Nichole arrives, Bratislava, and Canadian Thanksgiving!

Hello all!

I'm currently sitting in my kitchen, nursing my 3rd giant mug of tea for the day. It's cold here! For whatever reason, Mother Nature in Klagenfurt likes to turn on a dime... It was warm and sunny on Sunday, but when Kristina and I got up to go to the gym on Monday morning, we had to break out our winter coats! Everyday we're modifying our winter-weather routine, but it's currently heavily reliant on yummy tea in new Ikea mugs that are constantly in use..

Life since my last post has been awesomely fun. There was some mis (or lack of) communication between Nichole and I, so I wasn't sure when she was supposed to be showing up in Klagenfurt, or exactly how she was going to get a hold of me! I thought she had mentioned that she would be getting here on October 8th, but she was actually taking off on October 8th, and arriving on October 9th! Anyway, after she didn't show up on Thursday afternoon, I kept my fingers crossed that I would get a call from the Vienna airport sometime during the next day...

Friday morning was spent picking berries at a U-Pick farm with Lina and Kristina (ouch, I had forgotten how prickly berry bushes were! Miss ya Grandpa Cmaylo :) after which Kristina and I decided that we should explore the bus routes a little more to find the bus to Ikea to decorate her room.

Before taking off on this adventure, I decided that I should just try to call Nichole's Santa Clara phone, in the unlikely circumstance that maybe her flight had been cancelled or she had decided not to get on the plane or something like that.. Way to go gut feeling! After a couple rings, a tired sounding voice answered, and Nichole informed me that she was on the train from Vienna, and that she would be arriving within 10 minutes!

I went to grab Nic from the train station, and we persuaded her to join us on an Ikea outing (who doesn't love Ikea outings??). Kristina made some amazing purchases (coffee mugs amongst them), and then we left Nichole at home for a few hours of showering, napping, and calling home while we went to practice.

We had Saturday off, so after coming home from practice, the three of us headed over to Lina's house, where we were meeting up with some of our teammates before going to the Oktoberfest party at the university here in Klagenfurt. Starting at around midnight, Lina, Rosa, Anna, Kristina, Nichole and I spent the night dancing to some crazy euro-mixes (anything from David Guetta to Journey to German rap to who knows what), and we had a great time!

On Saturday the three of us used our two bikes (tandem anyone??) en route to watch our men's basketball team play a home game. We almost crashed several times, but made it there alive, and it was fun to watch our new basketball neighbor friends play.

Sunday was somewhat of a blur, because we spent 85% of the day driving to and from Bratislava, Slovakia. Helli showed up at 8:45 that morning to pick us up, and after a couple hours of driving, we stopped somewhere past Graz for some agility exercises on a narrow starway and a delicious pre-game meal. Another couple hours whizzed by (no, not really, in fact they seemed to pass in slow motion), and we found ourselves at the gym around 2pm. We had a litte time to kill, so we hung out in the gym's cafe/restaurant, and some of the girls got yummy hot chocolates.


We had somewhat of a rough game, losing in 3 sets is never fun... The first and third sets were pretty close, we lost each by only 2 points, and we had a ridiculous amount of unforced errors in each. Needless to say, we were pretty bummed after the game, and the last thing we wanted to do was get back into the car for another 4+ hour ride! But alas, the highway was calling..

We got home around 11pm on Sunday night, and Nichole told us all about her day of exploring around the Klagenfurt and the lake. A combo of Nichole and Twix bars were able to cheer us up, and we fell asleep that night laughing about our rest-stop agility and Nichole's solo adventures.

As I mentioned earlier, Monday brought us our first taste of winter, and after a morning workout at Atlantis, we all curled up at home (me with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire... so good, even the 4th time around!) in an attempt to avoid the cold weather. I think our lazy day inspired us to make it an exciting evening, because we decided that we should make a feast that night in celebration of Kristina's first missed holiday, Canadian Thanksgiving!

The meal of choice was a traditional Canadian Thanksgiving dish... Fajitas! (who knew?? just kidding, I think we started our own tradition with that one) After a really yummy dinner, Kristina wowed all of us (I think she even wowed herself) with delicious banana bread for dessert. We invited a couple of our basketball friends over to share in the yumminess, and by the end of the night, the entire loaf was gone. Happy Thanksgiving! Haha...

Yesterday was spent hanging around the house, and after some amazing naps, Nichole and I went downtown for a little afternoon shopping. Around 5pm, I got a call from Jason, who is back in Klagenfurt for a couple nights before he and Nichole take off on some euro-tripping together!

We had a late practice last night, so the the three of us (Nichole came to practice with my team!) left Jason alone for a couple of hours while we were training. It was really fun to look across the net with my new Austrian teammates and see them giving Nichole high-fives!

Kristina is making stir-fry for pre-game meal, we're playing the team from Lublijana tonight at home. We have another match in Maribor this Saturday, so hopefully I'll be writing with good news next week!

Love and miss you all!

XOXO

Anna

PS: Jason just showed me the clip of Jim and Pam's wedding on The Office. I love them!