Week One

So day six in Sweden has come and gone and I still don't know how exactly to start my season blog so I figure I'll just start with how I ended up here in Tierp.

Last season I came up empty in my attempts to find a team to play for myself so I enjoyed a year back living at home just outside of Chicago. I got a bartending gig, coached an 18-year-old club team, and worked on the golf game (it's not too promising), all the while going to a personal athletic trainer to stay in my old college shape (big thanks to Justin, Mike, Roger and all the guys and girls at WCS/Gattone Sports Performance in Buffalo Grove, IL). This year I took a different approach, however. I ended up going on a professional volleyball scouting tour through an agency called Bring It Promotions. The entire tour took place in Spain in August. It began in Madrid for five days from there we moved on to a small town called Teruel a couple hours away. After a couple more days of practice and scrimmaging nothing was turning up for me team-wise, but I was told to stay in country in case something popped up for me in the following week or so, so I moved the flight back and decided to take advantage of someplace I'd probably never be again.

The first night of freedom was our last in Teruel, and one we will never forget. We decided to do as the Spaniards do and go to a bull run in a small town. It was probably the craziest thing I've ever seen. They let a bull loose down a street in town, but to make things more interesting they attached flaming torches to each horn. The bull basically runs up and down this street while people run in to slap it, pull its tail or just generally try to piss it off before running to hide behind the metal fences set up to protect the humans. Needless to say, the only person hurt that night was one of us Americans, a pretty gruesome broken arm, all caught on video. Email me if you really want to see it, you have been warned though. So after all that excitement, the remaining guys on the tour all took a bus down to Valencia where we spent a couple late nights. It was a really beautiful city and had some pretty cool museums that we made it to in between nights out.

From there, me and two friends decided to go to Ibiza Island. If you've never heard of it, look it up. The island is famous for its nightclubs, generally considered the best in the world. The rest of the island is also a beautiful paradise. Each town is basically a resort with several beaches full of tourists from all over the world. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep while on the island between the 4,000 person foam party one night, the 12,000 person Tiesto concert the next and the days on the beach. However, the trip was far from over, because Barcelona awaited us.

We arrived in Barcelona pretty tired and beat up from the previous couple of weeks, but the second day there was the one I had been waiting a long time for. While in Teruel we were trying to plan the next week or so to have some kind of structure to where we would end up. When the possibility of going to Barcelona came up, I knew there was no way I could be there and not see a FC Barcelona football match. They are my favorite European team and they happen to be playing another European powerhouse, AC Milan while we would be there so of course I ordered tickets. The match and atmosphere were unlike anything I've ever experienced. Seeing 100,000 people in a stadium well over an hour before match time screaming their team fight song was a sight that no American sporting event can compare to. Definitely worth the experience if you're ever in the area. The good guys won in the end on penalty kicks. It was also a pretty cool night to go because it was their first home match since winning last year's La Liga championship so it was a pretty unbelievable evening. We spent three more nights in Barcelona and then one more in Madrid before heading home, a little disappointed.

A couple days went by in Chicago, still holding out hope that something would turn up for me. About a week after I got back, my friend Kyle, who I had bartended with Skyped me about a possible opening for an opposite/middle on the team that picked him up, Tierp Volley in Tierp, Sweden. Obviously I jumped at the opportunity and couldn't wait to get started. I knew I wouldn't be making much money but I needed to take the risk and do this while I still could. However, the wait to get everything figured out and actually get my butt into a plane seat took over a month.

I finally boarded a plane on October 11th and about 16 sleepless hours later I landed in Stockholm. After another hour of driving I finally arrived in Tierp. Tierp, Sweden is a town of about 5,000 people an hour north of Stockholm and 20 minutes north of Uppsala, the fourth biggest city in Sweden. Obviously, the small town thing is something I've never experienced before (and if you clicked on that link, you see there's not much to tell you about it). Growing up in Chicago and going to college in Long Beach gets you accustomed to being surrounded by millions of people at all times. However, I wasn't given much time to get accustomed to the time change (I'm still not), I was thrown into practice later that afternoon.

I have two roommates, Kyle, who I mentioned earlier, and Eric Simon, another North American from just outside of Toronto. So at least I'm not going through the culture shock alone. We have a pretty light schedule here, practice Tuesday, Thursday, Friday night, workouts Monday and Wednesday and one match a weekend. This leaves us plenty of free time, something I'm pretty used to. Our main excitement everyday comes when we get to make the six block walk to the center of town for lunch at Gastis (Swedish for "guests"). Thursdays are the best, Swedish pancake day of course! So delicious, definitely worth a trip to Ikea if you're anywhere near one.

My first couple of days were basically spent napping at random times, laying awake all night trying to stay warm and attempting to get into some kind of normal body schedule. All this to get ready for the first league match of the year against none other than the defending league champions, Linköping (pronounced Lin-shepping). By the end of the week, however, I was very disappointed to learn that because of work visa issues I wouldn't be able to play. Luckily, the guys pulled off a great 3-0 win to start the season right in front of our home fans. We fell behind 24-21 in the first game and stormed back for a 26-24 win. After a tight game two win, the beginning of game three found us down 5-1, but again, the "New Tierp," as the townspeople are calling us, got right back in it and took game three with an amazing block to finish it off with authority!

We've already been featured in several Swedish newspaper articles and from what our teammates are telling us, the whole town is very excited about the start to the season and is looking forward to seeing us play again at home in two weeks, there are whispers of a big town party for the match. Well I'll try to be shorter and provide more Sweden info in the next post, but for now, tack (Swedish for "thank you") for reading.

Only two more days until pancake day...