Fasching and Fishing!

Hello Friends and Family!

It's nearing the end of February, and the weather in Klagenfurt is showing signs of spring! It's sunny and beautiful outside, and while there's still some snow on the ground, I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel!

The last few weeks brought several important events. Firstly, last Tuesday was "Faschingsdienstag," Austria's equivalent of Mardi Gras or Carnivale. People of all ages get in the festive spirit, and Kristina, Sophie and I didn't want to get left behind! Kristina and I chose to use the Halloween costumes that never made it out the door (it was too cold to be ballerinas on Halloween!), and Sophie went as a what she hopes to be when she grows up: a vampire. Kristina and I walked around down doing plies and Sophie snuck up on some unassuming gals at a bus stop, ending up at the Lindwurm for some Kodak moments. We also documented a couple at the parade who must have been 85+ (note the canes) and had better costumes and makeup than us!





Secondly, Wednesday brought our last MEVZA match of the year against Kamnik of Slovenia. Our team is struggling with a few key injuries (it's been the story of the season), so our numbers are dwindling and we sometimes struggle to keep our heads above the water! Nevertheless, we did an OK job against Kamnik, taking the first set but then losing the following 3. With that match behind us, we're moving onward and upward to the Austrian Championship, which we're joining for playoffs. We had our fist match at home against VC Tirol from Innsbruck on Saturday, and we won in 3 sets, which was a good confidence booster. We travel to Innsbruck this Saturday to continue the best-of-three series, and we're hoping to have a repeat performance!

With the beautiful weather motivating us to get out of the house and be somewhat productive with our lives, yesterday was an awesome day of adventure! Marco and I met his brother Martin, Martin's girlfriend Sabrina, and their father for a morning of trout fishing at their family's pond. (Sidenote: When I say we went "fishing," I'm not really lying, because we were trying to get fish out of the pond with a fishing pole. However, this "fishing" isn't exactly that hard, because the fish are so excited to eat the canned corn we were using as bait that they practically jump onto the hook! The most trying part of the whole experience was the attempt to get the unweighted hook into the right part of the pond, which took a whole 4 minutes!) Martin was in charge of teaching Sabrina, Marco and I the tricks to casting the perfect line, and we all ended up catching some beautiful fish that seemed more than happy to leap out of the pond and come home with us. (Thank you fish gods!)










After feasting on trout that Marco's mom was able to transform from something that resembled that singing fish from that one teacher's office into delicious fillets of seasoned goodness, I spent the rest of the beautiful afternoon attempting to study some German (that's my Lenten goal, to study German for an hour every day!) and then watching Bode kick butt on the slalom part of the Super-Combi for another gold medal for the US! Way to go Bode, you're a baller!

I hope spring is around the corner for all of you as well, and please send some emails my way! (acmaylo@gmail.com) I miss ya like crazy, and happy end of Feb!

xox

anna

Exploring Austria: Vienna and Graz!! (and beautiful sunsets)

Hello Friends and Fam!

This is the scene from out of my bedroom window, at around 5pm, when the sunset was making the clouds look like tufts of cotton candy. Pictures never really capture the full pink effect, but it was breathtaking!

Last weekend brought Kristina and I (along with the rest of the Wildkatzen) to Vienna where we were to face the Vienna Post team. The team from Post is the only other Austrian team that also plays in the MEVZA, and historically our team often plays them late in the Austrian playoffs, so there is a pretty intense rivalry going on... After a 4 hour van ride (and the ritualistic stop at an "Old Timer" gas station/ play place/ restaurant/ greenhouse/ what?), we arrived in the small town of Krems (outside Vienna) for pass-around, after which we headed to our cozy romantic-getaway hotel.



That evening's game didn't really go our way, we ended up losing 0-3 in what we hope is our last disappointing loss of the season. Kristina and I did have fun in our cozy hotel however, making full use of the 12 hours in which we were allowed to pass out in the comfy beds.

The next day, our girls faced the Vienna girls in an Austrians-only Cup match at a gym in Vienna instead of Krems. We arrived at the gym around noon for a 2:00 match, so Kristina and I decided to take a tram into downtown to explore a bit before first serve. Awesome amazing find #1: Bagel Shop! Awesome amazing find #2: outdoor market by City Hall, where they serve hot chocolate for chocoholics like me! Awesome amazing find #3: tram back to the gym, which got us back just in time! So, despite the fact that we lost in Vienna, we tried to make the most of it and ended up having a great time!




Tuesday brought us on an adventure to Graz with Matthias, where he had a last exam before winter term break. We walked all around the beautiful city (and hiked up a hill to see a beautiful clock tower), then had an amazing lunch at Subway (yes! There's on in Graz!!) before coming back to Klagenfurt that evening.





We had this weekend off, and it was really refreshing to have no volleyball for a little bit. We head back into the gym tomorrow, and I think we're all excited to play together again. We play the team from Maribor this weekend, and start playing in Austrian playoff matches next weekend!

Hope all is well stateside. I hear there are some crazy snowstorms on the East Coast, I feel for you guys!

Love xoxo

Anna