturday April 19 ::::
We pulled out of the parking lot around 9am on Saturday morning and at about 10am we finally crossed the border into Spain. Lindsey, Angela and I were so excited to be in Spain, a new country for all three of us. On the way to Gijon we stopped in Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim museum. While Tim read his book and got his Spanish phone chip all organized, the three of us girls took a walk around the museum. Many of the exhibits were interesting, but the actual building of the museum is the best part so we spent a lot of time taking pictures outside. After leaving the Guggenheim we drove about three hours and finally arrived in Gijon. Roberto, who is the coach of the team we would be training with on Monday, met us and took us to one of the team flats where we would be spending the next four or five nights. Again, another great experience for Lindsey and Angela to get a glimpse into European living. The living situation for players, since the team provides the flats, can be a little interesting. The flat we stayed at was more than accommodating (three bedrooms, a kitchen, two bathrooms and a large living/dining room), but very old, which is extremely common. The team wasn't training until Monday so we had a free weekend to settle in and explore the lovely little coastal town of Gijon. We did a team grocery shop and finished the night off with a big pasta dinner and a card game of Euchre.

Sunday April 20 ::::
Easter Sunday! Angela and I cooked bacon and eggs for Easter brunch. Tim
needed to get some work done and Angela, Lindsey and I decided to take a short jog into the city center to check it out. We went immediately to the beach and tested out the Atlantic waters, with our feet of course, and it was just as cold as we had imagined. We were a little surprised to see the 80+ year old man swimming in his Speedo. It was a mellow day of relaxation and we were looking forward to Monday so we could start training with some Spanish teams.

Monday April 21::::
Monday finally arrived and after a fairly uneventful morning/afternoon we headed to evening training with one of the teams in Gijon. La Calzada is the 8th place team in the Superliga (the fist division in Spain) and was looking for a handful of players for next season. Teams are allowed to have up to 6 foreign players in the Spanish Superliga so Angela and Lindsey were essentially "trying out" for a spot. When we arrived the president of the club, Angeles (the only female president in Spain), greeted us with sponsor t-shirts. The press took some pictures and did a write up of our visit in the paper. There was also someone from the local news there shooting some action for the news that evening. Our coming to train with them was a good way for the team and its sponsors to get some press during the off season, and it was nice for us as it turned the training into kind of a big deal. They only had three girls so after some hitting lines and a couple of other drills we played three on three. It was a perfect training to get us back into the
swing of things, we were a little rusty following the long weekend. Angela,
Lindsey and I got in a good little workout after the training was over and we
all left the gym feeling pretty good. Although Spanish Food is nothing like Mexican Food, we were all jonesing for fajitas and convinced ourselves they
would be more than appropriate for the occasion. Angela and I (the official
cooks for Team Spain) put together an awesome meal. Team Spain finished the
night off with a game of Fignente ("finni") and turned in for the night.

Tuesday April 22 ::::
Tuesday morning we woke up thinking we would stay another night in Gijon and find another team to train with that evening. Tim, however, decided to wake us with, "hey, do you think we could be ready to go in about ten minutes?" We all replied with an optimistic, "sure" and were on our way to Madrid about an hour and a half later. This turned out to be a great decision as I had a flight to Paris the next morning from Madrid, and we found a team to train with in Getafe, a suburb just outside the center of Madrid. The team in Getafe, CD Aristos, is one of the top teams in the Liga FEV (second division in Spain), and they are looking to move up into the Superliga. The girls on the team live in a huge dorm facility and the hall is just down the stairs in the same building. The four of us checked into our dorm room, bunk beds included, quickly changed and headed downstairs for training. It was a really good training for us. The entire team was there and the coach put us through some really good drills. The setter was really good, and since we all prefer to hit quick balls this was a huge plus. The girls on the team
were pretty social and did their best to speak English and help us to understand. It was a fast-paced training and we were all really happy with that. Most of the better teams in Europe run great fast paced trainings, but after a year of really easy training in Austria, I was excited to feel like I was getting a good workout. None of us were looking to play on this team, but like many of the other trainings on this tour, it was good to see some new things. We ate the "mystery meat dinner" with some of the girls on the team and Tim in the Cafeteria upstairs. With my flight early the next morning, and a long day of driving, Team Spain was ready to crash.

Wednesday April 23, by Angela Lewis ::::
The morning started off with a lovely bus ride to the city center of Madrid. Tim, Lindsey, I enjoyed a healthy McBreakfast, then headed around the city on foot. Surrounded by elegant buildings & bustling people, we enjoyed the city sites finally without being in a hurry. That is until we found out that we couldn't practice with Alcorcon (suburb of Madrid) at 8:00pm as planned and had to hustle back to make a training with SANSE (another suburb of Madrid, a little farther away than Alcorcon) at 7:30pm. After only a couple of confused laps around the roundabouts, we made it to the gym with a few minutes to spare. Training with SANSE was really cool because they had a normal wood gym floor which made things nice on the knees. Most halls in Europe seem to be hard rubber floors directly on top of concrete, not exactly what we're used to in the USA. It turns out that this team had had an American on the team a few years before (Dana Stearns, Ohio State) and a couple of the girls spoke good English and asked us about our plans and hopes for Europe. It was nice to be able to communicate with some players and also have something, although a really small thing, in common with them to talk about. The girls weren't too fired up to train as their season had just ended and they were looking forward to their summer, but there were 10 of us in practice which was nice. It's much more fun to run team-type drills than the individual stuff that we've been doing when there are only 4-6 players in training. After training we went out to dinner and choked down something resembling Mexican food. Then we went to bed in the dorms at Aristos once again.

Thursday April 24, by Angela Lewis ::::
Again we took the 30 minute ride on the bus into the city, but this time we
met up with Tamsin Barnett (Australian National Team stud) & Dana Stearns, a
couple of players that just finished their season with CV Avila, the #3 team in Spain and Final Four finishers in Europe‚s prestigious CEV Cup. That evening we trained with Aristos again. It was cool to train with a team twice. Having familiar faces around made the volleyball more enjoyable, and their coach (thanks Cesar!) runs a great and face paced training. Dinner brought me back to the dorm days & my freshman year at college. There's nothing like cafeteria food! We decided to get some sleep knowing we had a long drive to Barcelona the next day.

Tamsin Barnett
Dana Stearns

Friday April 25, by Angela Lewis ::::
On the road again. The drive to Barcelona had some interesting scenery along
the way. Moonlike landscape, smelly cow fields, & rugged mountains kept us
occupied on the 5 hour drive. Finally we made it into the city where we found
the gym right away. The hard part was driving the wrong way down a one way
street, going around in circles, & parking in a no parking zone just to find our hotel. As Lindsey & I sat in the car (in the no parking zone), we proceeded to irritate a local woman who then called the cops on us. After barely escaping from the long arm of the law, we had Italian food for dinner & then went to train with Jorge and Sagrat Cor. This team is literally in the center of Barcelona. What an awesome place to play! This was my favorite training and the most intense one by far. I'm assuming this was because the team would move up to the Superliga if they won their game that next day. (They did win, and moved up to the Superliga.) This concluded my training in Europe. The next 3 days were purely vacation and time to enjoy the sites of Barcelona. I am so happy I decided to stay longer and travel through Spain. It was a lot more laid back in terms of traveling. We still traveled all over training with the teams, but we had time to catch our breath cause we could stay in each city for more than one day. I felt I was able to see a lot more of the sites and still be refreshed enough to give it everything when training. I highly recommend doing the "post-tour" (if Tim continues to do this in the future) when at all possible.

Saturday April 26 ::::
After taking a night train from Paris to meet up with Team Spain, I arrived in the greatest city in the entire world, Barcelona. Apparently the team had a little bit of a late night the night before, so after I arrived at 8:00 in the morning we all took a little nap to rest up for our day in Barcelona. Angela, Lindsey and I all had a pretty full week of volleyball so we had a nice time strolling around Barcelona. With some help from Tim we found our way around the city seeing some of the major sights and ended our night with dinner at the port.

Sunday April 27 ::::
Today marks the loss of one of our team members as Lindsey boarded a plane to Lichtenvoorde, Belgium to train with Longa '59 (the team that she would eventually sign with). After Lindsey was off, Angela, Tim and I spent our last day in Spain seeing all the sights we had missed on Saturday. We were sure to cover all the Antonio Gaudi sights, including Casa Batllo, Casa Mila, Colonia Guell, Sagrada Familia, and the park Guell, which houses many Gaudi inspired works. After walking around all day Angela and I were dying to experience a traditional Spanish meal so Tim took us to BaBaReeba, a tapas restaurant on the Passeig de Gracia. As we were indulging in our Spanish meal of risotto, paella and Sangria, Dana Stearns, Tamsin Barnett and their crew joined us to kick off their mini-France-tour. (Tim just wasn't ready to head home yet I guess.) We enjoyed a mellow night in Barcelona, and went back to the hotel fairly early to help Angela pack. Tomorrow Angela would be flying home (so we thought) and the France/Spain Apres-Tour for Team Spain '03 would officially come to a close.

Monday April 28 ::::
Early wake up call for Angela's 7:00am flight. Apparently we had a little
trouble with the alarms (yes there were two and we still managed to make a
mistake) and Angela and I woke up to Tim's announcement telling us it was
7:30. Oops! A distressed and tired Angela got up and rushed to the airport
to see if she could still get home on another plane. The rest of our travel
posse (Me, Tim, Tamsin, and Dana + 2) was off to France that morning to try
and find a team to train with.

Monday April 28 to 30 by Dana Stearns ::::
As Jo said, after spending the night in Barcelona, we headed for France Monday morning. We weren't sure where we were headed because we were having difficulty arranging a place to practice for Monday, so we decided to stop at the beach in Narbonne to take a little break from driving and hope that something would pop up. Without anything definite, we decided our best bet was to stop in Beziers and maybe meet with the coach or practice with them the next day. We decided to take a walking tour of the town, hiking all the way up to the cathedral, and then catching dinner before heading back to the hotel. Although we enjoyed the city, none of us were taken by it and we decided to head to Cannes the next morning to watch a practice of the European Champions. Or to maybe hop in and practice with a neighboring team that is hoping to move up to the Pro A Division next year, St. Rapheul. Driving out of the clouds of Bezier, we reached to the beaches of Cannes just as the girls were warming up for practice. Tamsin and I both enjoyed the opportunity to see the European Champions practice and to see what the famous Riviera was all about. We were't disappointed by either. Not only are they top level professionals athletically, but they were also very welcoming and proved to be very gracious hosts for our short last-minute stay.

The next morning, the weather was poor and we headed to Istres knowing that
we would be able to get in on a little practice/scrimmage with the team there. Tamsin and I headed into check out the city of Marseille, which is about 30 minutes from Istres, until it was practice time. I think we actually enjoyed the town more than Cannes. It has all the feel of a bigger city with the ocean and mountains in the background and is absolutely gorgeous.In practice that evening, we got a chance to go through a few warm up hitting and passing drills and then played with some of the Istres girls against one of their junior teams. It was an interesting experience, switching from trying to communicate in Spanish to attempting to make it work in French. But it turned out ok and the junior team didn't prove to be a contest for our " team" that had just been thrown together. It was nice to get a little bit of a feel for the level of the French league and the different style of play that neither of us had experienced yet. Later, Gilbert, the president of the club graciously treated us to a nice dinner of crepes at a local restaurant and talked to us a little bit about how their club is run and how the French league is in general. All in all, we were happy with our few days in France. We got a feel for the French Riviera as well for a glimpse of what volleyball in France is all about.

Schedule of the "Apres-Tour" 2003