Das Leben ist Schön!!: February 2012

Hello Friends and Family!

Today I woke up to an email asking me to update my blog… I was surprised, because until today I was pretty sure that no one read my blog besides myself and maybe my grandmas. But hey, if the fans (fan) want(s) an update, an update they (she) will get!

My last post came after our first games (losses) of the season, when we were all a little nervous how the new team would shape up. All of us, including the 8 of us who had been together for a long and grueling preseason, felt like we should have come out in full domination mode, ready to take down any league opponent. But the truth of the matter was that we had 5 new faces joining us from long summers with their national teams, and even seasoned players need time to learn (or relearn) new teams!

As we had all hoped, after that rocky start, we started getting better acquainted with one another, which is all we needed to get our first W’s. Once we got into a good rhythm, we went on to win a series of 17 Bundesliga games in a row (a streak that only ended last Saturday in Hamburg, but I’ll get to that later…), so that now we’re at the top of the standings along with the team from Vilsbiburg. I wish I could’ve seen the future when the critics were saying we should basically all retire from the sport after our “embarrassing” loss to Stuttgart in November!

Besides playing in our German League games, we’ve also had some pretty great opportunities to travel across Europe playing games in Champion’s League. Our first round pool members were teams from Baku (Azerbaijan), Mulhouse (France), and Istanbul (Turkey), all places that I had never been before. We traveled to Istanbul in late November, where we got our first taste of what it means to play against teams in the best league in the world.

The team in Istanbul had not only some of the best Turkish players, but also an outside hitter from the Korean national team, a middle blocker (“best in the world… next to Tesha”) from the Brazilian national team, and American outside hitter Logan Tom, who is a star for our national team. Needless to say, they were GOOD. We lost in 3 straight sets, but the trip was fun (we crossed a bridge for my very first trip to Asia.. woowooo!), and I think it opened all of our eyes to what the competition was going to look like this season.

We lost again in 3 to the team from Baku at home, and in 4 sets to the team from Mulhouse at home. I guess the only thing keeping us going at that point was the wins we were accumulating in the German League. And let’s be honest… after playing against some of the world’s best in Champion’s League, the best outside hitter from any team in the German League looks a little less scary. That’s the important lesson we all got from getting our butts whooped!

Our big break came when we traveled to France to play Mulhouse, where we put on a show. It was just one of those days where everything was clicking for us, and they were struggling to do the things they normally do great. We won in 3 straight sets, which essentially guaranteed our advancement to the next round of the championship.

It’s worth noting that throughout this time, I started battling the same annoying patellar tendon pain that I thought we had taken care of in May. It started bugging me again around my birthday (mid November), and by the end of the month I was practicing only around twice a week, and taking more painkillers than I wanted to be taking. After getting a second and third opinion (the third being from the doctor in Berlin who had done my surgery in May), we decided I should take some time off from playing in order to let the tendon regenerate. I played in my last game on December 10^th in Leverkuesen, and since then I’ve been on the DL, doing all I can to rehab my struggling left knee! I’ve taken on the role of head cheerleader/co-co-co-coach, and let’s just say I’ll be pretty darn ecstatic when I can actually play volleyball again. (fingers crossed… toes too)

Playing in Baku was an experience, simply because Azerbaijan is nothing like anywhere I’ve been before. Open meat markets, HUGE portraits of political leaders all over, drivers that should probably only be allowed to drive in Mario Kart, the usual (I guess). It was amazing to see the spectrum of wealth in the city… Penthouses and high-rises and Gucci and Prada and Mercedes; those were the sights in downtown Baku. But along the outskirts, you see the 99%: people barefoot, walking along the side of the road because there are no sidewalks. People crammed into buses from the 1960s, which are bound to break down at any second. And women… where are the women? They’re practically invisible! THAT was something I found to be really interesting.

Our last game in the first round was against the team from Istanbul at home. Unbeknownst to the team, around 300 tickets had been sold to fans from the Istanbul team, and they were given a block of seats almost directly behind our bench. When the whistle blew after they scored the first point, Tesha and I were witnesses to a shower of ticker-tape paper, rolls upon rolls upon rolls thrown onto the court from the block of seats behind us. “I thought I was in a dream… honestly, that I was dreaming this was happening,” Tesha said as we tried to help clean up the mess. And I had to agree it was seriously dreamlike.

That was the big highlight, but the fans continued with shenanigans throughout the match. Our fans were beside themselves with confusion… Volleyball fans are usually pretty tame, nothing like the crazy “fußball” fans throughout Europe. But these Istanbul fans brought the soccer atmosphere into the Margon Arena, and all the drums, waves, and chants our fans started couldn’t compete with the shirtless men fervently cheering for Istanbul. Quite a sight! We took a set from them but ended up losing in 4, which concluded our first round of play.

We drew the team from Kazan, Russia as a second round opponent, a team home to a girl who is legitimately 7’ tall as well as another dominant American outside hitter from Nebraska. We felt somewhat like Davids going up against Goliath when we played them at home, and to say that we got crushed would not be an exaggeration. It’s frustrating as an athlete to lose so decisively… your ego takes a hit and the confidence that you have built up starts to quake. So I felt for my teammates. But as a viewer, it was pretty cool to see Gamova (the 7 footer) moving so effortlessly with such long limbs… she is the exception to the rule that says above a certain height girls lose all coordination! And a small part of me had to cheer for Jordan Larson, because it’s always fun to see fellow Americans doing great things at the international level.

We traveled to Kazan last Tuesday to Friday, and I think it was the first time I was ever really cold. I mean I thought I was all tough having lived in continental Europe for the past 4 winters… But winter in Dresden is downright balmy compared to that in Kazan! Temperatures of -32c helped freeze our eyelashes together on a walk to the Kazan Kremlin from our hotel, and I was pretty sure I would need a toe amputated by the time we got back. Thankfully all of my fingers and toes survived, but it was nice to get back to the -4 of Dresden when I got back on Friday evening.

Our first loss in 18 league games came after the trip back from Kazan, because while I went home to Dresden, the team continued to Hamburg to play in a German League game. They fought to 5 sets but eventually lost, and there’s no doubt in my mind the long trip and 3 hour time difference probably didn’t help us that much. But we’re all looking forward to the rest of our league games, before the fun starts in play-offs in March.

OK, that was the long volleyball update, but there are actually some non-volley related updates in my life. Marco came to visit Dresden 3 times in the fall, including once for Christmas. It was both of our first times having Christmas away from a big family gathering, so we tried to make it special for just the two of us. We made some of my favorite recipes forwarded from my mom, and we experimented with sweet potato pie, something I had never made before. It all turned out to be delicious, and I think Marco reported gaining something like 4 kilos during his 6 days in Dresden.

My birthday in November marked a quarter century, and I rang it in at Espitas with Tesha, Stefan and Robin. Tesha and Stefan surprised me during the day with a car decoration worthy of the Vintage High School parking lot on the day of Big Game, and I was finding confetti in the cracks of the doorjambs until the day I turned my car back in to the dealership in December. Haha… Whoops!

Throughout December we got to introduce our Dutch girls to the fabulousness of Christmas in Dresden, and more importantly the Christmas Market and Wintersdorf. I think we all enjoyed those lessons!

My only non-volley related trip this year came in late January when I got to fly to Klagenfurt for 4 days while the team was at away games. I got to meet Marco’s newest family members, 2 young mules named Paula and Bonanza. They’re both pretty mules, but I tend to be afraid of things that are bigger than me, so I spent our afternoon with them making sure I was far away from any flying hooves. I guess I’m no farm girl!

I think that about covers the last 4 months since my last update, or at least it’s everything I can remember! I’m really looking forward to the next few weeks when I can start doing a little more in practice, aiming to be fit to jump again by the beginning of March… And since it’s already mid-February (Happy Valentine’s Day!), I know the last 3 months of this season will FLY by. Maybe I’ll squeak another update in before then J

Hope this blog finds you doing well,

Anna

here are some extra pictures of funny things worth sharing....