-courtesy of Chris Tischler

Chris Tischler should probably be considered the voice of reason of the trip. He was nearly always the safe and cautious driver in the lead vehicle and also always there to vote the safe and sane way (and convince others to do the same) if a crazy idea popped up (like going to Barcelona at 2am on a random Tuesday). He also never failed to deliver a solid game in the middle (even though he was a bit hard on himself) and kept the team fired up at all times. He earned various nicknames throughout the trip (I'll keep them too myself as the stories to explain his nomenclature would take all night) and I'd say was a solid vote for MVP by the end of the trip. My favorite moment involving Mr. Tish is when we called his mom (literally) to get permission for him to drink his first ever Jagermeister shot (don't worry, no one had to drive that night).

In any case, here is his journal for the trip. Bring It Promotions denies anything bad that he says and fully supports every that's good. It's getting entered 'sans' proofreading so hopefully he did OK in English 101 and scored over a 400 on his verbal SAT.

Thanks Chris!

I hopped on the plane to start the Bring It Promotions Spring '99 Tour. I knew that two other guys from the tour would be on the same plane as Sergio Pampena, and Danny Pollock had the same flight. I've known Danny for a while, so we said hello and he introduced Sergio and I. The flight was pretty smooth accept for some Euro hitting a misbehaving American kid which prompted the kids mother to get all worked up and start yelling at the guy, which was more entertaining than the in-flight movie.

We landed in Amsterdam at 7:00 am on the 19th, knowing that we had to wait until 11:00 to meet up with Damian Martorano , and the until noon to meet up with Tim Kelly, the master-mind behind the tour. We just checked out the airport, and listened to some crazy Scottish guy continuously yell about the government, some grand conspiracy, and even break into a moving rendition of "Dark Side of the Moon." Damian showed up, and Tim not too long after. Two other guys would be flying in around 4:00, so Damian, Sergio, and Danny were going to wait behind, and Tim and I would go ahead to Antwerpen, Belgium where we would all meet up later.

Devin Poolman and Dan Fisher were playing in a beach tournament in Antwerpen, and Chris Kosty was hanging out with them. Tim and I got to Antwerpen, checked into the hotel and headed for the courts. Antwerpen is a sweet city. The streets were lined with various vendors, the city is beautiful, and the weather was perfect. By the time we got to the courts, Devin, Dan and Kosty had left for the day, with Devin and Dan winning all their games and advancing to the next day. Tim and I hung out with the President of Zorgvliet, the team in Antwerpen, and watched a few of the matches, and then headed back to the hotel. There we meet up with Devin, Dan, Kosty, and later Sergio, Danny, Damian, and the two Canadians (Jude Popp, and Mike Kurz). After getting something to eat, we all decided we were all beat from the trip and we just called it an early night.

Devin and Dan got up much earlier than the rest of us to try and continue American domination on the Belgian beach tour. The rest of us got up a bit later and piled into the Renault Master; the van which Serge, Danny, and Damian had picked up from the airport. This thing was huge, but in an odd way. There was no leg room in the back, but there was so much over-head room that you could almost stand up in-side.

The weather wasn't as nice as the day before, but we all made our way to covered seating to avoid the rain. Devin and Dan made it to the quarter-finals before they got knocked out by a Belgian team. We waited around while they tried to collect their winnings, and then we piled into the Master to head to Munster where Tim had just set up shop. He had just rented an apartment, and we were going to spend the night there.

After getting to Tim's place, we changed, met up with his girlfriend Caroline and headed down town. We went to a couple different bars, just hanging out and getting acquainted with each other and any ladies that might happen to be around. Eventually (around 2 or 3 am) we made our way back, and we all crashed.

We had a match later this day against FC Schuttorf, Germany. We spent the first part of today walking around Munster and seeing the sights. Another gorgeous city, and it was easy to see why Tim wanted to call Munster home.

Later we loaded up the Master and headed to the train station. We picked up the latest addition to our team, Steven Fee, from the UK, and then left for Germany. Schuttorf was putting us up in a hotel, so we checked into the hotel first. The accommodations were very nice, and after dropping off our bags we left for the gym. This team had won their tournament last season and were moving up in the league, so they were no slouches, but a team we should beat.

Right before the match we were trying to come up with a cheer, and we started off with simply "Team!" But D-Fish (Dan Fisher) started calling us The A-Team because of the Active Ankle logo on the jerseys. And so The A-Team was born.

I guess the inexperience of not ever playing together showed because we dropped the first two sets, won the next two, but ended up dropping the last set. Kind of a downer, but the mood was lightened by watching Kosty with his newly formed fan club of 12 year old girls, many of which were asking if he had a girl friend.

The team had set up a dinner for us after the match, so we went to the restaurant which was right next to our hotel. The meal was excellent (schnitzel, salad, fries), and it was a lot of fun to sit down and talk with the our host team and hear what they were all about. By the time dinner ended, it was quite late so again we just called it a night.

We left shortly after getting up for Leuven, Belgium. We would be working out for KBC Hassrode, the team made infamous by Hoffman's Accounts on the Bring It website.

The facility Hassrode recently had built was very nice. A facility built only for the volleyball team, with a pub at the end of the court that you could watch the matches from. We warmed up with a little indoor soccer, and then met with the new coach of Hassrode. He told us that they were looking for one middle, so this training session would pretty much be for the middles. Myself, Sergio and Jude Popp would be essentially trying out for this team. He had us do some basic hitting and blocking drills, and then scrimmage. Periodically throughout the scrimmage he would stop play and ask one of us what the last 3 plays were, or which way the outside hitter hit on his last 2 swings, or something totally obscure like that. That actually gave us a good laugh.

Afterwards, the team provided us with dinner in a conference room, and two of the players from the team joined us. Again, the food was great, and the players were very nice. They were excellent hosts.We left for the hotel after dinner, and again the hotel was very nice, right in down-town Leuven. Leuven is a sweet college town, so we knew we'd be able to get into a bit of trouble there. We went out, and sat and drank in the beer garden for a bit, and then pretty much spilt up. Some guys went into a bar and shot pool, some into a club. At one point, while shooting pool, I looked over to see to a couple players (who shall remain nameless) getting very "friendly" with a few local girls. A small group headed back to the hotel at about 5:30 am. The next group came back around 6:00 or 6:30 with those same girls. At that point some went to sleep, and others did not. For those of you that know Belgian beers: Duvel IS evil.

After getting up right at check-out time (about noon), we loaded up the Master and headed to Brussels for the day. We started in the Gran Place, and made our way through the city. We took a team picture near some statue of a kid taking a leak, saw the a church, and went in a huge cathedral. We were sitting in the Cathedral, trying to decide what we were going to do next since tomorrow was a day off and we pretty much decided we were off to Paris to hang out there.

We got in the Master and started driving. We stopped at a Formula 1 Hotel just outside Paris. The Formula 1 is a hotel that you enter into a computer how many rooms you want, it gives you a code for each room, and you give it your credit card number. The rooms have one single bed, and a double bed, and totally served our purposes. We changed and head for Paris.

In Paris we had a team dinner and then walked up to this church that over looked all of Paris (Sacre Cour). It seemed like the place to go because there were a ton of people there. From there we picked up some of Paris's finest screw-top wine, and decided to just drive around the city and see the sites.

We pulled up to a light next to two convertibles, each with 2 dudes in the front, and their girls in the back. Damian, who was sitting by the window started heckling them a little and having a bit of fun. He was asking if they wanted to race, and if they liked our van. We got stuck next to these people at every traffic light for about 2 miles. At one point, Damian yells to the ladies, in French: "Voulez vous cucher avec moi?" Almost right after that, one of the cars pulls in front of us, and the other on our side, boxing us in. One Frenchie gets out and grabs a golf club, walks over to Damian's window and starts yelling at Damian in French. Damian tries to shut the window, but Frenchie pulls it back open, spits on Damian, and really anyone in sprays range, hops in his car and takes off. Now the back seats in the Master sit pretty low, so all this takes place before anyone else knows what's going on. Interesting moment to say the least but no harm, no foul I guess. From there we went to see some of the sights (Eiffel Tower, Champ Elysses, Arc d' Triomph, etc", and drove around for a bit before deciding to go home. Damian then wanted to get the troops together and go look for our Frenchie friends, but the ever peacful D-Fish tells him: "Dude, you can't call the go-back." Accepting this, we all head back to the Formula 1.

Tim really had to get some work done, so the plan for this day was to drop us off in Paris for a bit while he went to a hotel to get on-line. We started off by visiting the Louvre, and then made our way to Notre Dame where we later called Tim to come pick us up. It was then that we found out that our beloved Master had been broken into, and a few things were stolen.

Tim picked us up, and we were going to go to the Paris Airport to trade the van in for another. We went to the airport and started heading up the one-way ramp to the rental car return. However, when we got up the ramp, the Master was too tall to fit in the parking garage. So here we were, too tall to proceed, and unable to go back down the ramp, and blocking the direction signs so cars behind us were not pleased. We got an Avis representative, but he came over, looked at the van and literally said "I'm going to take a nap." We never saw him again, so we got another rep. She told us to leave the van, and they'd give us a new one. Tim made sure we wouldn't have to move this van, and she said we would not. So we all got out, and took out our luggage, so now the van was almost scrapping the ceiling.

We sat in the airport for several hours while we tried to get two big vans. After a while, they gave us the two biggest they had, but said we'd have to move the old van first. At this point, Tim lays into the lady, but we do go drive the van backwards down the up ramp. Eventually we get our new vans loaded, bid farewell to the Master, and at about mid-night we start driving towards Bordeaux for our next match. Just another night in the life of the tour.

We stayed in a good old Formula 1 last night, somewhere between Paris and Bordeaux. The first thing Tim tells us when he gets in the van is that while he was going off on the Frenchies in the airport he accidentally hit the auto-dial for his girlfriends mother, and she sat on the phone for a hour listening to him berate the Avis reps. A call which he now has to pay for. Fun Fun.

We got into Bordeaux right around game time, so we headed right for the gym. Bordeaux was pretty good. A team we should have beaten, but they beat us in 4 sets. They didn't have a setter, so Dan Fisher set for them. After the match he was trying to tell Tim that because one of the A-Team members was on the winning team, it counts as a win for all of us. Tim however, wasn't buying it. The team invited us to their end-of-the-year cook out for dinner. It was quite nice, and we meet some Americans there that had been living there for a year.

Afterwards, we hit the town. First a bar, but all the bars closed at 2:00 am, so it was then onto a club where a few guys meet up with some ladies. From the club we drove way out to the middle of nowhere for a party. At this point it was quite late. Some guys had already worked their magic with the ladies, and some where in the process of doing so, but none-the-less, we drove them home, an headed to the good old Formula 1 around 5:30 or 6:00 am.