First of all, I have good news to report: the ank held up like a champ! I played in all of the matches and it was so nice to finally get back on the court. I'm too competitive to just sit on the sidelines. By the last day it felt like I had run about 3 consecutive marathons. My ankles were swollen and stiff, but still better than how they were a couple weeks ago. I'm back in action!!
Anyway, back to the events of the weekend... the trek took us about seven hours including a few stops. When my family goes on a roadtrip, we are all about getting there quickly and efficiently. Maybe a stop for the bathroom here and there, but for the most part we're in it for the long haul. That DEFINITELY was not the case in this instance. We stopped two times for about a half an hour. Long enough for people to order coffee, stretch their legs and just hang out. I wanted to pull my hair out a few times because I definitely didn't think it was necessary to get coffee, but apparently they had plans of their own.
The drive was gorgeous! We headed north up the coast of Montenegro. Instead of driving around the Bay of Kotor, we took a boat ferry to save about an hour of driving. It took about five minutes, and was a fun experience.
on the ferry
view from the ferry. I think this might be the town of Tivat
The scenery just kept rolling and I was so glad it wasn't a boring drive. On the contrary, there were tons of little towns and awesome landscape that kept me entertained the entire drive. Because of where it was in Croatia, we had to drive through 3 countries: Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The border crossing went something like this: out of Montenegro, into Croatia, out of Croatia, into Bosnia, out of Bosnia, and finally back into Croatia! (it's insanity, check it out on google maps). Each of these border crossings required a stop. Now imagine having to hand the officers a huge stack of passports and getting it all figured out. It was quite the ordeal, let me tell you.
So seven hours later, we were finally at our hotel. It was a nice little place (although the food was awful) and I had an awesome view of the Dalmatian coast.
the hotel...it's typical of the style of buildings that surrounded it
the view...not too shabby, right?
My roommates were younger girls on the team and we were assigned by Luka. One was 16 and the other was 14. They were pretty fun and definitely brought me back to my high school days which are fun to revisit every now and again.
The first day we had two matches: one at 9am and the other at 1pm. Waking up at 6:45 was definitely difficult considering that's usually when I'm finally getting into the grove of my night's rest! Our wake up call was the youngest girl on the team running around banging on our doors making sure we were awake (hilarious!). Four our matches, we played a team from Slovenia and a team from Croatia (the host team). We lost the first match, but won the second.
I am playing OH, which for everyone back at home let me just explain to you how different this position is: First of all, the name for an outside hitter is primach, and the word for passing is priem. So basically it is in the job description to have good ball control and awesome defense. Outsides play in every serve receive and also play middle bak while the libero plays left back. So for someone with absolutely NO experience with either serve receive or defense this is quite the change! It will definitely take some getting used to, but it's been fun to learn so far.
After the matches, we walked through the town and looked at all of the little vendor booths on the boardwalk. it was nice weather and good company and overall was a really relaxing night. Then iI learned a little bit of Serbian with Radmila, one of my roommates (still not getting any easier by the way).
The next day, we had three matches (welcome back to the club scene: limited warm ups, too many matches in one day, and only playing 2 out of 3 matches). We ended up going 2-1 that day, which was pretty much what we expected because the teams were a lot tougher. I got to play right side in the last match of the day (for reasons that will be explained in my next post, so stay tuned!)
Finally on the last day, we played one match. We won fairly easily and then showered and watched the final match. Then we went to lunch and hit the road.
The scenery continued as we drove through croatia:
a pretty typical view of Croatia...some sort of body of water, lots of greenery, and little mediterranean cities peppered along the mountainside
...and again...
here i am at our stop in bosnia. pretty sure this is the only time that i'll be in this neck of the woods so of course i had to document it!
Our next match is in two weeks where we play a team from Slovakia in the Cup. Both matches are in Bar and if we win rumor has it we will be going to Switzerland for the next round. Fingers crossed!
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