10/31/10

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Yaaar!

Okay so last night we played and lost in 4. They were the best team we have played so far. They had this Cuban player that not only was 40 years old but a 3 time gold medalist. She was ah-mazing! And she was a lefty. I was jealous of her mad skills.

We were having a hard time with our other outside hitter and because Erica's knee is still getting figured out after we lost the first 2 games we switched me to playing on the left side instead of the right. We won a game after that but still lost the 4th.  We have some stuff we need to work on this week in practice to get ready for the next game.

There were three Americans on the team and after the game we went back to the hotel got ready and went and met them at their house and all went out. It was so fun! Not only because we got to speak English with them but also because they live close to a college so the bars we went to were packed and really fun.

We are leaving the island at 4pm and do not get into Benidorm until midnight! At least we have tomorrow off from practice. :)

Hope everyone has a happy halloween!

Ky

10/30/10

Wow! It's been a while since I have been on. Part of the is because we STILL do not have internet. BAH! But hopefully this weekend we will get it. We got our owner to go to the store with us and now we are picking it up on Monday...which means Tuesday or Wednesday. haha

Lets seeeeee, what has happened since I spoke to you last.  We had a home game last Saturday and we won in five! We played a really good team, the number one team in the league in fact, and we won! We found out later that they had 2 girls missing because they are in China playing in the FIVB (which is like the world cup for volleyball), but that was even more of a reason for us to win this match because next time we are going to have our hands full!

Our gym this week was being used for a Dart tournament (what?! haha) So we were all over the place finding different gyms to play in which was exciting because we got to see more of the city we live in.  Mic, our American middle, had a birthday on Friday so we celebrated that by having dinner as a team and we all pitched in a got her a cute shirt she had seen and wanted.  We left for Tenerifi on Friday morning at 5am. Had to wake up at 415 and get our butts to the place we all meet as a team. That was rough.  But the night before Rach and I got a little festive and carved a pumpkin and put a candle inside it and put it on our porch for everyone to see. It made us happy and reminded us of home. :)

We couldn't get into the gym yesterday once we got on the island so we did some cardio and got a good stretch in.  We got to run right by the beach so it was pretty and nice to get out of the hotel.  I was exhausted by the time we went to sleep and I can honestly say it was the FIRST night since being in Spain that I have slept the whole night and it was ah-mazing! Hopefully I can keep that up. When I woke up was right around the time everyone I was chatting with on my phone were going out to party for Halloween weekend. I was only kinddddaaa jealous because they are in the USA but I am on a tropical island doing something I love and getting paid for it! Yay me!

Any ways, we are leaving for our game in about an hour and I am in the lobby writing this! We are playing a good team. They have 3 Americans on their team, which we met earlier today, and it should be a fun match.  It is also being televised all through Spain! Eekk! I am always excited when game days come around.  I will try and get on tomorrow to let you know how we did.

Ky

ps 50 days till I come home and 52 until I get the best xmas gift! :)

10/22/10

Heeeeey everybody!

Its been a few days so I figured I'd update. I am on my phone because we still have no internet (mildly annoyed at this situation) so I apologize in advance for any errors I make because the writing is super small and its harder to type on this blackberry. Special thanks to mama atherstone for making it possible for me to us my internet on it! Yay! Someone (Nate) did some research and found that ping chat was a way for me to "text" people but it goes through the internet so it doesn't cost money like a normal SMS would. Makes me so happy to be able to talk to him and a few other people I missed terribly. If you wanna download ping chat to your phone my user name is kylie_ann125, find me and we can talk too!

We have had a good week of practice. A few people and the coach have been sick here and there is no doubt I will get it too. People cough and sneeze all over the place without so much as a hand over their mouth! But I am drinking a lot of water and trying to get as much sleep as possible. Speaking of water, I guess it is not good out of the faucett so we have to buy bottled. We have bought and drank at least 18 large waters so far (we use them for practice too) and it is such a waste of plastic! At least we do our part and recycles. :)

We play a team this weekend from another island of the Canary's. I believe its called Tenerife (don't feel like double checking the spelling right now). They have two American girls that are represented by BIP, which is also the agency that the girls on my team are with too. Even though we have never met the girls, when you play against other people that come from USA you always feel a certain bond with them and usually will become friends during the season. Happened in Puerto rico too. Always fun to meet new people and you never know where you will see them or play with them again. Erica, who is a girl I played with in PR and she suggested my name to the coach to come play here as well, has a hurt knee and most likely won't be playing this weekend. Little disappointing bc she is a main attacker and passer, but our sub OH is good as well. We will do just fine I think. Hopefully Erica gets her knee figured out soon though! :)


Anyways, its about 2am here and I slept for 4 hours and now wide awake! Doubt I will sleep again tonight. Bring on the coffee! I am watching Harry Potter 5, but wish I could be watching the Giants game instead. Again, wish I had internet. Grrr. Nate is keeping me posted though! I am hungry and going to find something to eat!

Have a good weekend everyone and ill post again after we kick some booty in our match Saturday!

Ky

10/18/10

Hey everyone! Today is Monday and I have officially been here a week! Craziness. It feels like it has been way longer but at the same time has gone fast. We have today off from practice because we kicked some booty in our game this weekend. It was a good way to start the season. We are 2-0. We only have 1 game a week which can be a little....well i guess the word is boring?  I am used to playing in Puerto Rico which has a condensed season so we would have games every 3-4 days at least and in playoffs every other day.  It was nice because only having a few practice days in between the games made the weeks go by fast. 

It is fun that we get to travel more as a team and farther away. In PR we all drove ourselves to the games and did not do many things "as a team". Here we fly, bus, wear the same clothes when we travel, and eat together (usually).  Its fun to walk around the airport and people all wonder what team we are. Usually they guess right here in Spain and say "volibol! instead of the "basketball"? we got in the US. 

On our way home from the airport Rachael, Erica, and I all rode with one of the owners of the team. Usually, Rachael is the only one that speaks to people because she knows more Spanish than Erica and I together but I have decided to really take an effort to learn. I surprised myself as to how much I understood when I tried to listen. I am really good with selective hearing and tuning people out. It was motivating to actually be able to hold a conversation and know what the other person was talking about! I am going to take my first spanish "class" this thursday with Mic. (another American girl) The lady that teaches us, is one of the owner's wife and she charges 12 euros a lesson. She will give us books and prints out handouts for us to do throughout the week. Rachael and I are also going to start using more Spanish at home. Practice makes perfect ya?? 

We had a fun little adventure yesterday when we got home from the Islands.  When we first got the apartment we did not have hot water and we were telling our owner that and so when we got home he came up to the apartment to help us figure it out.  I took my first hot shower at home since arriving here. Lucky for us we have showers at the gym and use those after practice haha.  Any ways, we also didn't think we had any pots and pans to cook with and did not buy food at the store for a whole week because we didn't think we could cook anything.  This we also told the owner and he walked right in and showed us we had like 50. We were just looking in the wrong spot, but it was still completely obvious where the pots and pans were.  So we felt dumb...but we got a good laugh out of it and so did he.  Rach wanted to make some rice so she got it ready in a pot and tried to start the burners. Everything here is all gas we have to manually have to turn on, then light the burners with a lighter or a long match which we didn't figure out works WAY better until later......but before that I didn't even realize it did not turn on by itself when we turned the dial.  

Ya, so I am sure many of you can see where this is going by now. 2 girls, used to just turning on the burner and it gets hot. No work or flames involved. Well we turn on the gas and nothing happens. "hmmmmm.....is it broken? What's wrong with it?? I dunno...maybe its out of gas?"  Thats when the lightbulb went on...."ohhh, we have to light it!? ok ok, I get it".  Well in case you have been wondering, yes the gas has been coming out of the burner this whole time....so when rachael put the lighter up to it the whole thing erupted in flames and we both screamed bloody murder. I am sure we woke up the whole place. We were both fine, no burns and our eyebrows  were still intact, but now were were scared to try and light it again. We tried a few more times by using a team effort as I turned the gas on and she quickly tried to stick the lighter into the gas which turned into doing a dance around the kitchen trying to light the damn thing but to scared to do it. We collected out wits and I said I wanted to try. I calmly light the burner, for the first time since the flame eruption and  Rach (who was on the dial turning the gas on) got so nervous when it lit she turned it off!  I turned to her, hands on my hips, but we both started cracking up.  It was hilarious and maybe you had to be there, but both Rach and I decided it was funny enough for me to blog about. It's these fun little moments that make this whole thing such an adventure. 

We went to the store today to buy food now that we have pots and pans......We also got some wine. Cant waaaait to try it! 

 Halloween is coming up and we were SO excited when we figured out the celebrate here too! Time to cut down on food, work out, and get our outfits ready for Halloween. We were thinking of things we could be that would include all 4 Americans......here are some ideas we came up with:  1)Fanta girls. We each dress up as a color and walk around together. 2) Americans? Boring. 3) Ninjas (rach loves ninjas and we could wear spandex which is something we all obviously have a ton of) 4) different super heros. 5) Spice Girls.  Any ideas???? Help us out.

We also realized that the Mercado (supermarket) that is within walking distance to our house, is also where the major bus station in the city is. On days off Rach and I want to go exploring and see some of the surrounding areas. We are both history dorks and love to explore so its working out really well for us to live together. It is beginning to get colder at night which I love. I can keep my window open and be all bundled up in bed. Plus I got to wear my uggs for the first time in over a year! (Not much need for them in PR and AZ)  Hopefully pictures will be coming soon!

I will keep you posted on more of our adventures in the future because I am sure there will be some silly ones.  :)

Ky

10/16/10 Part 2

Just got back to the hotel from my first match. We played a team called La Palmas? They were pretty good, it looked like they had a lot of younger girls that have talent but maybe could not control their athletic ability that well.  We won in 3! The 2nd game was tight and we won 28-26. The first and 3rd games though were around 25-20ish.  It was really fun and we played well as a team. I am happy with the way I played because I have only been here 5 days so it can only get better as I get used to the setter and she gets used to the quickness of the set I like.  

The American girls are all going to dinner, we are not sure what the rest of the team is doing because they speak spanish most of the time and dont usually let us in on what they are doing.....literally. It is kinda weird actually but  its okay because we have fun regardless :) It is a girl on our teams bday today so we are going to go out to a pub and celebrate the win and her bday. Should be fun. This is the first time we have all gone out together. The coach's come as well so it should be interesting. You definitely would not see this on any college team! haha

We leave the island tomorrow at 930 in the morning and I am so looking forward to my bed and comforter. As I said I have only been here for a few days but it already is feeling like home. Talk to you soon! 

Ky

10/16/10 Part 1

Here I am on my first road trip of the year. I am on the second flight. We went from Benidorm to Madrid and then from Madrid to the Canary Islands.  I can not even express how freaking excited I was when I found out that we were going here. I am a huge dork for anthropology and things and these islands are famous for Darwins major findings in evolution.  We had a really great week of practice. It is always a fun experience getting to know new people and surroundings.  The coach is good and I like the way practice is run as a whole. The girls are all really nice and I love the 3 other American girls. My roomie is ah-mazing as well. We have a few mutual friends and both enjoy reading, coffee, Irish Pubs, (of course we already found one, my favorite part being they all speak english and even sing some country songs! haha) dancing, movies, and food. 

Our apartment is perfect. We don't have hot water, internet, or a dryer (we have to hang out all our clothes to dry from strings on our porch), but we make it work. It is a 3 bedroom, 1 bath apartment on the 2nd floor of a 4 story place. We each have our own room with a full bed and the "guest" bedroom has a twin trundle. Who wants to come visit??? :)  We have a tv smaller than my computer screen and cable that has 34 amazing channels ALL in spanish.....thank goodness I was able to bring about 30 movies with me.  We live within walking distance of everything we would need including the gym.  We are "far" away from the other American girls, but it is only a 5 euro taxi ride. We try to go there a few times a week because they have internet currently.  I will put up pictures eventually......if I can figure it out. haha

I am having a hard time adjusting to the time change, this is mostly my fault though because I wake up really early (usually between 230am-5am) and will stay away until practice at 9am then come home and take a nap. If I could just stay awake during the day I would make it a whole lot easier on myself. I really wish we had internet at the house because me being awake around 4-6am my time is a good time to skype back in the states.  Its frustrating but also makes me really excited when I DO get to skype with people.  

I just finished my 2nd book since getting here. Again just finished it, which gave me time on the flight to write this blog. Priorities. I have a hard time putting a book down once I start.  The just finished "The Host" which was written by the same lady who wrote "Twilight". I am sure I have a few haters out there reading this, but The Host was completely different from Twilight.  It was very interesting and unlike anything I have read before.  I am going to need more books if I keep reading at this rate.  

hmmm what else can I tell you....I cant think of much. I will be sure to take a lot of pictures and post them on the book (facebook) as soon as I can.  

I miss my family and friends but I think the months will fly by especially when they set dates to come visit me.  It will give me something to look forward too. 

Ky

ps clark-can you email me some good new music, I am dying over here. <--there is your shout out. :)

10/11/10

Well hello there! Ok so I made it to Spain in one piece with only one spot where I thought I might have a mental break down. Madrid is freaking NUTS! Four different terminals that are like 2 miles from each other. No one speaks any english, I have 150 lbs of luggage with me that I was pushing. I only had about an hour and a half to make it through customs, passport check, get on a bus, head to terminal 2, check in, (when I finally found the freaking Spainair ticket booth, pay for luggage (again! rude!) and get through security. I made it just in time and passed out before we had even taken off for Alicante.  I basically pulled an all night because the flight was 9 hours that I was conveniently not used to sleeping, another reason I wanted to cry while at Madrid. So tired. 

But alas, (something about being in Spain makes me want to write all romantic and sophisticated) I made it, with all my luggage, and met Pedro at baggage claim. Benidorm was about 25 min from the airport and we drove along the coast. It is absolutely gorgeous here. Benidorm is right along the coast and has tall buildings for people to live. We are in this cute little apartment. That is really all the info I can give for now since I have not been outside of it yet. 

Right when I got into my apartment and Pedro (one of the owners of the team who picked me up and we both figured out the other does not speak good english/Spanish....ya awkward ride of silence to the apartment..) tried to show and tell me in Spanish how to turn on the water, which keys went to what, (the whole while i was thinking Darnit! Should have paid attention during those 4 years of spanish and while I was living in Puerto Rico. Oh well....) etc. He told me that Rachel, my roomie was coming later this afternoon to move in with me as well. I unpacked all my stuff and got situated and tried to stay awake. My dad told me that I shouldn't sleep until normal bed time hours to better adjust to the time. I did everything I could to stay awake but it was not happening. I took a shower which was an awaking experience because we had no hot water (well we do but Pedro left the part out on how to turn it on. Awesome!) so I stood there shaking my bum off for all of about 3 min as I took the fastest shower of my life. Tried to watch a little tv, realized every single channel was in spanish and about to fall asleep on the coach when i said "i dont care what dad says! I am going to bed." * <--see below about this little fact....

Took me about 30 seconds once I hit my pillow to pass out until about 10pm when my phone in the house started ringing. My roomie was here! Yay. She is amazing, I will fill you in more about her later. We stayed up for a few hours talking, watching a musical (we both like to watch them and sing them as we watch. The wine might have had something to do with that last part too though...) before I was ready to sleep again. 

Just woke up in the morning as we have practice in a few hours. I am nervous but also excited. Also I found out that we have a nice locker room with showers there sooooo I think I will make sure to bring shower stuff and see if they have better luck with hot water. Lets hope so!

Got to make a few phone calls to mom and a friend that lasted all of about 5 min total given the fact that international rates are crazzzzzy. But it was worth it! (I am also not currently paying the bill, so I would say that hehe) Cant wait to see what Spain has to offer. Talk to you guys soon!

Ky

* Now the reason I put this here is because whenever I do not listen to my dad something usually goes wrong. It is 530 in the morning here in Benidorm, Spain and I am WIDE awake because I slept to much yesterday. DANGIT dad, why must you always be right! You are still just as annoying all the way over there in America :)

10/10/10

Well I guess this is actually the 2nd blog entry but really the first one was just a tester-outer.  I can tell you I still feel a little ridiculous writing a blog. I mean really, how important does someone think they are that people are going to read something they wrote just because. But either way, it will keep me busy and give me something to do. And to all those people who DO end up reading this I have some rules and regulations:

1) This is going to be a blog/diary. I wont include anything too personal, but I want people to enjoy reading this (I am actually quite worried about being a boring blogger) so you many get more details than you would prefer to read because I am not just going to write about volleyball, because that would be extremely boring for me as well as you.

2) I am not going to be punctual. I WILL make mistakes. Everyone that knows me knows spelling and all that is not my forte. I will forget to capitalize my i's, (see what i did there) Ill make up words. I will have run one sentences and will most likely ramble.  Just love me for who I am and realize that a good speller is not that. 

3)Please comment if you want to know something specific! I would love to hear from you.

4) I am sure there are more, but that was all I could think of...ill make 'um up as I go. 

Ok so now that we got all that out of the way I shall start my blog! Yee!

I am currently sitting on my flight from Dallas to Madrid. You could be wondering to yourself, "but Kylie, how are you writing on your blog when you are at a cruising altitude of 34 thousand feet!" Well I am working the system and just writing on my computer to pass the time and then I'll copy and past later to the blog. My guess is this us how many of my blogs will be delivered. For example, when we are traveling to games and I have nothing else to do. Because of this  I will try to include the date that I write them at the top of each blog so that you can keep track in case I post a few blogs at a time.  

This whole volleyball thing happened not even 2 weeks ago. I wake up one morning (it was last tuesday) to and email from my agent asking if I want to come play in Spain for a team with 3 other Americans right one the east coast. I tried to stay contained on the outside but inside i was screaming "HECK YA!! When can i leave?!!".  So then I email him back and talk with the 'rents. Long story short, a whole passport fiasco later, and a few days where I was mildly freaking out in my head that it was all joke and someone up above was really trying to mess with me, here I am! I got my flight information 2 days ago. Lucky for my I was packed and ready to go a few days earlier. (Can you tell I was excited?)

Today, 10/10/10, (that has to be some sort of sign for good luck right....?) started not exactly how I had planned. I was really excited/nervous and was not able to sleep that much last night and slept through my alarm! Jeeez, lucky for me, my lovely mother woke up and we shuffled out of the house on time, which is always stressful. See dad is a travel expertista (example 1 of words I will make up) and likes to be on the carful side when it comes to traveling, so lets just say I had enough time to get my tickets, through security, and still had enough time to walk around the airport about 4 times.  But I DO have to give him some props, I was stress free because of it. :) So I get on my first flight which was to Dallas and was only about 2 hours long. I slept and read for most of that.

I can tell you the reason that I am even writing this is because I have already read one book on this adventure of mine. Don't worry it was only about 400 pages.  Yes yes, I know, I am a freak of nature! And might be slightly bragging but, fact is I LOVE to read and traveling always gives me a good excuse to put my nose in a book and leave the world behind. This book was ah-mazing! It is called "Her Fearful Symmetry".  It was written by my favorite author. Her name is Audrey Niffenegger. She also wrote "The Time-Travelers Wife" (side note: for those of you who saw the movie and have not read the book, I suggest forget what you saw in the movie and read the book. Movie was nothing like it and the book is so good), which is my favorite book.  She has a way of writing that is so magical. She explains things in ways where you as the reader can picture every little detail. Also these two books of hers that I have read so far are both love stories with a little twist. I'm a sucker for a good love story! I will be reading a lot while I am here I think and books are one thing that I dork out super hard too so I will probably write a lot about that and what I am reading currently.  

Any ways, I think that is pretty good for my first real post. We have about 3.5 hours left in this flight and have already watched 2 movies and now just starting at the little airplane on the tv monitor move at a snails pace across the atlantic ocean.........

It is only 930pm AZ time...soooo I am not tired at all. I get into Madrid at 10am which is still only 1am AZ time and have lay over and fly to another place that I cant remember or spell, but basically I have no clue when I am going to sleep.  Ya for oversea adventures! Talk to you guys soon when I am all settled!

Ky

Whelp...here goes nothin!

First off, I told myself "oh my, ill never be one of those blogger types", and here I am...bloggering. I am actually kinda excited about it though.  I am going to be going to Spain to play volleyball in the next few days, travel reservations are still not set, but I will be there soon! Benidorm, Spain is the exact location. It's right on the east coast and very pretty from all the pictures I saw when I googled the crap out of it. There are a few other Americans on the team, one of which I played with in Puerto Rico my first year so it will be awesome to have a friend already there. More to come soon, just thought I would get the first one out of the way!