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