Klagenfurt, Austria

Got here this morning from a night train from Bern. About a 10 hour train ride.....but let me tell you about our little adventure....While we were in Gstaad, the US teams physio had asked us if we could help them out by taking their massage table, and bringing it to Klagenfurt, because if they were to bring it, it would cost them $500 to send. In exchange for that, they would give us free massages all week, when we wanted them, and they gave us a bunch of DVD's of other teams to watch. So of course, we said yeah sure! Okay first of all, this thing is a pain in the ass to be carrying around. They gave us a roller for it, but of course it's too wide to fit through any door, or escalator, or even some elevators. So when we got into our train, we had a compartment room with 6 chairs, and everyone's luggage could barely fit in there, let alone a big ass massage table....so what do we do, we go to the next train cart and find a spot to store it. Sweet right? That's what we thought......so when we wake up and get to our destination, we start getting our luggages, and make our way back to the other cart, and for some reason, it's a totally different cart! so we go the other way thinking that we just went to the wrong cart, but NO! Somewhere, sometime, we had stopped and that cart had detached from our cart! We were freakin out! Tried to talk to someone about it, but of course they don't speak good english and trying to let them know what had happened was real task! Finally, somehow we figured out where the train had detached and where it was going, tracked it down, and we were told that it was suppose to come on the 10:15pm train here to Klagenfurt. So we go there last night way before it arrives, we were suppose to meet with the train conductor. Train arrives, no conductor, train takes off....so we scramble to try to talk to someone, we talked to 4 people, and all they could tell us was to call the company...blah, blah, which is what we did in the first place, and who told us that the luggage will come out of that 10:15pm train. So with hopes still up, we get back to the hotel, and we talk to the receptionist, and she says, "oh, i have a message for you", and it's a message saying that the massage table will be delivered to the hotel, tomorrow morning! We were like, "what!?" So with all this happening, the US physio has still not called us to get the table back, because they were suppose to arrive Tuesday. So the next day we go to practice, come back and the table is waiting for us at the front desk! And the person who works at the hotel picked it up for us! ..... I think it's just a crazy story, that the freakin table detached from us and we found it! CRAZY!!!!!
So anyway, not to make this story too long, the physio is in our room right now, i just got a massage and Diane is on the table right now getting her massage.
We play tomorrow, 2 games......we think we have Germany first, then maybe Brazil. Here we go Grand Slam!

Bye Bye Gstaad

Well Misty May and Kerri Walsh won the World Champs ( surprised anyone?) against China. They are an unbelievable team! Nobody took them to three sets this tourney! They are in a whole different level, amazing to watch those two!
As for us, just training and enjoying the town of Gstaad. Today, since i could not find a weight room, i decided to swim in the pool. Last time i swam laps for any sort of training, ummmm i think was in elementary school before volleyball came into my life. So I thought that i could go right in and just do like i did back then.......HA! WRONG! I could barely, barely make it one whole lap without struggling! Boy did my lungs get a workout! My lovely fiance joined me and i bet that was comical for him to see, being that he is a swimmer. He gave me good tips and helped me, and by the end i was almost getting 2 laps in without struggling. Swimming.....i love it!
Tomorrow we leave to Bern and then we take an overnighter train to Austria. Gstaad is a great little town, so far this is one of favorites!

Poop!

Lost against Norway today....in 2...SUCKS!......really can't complain though, we made it into the World Champs, got out of our pool, and took a 17th.....triple points and triple money! Look at the bigger picture Heidi, right?

Did it!

Diane and I won our match against Finland today!! We won them in 2 which puts us in a good position to come out of our pool. We think we took second in our pool, but if not third. They take the top 3 out of the pool, to go into the next round.....then....single elimination. Keep sending the good mojo!

CaCa!

Played Austria this morning and lost in 2......good match though, but obviously not good enough. Tomorrow we play Finland at 10:00am. Must win this match!

3rd times a Charm!

We played our match today against the Australian team that we've played twice, the two times that we qualified in the main draw. So today was our third time playing them. AND WE WON! Just to give you an idea of how huge this win is, one of the players, Natalie Cook, is the gold medalist from the Sydney 2000 Olympics....yeah pretty huge win for us, they are a top 10 team and we beat them in 3 games.....third game was 15-13. Pretty exciting stuff, especially to win that first match in a World Champ event!.....tomorrow we play Austria.

Gstaad, Switzerland

Got here to Gstaad yesterday afternoon. Pretty freakin darn beautiful here! The scenery around you looks so fake because it's so green and clear. The town is pretty nice, very old tradition Swiss like. The venue itself is pretty spectacular, the center court is in the middle of the town area where all the shopping and restaurants are, and the rest of the venue kinda encircles the town. Being here during the summer is pretty amazing but i would love to see this place in the winter, all covered in snow, and the swiss alps all white . Almost makes me want to learn how to ski.
The weather since we got here has been good, but now as i am writing this blog, it's thundering and lightning outside, and it's suppose to be like this tomorrow also :( But the rest of the week, is suppose to be good weather. We'll see how that goes. We just came back from the meeting and we found out who are in our pool- 1. Australia 2. Austria 3. Finland 4. Philippines. We play at 2:00pm tomorrow. One match per day. I'll update tomorrow.

Berne, Switzerland

So far, Switzerland is absolutely beautiful! Yesterday we trained with Nadine and her partner with their coach, and then Nadine and Dave made us a wonderful dinner that consisted of salad, curry, rice and some yummy dessert. Today, Dave took us into the old town and took us around, played tour guide, saw some bears, climbed to a top of a church,walked by the river and had some afternoon coffee. Such a beautiful city! We then went into the country side, and met his parents and had another wonderful dinner! His parents are absolutely awesome, with an awesome looking house. Now we are back home, SO FULL, laying on our tummies, on our laptops. Great training today :) We leave for Gstaad tomorrow and play on Tuesday.

Switzerland

Got here last night to Switzerland by train...6 hour train ride....but a beautiful train ride. Going through the mountains and looking below seeing the town, felt like we were on one of those train toy sets that you see during Christmas. It was pretty cool. We are staying with some Swiss friends, Dave and Nadine. They are a couple who both play for Switzerland, and we met Dave, playing on the New Zealand tour this year. They are both going to Gstaad, so it totally works out staying with them, we will be training with them till about sunday and then head out that day. Pretty amazing at how many great people we've met playing, who offer to stay with them. Like i said before, somebody up is looking out for us :)
Before we left Marseille, Tour De France took off, and watched that happen. Happened pretty quick, but it was still a cool thing to watch. Can't wait to play in Gstaad, suppose to be a really really nice area, but really expensive :(
here is both of the players website: www.gabathuler-wenger.ch and www.skrivan-zumkehr.ch

Good job guys!

okay.... you guys that kept your fingers crossed for the Austria event did good because we are in!! So that means we are in a World Championship event AND a Grand Slam event! Don't know how we did it, but somebody up there is lookin out for us. Yippeee!! On another note, Tour le France passed through here and is staying the night here. Gonna watch then take off tomorrow. Pretty cool stuff! Going to leave for Switzerland tomorrow too!! To everyone who reads these blogs, thanks for believing in us.

Not in

Really windy day, not really volleyball, lost in the match to get in, in 3, 14-16.. POOP! Our first round we played a Canada team, and then the match to get in, we played Germany. We lost the first game, won the second and battled it out in the third. sucks! But nothing we can do about it now, but just learn from it and move on. So now we go to Switzerland this week. Staying with some friends, before the tourney. Should be fun, especially when we don't have to pay for a hotel. We play on Tuesday. From what i hear from everybody, Switzerland is suppose to be really rad! Pretty excited to go and just play more volleyball. Meanwhile, here are more pictures...

Marseille, France

Yesterday was a national holiday, and we went to the city's port last night and watched fireworks. Pretty crazy town! Lots and lots of people, lot and lots of restaurants and cafes, lots of popping of fireworks. The beach at where the event is, is pretty nice. The ocean that we have is the Mediterranean Sea. Freezing COLD!...the weather is nice though. Haven't had a lot of sun in this 2 month trip, and now that we have some, we are soaking it up! More topless women,...okay well more topless moms and grandmas. kinda crazy to see! We play on tuesday, in the meantime, lot of training and lots of sun! I know i told you all that we made the 2 grand slams...but so far we know that we are in the Switzerland event, not sure yet about the Austria one. Cross your fingers!

Marseille

Okay, we are now in Marseille. Didn't have any wireless at the hostel we were staying in, so internet was limited. But the hotel that we are in now, has wireless, so i'm back to blogville. let's see, let me give you an update. After Montreal, Diane went to Alaska to visit a friend and Steve and I went back to Paris. When we landed in Paris, we went straight to the train station, with the intention of buying tickets to Pamplona for the "running of the bulls" that was going on that week. We were in line, talking to the ticketer, almost gave him our card to pay when we suddenly back down. We wanted to go, but we knew that we didn't have a hotel booked, and when we get there, hotels would be either full or charging an arm and a leg for a nights stay. So we did the spontaneous back down, and walked around the city to find a cheap hostel. Finally found one, walked into a chinese restaurant and they were renting rooms upstairs! Quaint little place, bathrooms down the hall, a little tub for a shower, and a TV with 3 channels. It was still pretty cool though...i will charge that to experience!
That night we went to the Eiffel and saw it at night, all lit up and sparkly! So beautiful!....The next day, we slept in, so tired from all the traveling, then we went to the Louvre again ( i just finished Da Vinci Code), then went to city called Montparnasse, very cute town that had a view of Paris and an immaculate church! after that we went to the Moulin Rouge, no show, just walking around...pretty much another city like the Red Light District. The next day we went to Paris Disney! So awesome! Different from Disneyland...most of the same rides but, certain aspects were different that made them really cool! Space Mountain rocked!!! there were a couple of loops in that one! Overall, i rate Disney Paris= A+. The next day, we visited Jim Morrison's grave. That was pretty unbelievable. The big headstones in this cemetery were unreal! so now here we are....3 hour train to Marseille from Paris. I see Diane tomorrow, play on Tuesday, and just found out that we made it in the qualification for Switzerland and Austria, the next 2 Grand Slams!!!

alive

Sorry haven't blogged in a while but we're still alive, on a time limit here so i will blog more later!

......waiting

Our flight was at 5:50pm tonight, check in at about 3:45pm and found out that our flight was delayed about 5 hours.....flight doesn't leave until 10:45 now! Here we are stuck in the airport, Steve playing with his computer, and me reading the Da Vinci Code. Steve finished this book this week and now it's my turn, want to finish it before we go back to the Louvre. Aside from going to the airport today, i got my haircut at the mall. hee hee :)

Tourists

Played this morning and lost in 2....caca! Upside about it is that it's better than a 25th, got 120 points and got more money! Now, off to Paris again, play tourist, maybe go to Prague....not sure what our agenda is yet. Our next tournament is not till the 17th of July. Kinda wish we were going home for a bit, but not complaining. It'll be nice to travel and relax a bit. I'll let you guys know where we end up.

No 25th!

So we won our first match in the main draw tourney! our first match was against Australia who were seeded 3rd, lost in two, the we played France and won in two! no "uno dos adios". Tomorrow we play a Brazilian team, so we just gotta keep playing one at a time. Let you know what happens......

HAPPY 4TH!

Happy Independence Day to all my USA peeps! As for us peeps in Canada, the qualifier was today and we qualified! Yes!!! we beat Japan to get in, so we are playing in the main draw tomorrow! Starting to rain here, and the forecast for tomorrow is.....rain. can't wait! For my USA people, watch some great fireworks, eat some good BBQ and drink a couple of beers for me! Enjoy :)

Montreal, Canada

After a 10 hour train ride(sleeper train) from San Sebastian to Paris, then a 6 hour wait at the airport, then a 6 hour plane ride to Montreal, we are here! Weather is nice so far and downtown Montreal is pretty cool. Best part is......there is a Starbucks! Yes!....no more coffee shots. And there is a Subway! So i don't feel too far away from home.....we are a 6 hour drive to New York! We play in the qualifier tomorrow.....wish us luck :)

2nd place

So after coming out of the losers bracket, playing 4 matches yesterday, 2 of which were 3 gamers, and playing 3 more today, of which were all 3 gamers, we ended up taking second. We lost to our Dutch friends, Marleen and Marloes, in the finals in 3 games. POOP!.......it definitely was a good tourney for us though. We just need to carry that over to Montreal, which is our next stop. We are catching a train to Paris tonight (overnighter), then flying out of Paris to Montreal, getting to Montreal Monday afternoon. Love San Sebastian! Want to come back here with no volleyball and play tourist!