2/1/11 Kylie the Tourist

Today was AWESOME!

I got up around 9am to shower and get ready to go exploring. I really wanted to see some of the historical sites around the city.  I had no idea what to expect. Because it's winter time many of the tourist sites are closed until Feb/March but I was still hoping to find a few places I could check out and get to know my way around a little better.  I had a single map that helped me get around and I am sure I looked ridiculous with it 2 inches from my confused looking face,  but it got me to where I needed to go.

I came here thinking it would not be that cold. I mean its an island for goodness sake! Where I come from islands should be warm and tropical! Well, let me tell you...it is not warm, it's freezing! The only winter coat I have is the one I received from the team  and I love wearing it, but only when I am doing team things. So I invested in a great black pea coat that is fashionable and warm.  AND it was 50 percent off so it was a steal! Yay me!

After I got my coat I figured out the general direction I needed to go and set out on my way. The map makes things seem a lot farther apart then they actually are, so it takes about 15 min to walk from one end of the Ciutadella to the other so it really isn't bad at all.  Again, I had no idea what to expect from any of these places I wanted to visit.  I came first to a Gothic Cathedral that (I read all the information stands I could) dated back to the 14th century! I poked around a bit to see if I was allowed to go inside...basically I didn't know one way or the other so I figured I would do what I pleased until I got yelled at and then claim the "stupid American" or "lo siento, no Espanol" excuse and go from there. No one bugged me though and I walked into literally the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen.  I mean, my mouth dropped. I had never seen anything like it. NOW I finally felt like I was in Spain. Here are some pictures.


This is the front door of the Cathedral and the clock above it.

 Close up version...

 First walked in and to the right was the alter and these stained glass windows...

 The art work was ah-mazing. I mean this was done hundreds of year ago!

 The organ? I think?

 The architecture still amazes me. I back then it took 50 plus years to build these churches.

 This was neat because it was a site they dug open to find old remains and crypts and things and they left it open so you could see.

 Each little area had its own scene. One was Jesus, one was the Virgin Mary and....now I cant remember the last one...but it was pretty.

 Even the ceiling was cool

I spent a good while in there just feeling the vibe from the Church. It was completely empty and it just had this amazing powerful "something" about it.  I love old historic things. So many memories and different people used them. Hundreds of years and this is still standing.

Any ways that was pretty much the highlight of my day because everything else was closed or I couldn't find my way in to snoop.  The city is all packed tightly together and has little streets that can sometimes not even fit a car through. Like so...

 and so...

 and here...

 They had a museum that I wanted to check out, but was kinda disappointed. The lady was, for lack of better words, a very rude individual. I walked in and said hello (in a cheerful manor I might add!) and all she said was, "umm do you want a ticket or something?" I wanted to say "umm this is the museum right? There isn't anything else in here to do...no, actually I am here for the petting zoo out back!" Jeez! Instead I smiled again and said "yes please". It wasn't that exciting.  I couldn't take pictures and the info was all in Spanish. There were a lot of old artifacts that were on display though, and many of them were found in the ocean in the mid 1950's, which I thought was neat. I would love to do that kind of stuff. Find Atlantis and things....

After I had walked around and was happy with what I saw, I found restaurant that looked tasty and sat down.  Had a coffee to warm my cheeks up because the wind was out of control and my face was the only thing really showing. The menu looked amazing it was hard to choose but what I ate was delicious!  I started off with a goat cheese salad and some Vino! The goat cheese is that round thing on the right. It was grilled so it was warm when I ate it.  It had corn, bacon, tomatoes, carrots and raisins on it. So good.

 This is called Pomada. It is made with Gin and is the Menorca drink of choice. On wiki, they say this "Lingering British influence is seen in the Minorcans' taste for gin, which during local festes honoring towns' patron saints is mixed with bitter lemon to make a golden liquid known as aPomada. One common factor amongst in Minorca is a steady, and often extreme, imbibement of Pomada throughout the whole day" SWEET!

 This was prawn ravioli's in some amazing sauce.

 I ask the waiter what was good for dessert and he said everything, so I said "surprise me!" and this is what he brought out. Left to right: tiramisu, white chocolate brownie with truffle on top, chocolate brownie with chocolate syrup, and cookie ice cream. Heaven in my mouth.

I was quite happy after that and it was not expensive at all. The glass of wine was 1.80 euros. Ya I could get used to that.


Here are some other pics I took along the way...

 Gorgeous!

 Birds eye view model of the Ciutadella..

 I only got brave enough one time to ask someone to take a picture of me.

 This was the restaurant behind me....

Until next time!

Ky

Highlights from the Finals of the Copa

Wait for it to load and go 5 min into the video....

http://ib3noticies.com/20110130_137350-esports-vespre-30-01-2011.html

1/31/11 Ciutadella de Menorca and some pictures!

Hola! Its me again on 1/31/11...

So I woke up this morning and needed to get out of the house and figure my way around this town I live in.  I have been here for over 2 weeks and have not seen any of it except for what I see walking to the gym and back, and now the Paula has left and I cant rely on her to show me around.  I decided to just go and walk around and hope I wouldn't get lost.  I knew the basic layout of the town, as in if I got lost just say "donde esta la hospital" (in my best Spanish accent) and hope they can point me in the right direction. I live right behind it so at least I know where to go if I hurt myself randomly, which I am prone to do, and can find my way home from there if  I am lost, which I am also prone to be.

Anyways, I was looking for a place to get my nails done. While I am here in Spain playing I get into a routine that includes: sleep, eat, practice, sleep, practice, eat, sleep.  Not a lot of time in there for other activities or even a need to step outside of the apartment sooooo most of the time I am in sweats (its cold right now in Spain, even on an island in the middle of the Med. Sea.  Everyone thinks Spain is all warm and fun and exciting. It's not. Especially here.  I guess when the warm weather does come though, the whole island transforms into exactly what you would picture when you think of Spain: tourists, beaches, sun, gorgeous men and women, fun, etc.  Lucky for me I'll be gone before that time comes. haha. ps I am not complaining at all, just stating some facts) and comfortable clothes.  But I digress, the main point I was trying to make was that getting a mani/pedi is the one thing that keeps me feeling girly. Everyone needs to get pampered every once in a while :)

After about 20 minutes of walking around in circles, I found the place I was looking for. I talked to a man outside of a tanning salon that wrote a name and street on a paper and basically made a lot of hand signals and looked at my like I should understand every word coming out of his mouth, which I didn't, but I smiled and said "oh, grassy-ass", sounding totally American. Whoops! Turns out I was walking in circles AROUND the place just didn't realize it. Lovely.  So my nails looks great and I was feeling all proud of myself for finding it and decided to walk around some more and take pictures of the town.  It is really old and has a lot of historical land marks. I found that out because I walked into a store and the lady gave me a city map and on it they had information about some of the buildings. There is even a museum! I was freezing cold and hungry so I stopped and got a bite to eat before heading home, which I will tell you I found without getting lost OR asking for directions. 1 point for women everywhere.

There is amazing architecture here and I took a few pictures while I was roaming around...

This is one of the main streets

 A fountain with a statue of 2 fat people in the middle (haha this helped me a lot when I was trying to find my way around because everyone knows, as they made a circle with there hands and then water shooting up, "los chicos gordos" fountain.

 The bakeries here are to DIE for. You can literally smell them before you see them and they have every assortment of pastries and bread you could imagine. I. Love. Carbs. (...speakin of gordo) ;)

 This was an old building that is right on the way to my apartment that I always wanted to take a picture of. Its old. It was on my handy dandy map and said it was historical but that was all. I'll investigate more tomorrow.

 Pretty building

 These trees remind me of something that should be in a Disney movie or something. Fern Gully comes to mind for some reason...or maybe Pocahontus..? hmm

 The roads are all so and small. But so are the cars and people soooooo.....

 Pretty sure this is some important political building but there were doing construction in the front so I couldn't get a good look..

This was all I got done today. Tomorrow I am going to find the museum and take a bunch more pictures so stay turned!

Ky

1/31/11 After the Copa...

Hello all!

In my previous post I told you that we played Haro in the semi-finals (we beat Tenerife in the quarters) of the Copa de la Reina.  That game was really important to us not only because we obviously wanted to get to the finals in the Copa but also because we had lost to them a few weeks earlier AND the coach of Haro in the news papers was kinda talking smack on our team saying that, "they did not need to prepare and blah blah", any ways we were all kinda pissed about that so we wanted to beat them, which we did! (SO HA!) We beat them in 4 and it was a good match.  We played at 530pm and after stayed to watch the next game because the winner of that match would be our competition in the Finals the next day.  Murcia was the winning team and they had won the Copa 4 years in a row! We had a quick turn around to play because we played Saturday night and had to play at 12pm Sunday afternoon.  It would be a challenging game for both teams, mentally and physically.  I will tell you more about the finals after I show you some pics...

This is my hotel room. I got to have my own because there is an odd number of girls. Usually I would stay with the trainer lady, but her boyfriend is our assistant manager so she stayed with him.  Loved having a big bed and room all to myself to just relax in after practice and games.

This was my shower. It was ah-mazing.

This is Paula and I in the bus on our way somewhere. She has also been my roomie for the last 2 weeks but she left me this morning to go back to Puerto Rico :(

This was the gym that we played in for the Copa

Neat

Locker room before the finals

Vita and Sabrina (They are like 6'4!!)

Esther, our libero. She is the SH*T. Best libero in Spain and at one point all of Europe. Fact.

Ana y Alba

Okay so we woke up on Sunday and had breakfast and film and left for the gym. I was super nervous and woke up early and couldn't fall back asleep. The Copa is a HUGE deal in Spain and because I am new to the team I really wanted to do my part to help.  The crowd was awesome and we had about 30 fan from Menorca come and support us! It was cool to have such a supportive fan base so far from home.  They all had t-shirts and obnoxious noise makers. Loved it! 

We won the first game 25-21, lost the 2nd game 22-25, lost the 3rd 21-25, won the 4th game 25-17, and lost the 5th game 14-16.  It was such an intense match. Both teams made incredible plays and left everything out on the court.  The last point we lost because the ref called a net on our side, which was the WORST way to end a final point of a final mach in the Copa, but what can ya do.  Either way it was hard for me to feel particularly disappointed about the match. We gave everything we had and everyone played really well.  We played with heart and together as a team so we deserved to win but sometimes it doesn't go your way and you have to just learn from it.  Plus we will get them at the end of the season when we go to playoffs! 

The travel home was long and pretty exhausting but we made it home safe.  We now have 2 days off to recover, which is awesome.  We played 3 matches in 4 days and our bodies are all tired.  Not to mention mentally drained from the games as well.  When you put that much heart and emotion into something it takes more out of you than you realize. 

I am going to take this time off to walk around the city and take pictures and check out what's around me.  I will post a blog and some more pictures as I go. As always, if there is anything you would like to know, feel free to ask!

Ky

Also it was my boyfriends birthday on Jan 29th, so I thought id give a shout out. Happy bday Nate! You're old! :)