We Built this City...We Built this City On Rock and Rolling Iguanas?

This week I'll start this post where hopefully the title of the blog will be most relevant instead of typing it all up chronologically. Ok, so this weekend is the Sport and Wellness Messe (Fair) at the Marienlyst Center (place where we play our home matches) in both of the gyms. To get the gyms ready for such a special occasion a small city needed to be built. Let me explain. Companies as well as sports teams come to the fair and each have thier own designated area within the gym to meet and greet or put on a small clinics. These areas are not just simple tables and chairs spread out randomly in a gym. These areas are divided by 6 foot walls. Walls that are not normally there if you were wondering. Well then how do these walls get there? Funny you should ask. Well these walls get there by taking them off of a pallet, placed directly on an "iguana", and then rolled to where they can be put together with "gorillas". Ok I'm not crazy hear me out. Kaj our coach/jack of all trades was basically directing the operation. When we first got there on Monday morning he had names for each of the tools or pieces to assemble these walls. The small cart in which to wheel the walls he called a "dog," basically a small four wheeled cart designed to slide the walls into and transport most effieciently. Now the cart did resemble a dog, but as the day went on I thought it looked more like an iguana and the name stuck within the group (Nelly, Joe and I). Synonyms also included Iggy Pop (big cart) or Baby Igs (small cart). The gorilla was a connecting piece for the walls basically a strong piece of metal with two arms that slid into the top of the walls kind of like a real gorilla with a short body and two strong arms off of it. The name was perfect for it already so it didn't need to be changed.

Over the three six hour days we literally set up a small city. Walls, electricy, bridges and lights. Basically everything a city needs except plumbing. The details of the set up are not so interesting so I will leave it at that, but it was hard work and the 18 hours we were there were used to the fullest. We were also fed in the cafeteria everyday at lunch time so it could have been much worse. Take down is supposedly much faster and easier. I hope!

Ok so lets go back to the start of last week. Tuesday last week we played a Pokal Cup match in Arhus which was our first real game of the season. Pokal Cup is the Danish tournament that every team in Denmark is invited to. The format is single elimination so in the early rounds you can play some pretty low level competition. We played a team from the second division so it was an easy match. The gym was pretty cool, it was an old train station converted into a volleyball gym. So it looked like you were playing in a half tube with old wooden seats surrounding the court. It was cool because the sound was trapped in there and any cheers were amplified by 20. I didn't play because my leg was still aching from the Middelfart tournament just a few days before. I sat on the side and cheered and we won 3-0 pretty easily and on to the next round.

Thursday we had our first regular season game, non-Pokal Cup but regular league play at home. We had another easy draw in Holte from Copenhagen. We played them in the Middelfart tournament the weekend before so we knew what to expect. I again did not play as I wanted to take the week off to see if my leg would improve at all. Again we won 3-0 never in jeopardy of losing a set.

We had the weekend off so we had a little bit of time to have some fun. Saturday morning we went to the Fortuna volleyball match. Fortuna is the top women's team here in Odense but is a different club than ours. Marienlyst does not have a top level women's team. Unfortunately the Fortuna team lost in a quick three which was a bummer, but what can ya do?

After the Fortuna game we went to our first soccer match of the season. We went to watch OB play at home. OB is in the top division in Denmark and is doing quite well so we thought it would be a great opportunity to see a game while it was still reasonably warm outside. OB won 2-0 and we had front row seats so it was exciting enough for me being a none soccer fan. I was constantly asking questions like: What is a kick missing the goal by 30 ft and going into the upper deck like in relation to basketball or volleyball? Is that like an airball or a serve under the net? I have a really hard time relating to the sport because I just never really watch it. Some goals are really spectacular but for the most part watching games with teams that are not in the top 5 in the world with international superstars is not that exciting for me. If you think flopping is bad in basketball, watching soccer will just kill you. Players fall and writhe in what looks like season ending pain and then somehow get up after no call and continue to play. Its disgusting and goes against everything that is sports and I'll never understand it. Regardless the game was fun we had great weather and OB won! Here are some pictures from the match:

1-0 in the distance

Joe and Nelly enjoying the game.

Kid cheering on his team!

GOOOOOALLLLLLLL!!!!

This week other than building a Danish city we are preparing for a match against Middelfart on Friday. We are away and it should be a good match. My leg has been still sore but better and playable so I am going to play for sure on Friday. I still ice and try not to over do it at practice but it is really frustrating not being 100%. But it's getting better.

I almost forgot to mention I watched the Bears win again on my computer I found a great site that streams the games live for free. I also watched the Vikings game. Wow! Favre is incredible. Ok well that is all for now. I still have to upload all of the pictures from last week when I went to the city with the guys stay tuned for those. Hej hej.

Global Warming is great for Denmark!

Who says global warming is bad? I think it's just your perspective and or location. It has been t-shirt and short weather basically the whole time I have been here so far. But I know all too well what is lurking around the corner just waiting to terrorize me on my Champs-Elysee Mustang Passion (my bike; make and model.) Every Monday I have my fingers crossed that this will not be the week that I have to bike X amount of kilometers in cold, rainy, and windy conditions. The shortest bike route on any given weekday for me is Wednesday at just 2 kilometers to CCS the weight training center . The longest is Tuesday at about 20 kilometers. The rest of the Lance Armstrong week is as follows and this is an absolute minimum:

• Mon - 10 km
  
• Thurs - 10 km
• Fri - 10 km +2 when I take Christa out to a fancy dinner at 7-Eleven
  

So on any given week I put about 50 km on my Mustang. Which isn't a whole lot but when you are exposed to precipitation and wind chills you might as well raise that number to the power of 200. So as long as the blue skies and mid 60s weather continues me and my Mustang are on good terms.

Last Sunday I was actually able to catch the Bears game. The only problem was it was on at 230 am. To my Dad's as well as Christa's disapproval I busted out the #54 Brian Urlacher jearsey. I made a deal that I would only wear the jersey once a week and while watching the game, but sometimes when she leaves I put it on to do dishes so I can go 110% full game speed. I wash and dry ok! Anyway, Nelly and Joe came over to watch the game. Being a native of cheeseheadland, Nelly is a Packers fan. The game was uneventful as you all know and it was quite painful to watch even more so into the 5am range. Joe, a Rams fan, was fast asleep by now and every so often would kick the ground really hard and startle himself awake. When this happened for the second time we all agreed the game was not worth watching past 515 am. They biked home and I headed to bed Bears up 12-10. I'm glad I didn't see the finale because I would have woke up the entire apartment complex! At least Cutler played well, NOT. And now Urlacher is out for the season, I might be retiring the jersey to just dish duty.

The bulk of this week was spent in preparation for our second training tournament of the preseason. The tournament was held in good 'ol Middelfart. There were two pools and 7 teams total. 2 from Norway, 1 from Sweden, and the remaing from Denmark. Our pool was much easier than the other pool. The only real competition was Middelfart. We played them on Thursday and played a pretty awful match and lost in a quick 3. Top two teams from each pool advance so we were confident that the other two would be pushovers so we would still make it to the semis no problem. This was true we took out those two below average teams on Saturday. Today (Sunday) we played the first semi-final at 9 am. It was early but it was no excuse we played really bad. So many errors we never got in a good rhythm. The Norwegian team was solid but they too made tons of errors, but unfortunately we won the battle for who could make more errors. We lost in an uneventful 3.

The bronze medal match was at 1245 today against Orkelljunga one of the top teams from Sweden. We came out super flat again and dropped game one. Not sure what turned us around but we started playing more loose and starting winning the balls we needed to to win, but that was it nothing more and nothing less. We won the next three sets to win the match and the coveted Bronze (Middel)Fart Medal.

So how did I play? My serve was on and off all weekend but I think it is getting better. Hitting is also getting better, the speed of the sets are still a problem for me as well as the outsides. I had Jordan, our setter, slow me down a bit and give me some height and I was attacking much better winning many more balls off of that type of set. I think that my defense was probably my best attribute this weekend. Attacking and serving will come with more reps, but I think that I took care of balls that were hit in my direction and gave us a chance to turn some balls. It is frustrating though starting a new season and wanting to be as good as you were at the end of last season right when you step on the court. But unfortunately it doesn't work that way and you need to train hard and get comfortable with your teammates to play as well as you can. It will come and I see we are making strides in the right direction, but it just can't seem to come fast enough!

I spent the weekend in Middelfart with Christa's parents Jens and Hanne. They have been very nice and have made some really nice meals during our stay. It has been great! Lucky for me I get to see the Bears game again on tv. It is one of the feature games here in Denmark this week. The game will be on at 1015pm which is nice so I don't have to be up until 5am ripping my hair out. I can at least get all of the hair pulling done at a reasonable hour and get some sleep.

The poll on my blog page is looking like a unanimous 6 votes for posts every Sunday. I think I can come up with enough silliness every 7 days no problem. I would like to add some more pictures to the blog as well in the coming days. Nelly, Joe, and I went out into the city on Wednesday and I got some good shots of the town on a really nice day. We walked through the park and city center for about two hours. Hopefully there are some good shots in there to share. Ok all for now, farvel. Hej, hej.

You Can Find Me On 'Dem Internets!

Today: So the internet was finally up and running after only THREE weeks of waiting impatiently. What a relief though I must say. I actually have an outlet to the world. However, I was getting quite fond of sitting on the front stoop of an apartment building stealing a signal from my dear old friend unsecured ZyXel, or sitting in the "nook" with my other unsecured signal buddy Linksys. The "nook" was the first spot that I could sit relatively comfortably and check my email. It was a small window ledge cut into the side of the apartment building about 4 feet high and 2 feet deep a perfect little nook to steal a signal. Between odd looks from passerbys, lost signals, precipitation, and back/forearm fatigue I am glad that I finally had to break up with the "nook."

August 18th-September10: So let's go back to the beginning. I left on August 18th arrived on August 19th in Denmark. My flight from Chicago to Frankfurt was not so bad I watched episodes 1-7 of season 1 of Mad Men which kept me busy. The plane however was not so nice. It was old so there was only one TV screen up in the aisle and not on the back of every seat. Now maybe I was spoiled on some of my other flights but come on if you have to watch what they put on one screen lets pick something other than Hannah Montana! My seat was also very small there was a noticeable 3 inch increase in knee room on my connecting flight from Frankfurt to Copehagen. Not only was the plane like an archaic sardine can but my seat was an aisle seat in the last row near the bathroom. There was a ton of traffic constantly going by. Now I have reasonably wide shoulders but they were absolutely not sticking out far enough to justify a stumbling right or left cheek square on my shoulder. One girl did it three times and I almost had to strangle her. I kept my cool though and took a deep breath and hit play to another episode of Mad Men.

When I landed in Copenhagen it was 9:30 am local time, the flight wasn't too bad and the layover in Frankfurt was just an hour so the trip really didn't take too long. I wasn't that tired and Christa was waiting outside of baggage claim to pick me up so everything went really smoothly. Drove directly to Middelfart (2.5 hours) moved all the essentials into the car trailer to bring back to the apartment back here in Odense. Once we got all the boxes in and bed set up I passed out at 7 pm which was like noon for me on zero sleep. I slept straight to 5:30 am. I was wide awake so I started setting up the place and unpacking. Seems pretty normal right? I always am up at 5:30 am cleaning. Had a meeting at noon with the club they welcomed me to Denmark and I got the rest of the supplies for the apartment from a storage warehouse. Table and chairs, microwave, bowls, pots and pans and a vacuum. All was fine but when I fired up the vacuum it nearly started a fire. It worked for about 20 mintes and did a good job but then it went pop and wouldn't turn on again. Ooops!

• On a similar odd note - I know I mentioned this before in other emails and writings but all the doorways in Denmark have this strange rising sometimes a small one but other times it could be a good half inch and it just makes you trip all the time if you aren't looking down or used to it. When barefoot its not nice kicking one. Another strange thing is that in the center of the ceiling is the power for a ceiling light. You string power from that to where ever you want the light placed on the ceiling. Now since they are so interchangeable people take these light fixtures and you are left with no light unless you have your own. Now we didn't have one or one that was so easy to install so we had small end table lights on the window sill and the TV as our only source of light in the dining and bedroom for a week. Really odd. Also the electricity wall outlets are located below a light switch so they are high up on the wall. It's really ugly, chords everywhere dangling. Just a few observations of strange differences.

So where was I? Ok so the meeting with the club. The club director and coach/do everything guy were really nice and gave us some money for a couch because the one they had was too big to fit in our place reasonably. Everything that I have encountered so far has been run really well. No suprises like on other teams that I played on. They really want you to be comfortable and it shows. I couldn't be happier. Oh and the couch is awesome too!

Our first games were against a German First Division team called Wuppertal. We played two exhibition games against them interchanging squads frequently. I think we lost both in 4 but we weren't that far off. Following these two exhibition matches we had a small tournament called the Scandic Cup with 4 teams: Wuppertal, us, Middelfart and Gentofte. We lost in 5 to Wuppertal basically gave them the match it was pretty bad but you could see we were getting it more and more as we kept playing more together. Matches 2 and 3 we won both. 3-0 against Middelfart and 3-2 against Gentofte so we took second in the round robin tournament. 5 matches in 4 days was a brutal assault on my body. Jesus!

Since then we have just been conditioning and trainging as a team. Two Americans from the exposure tour made the squad my good buddy Chris Nelson a teammate from Loyola and a new comer from St. Louis Joe Deimeke. Both good additions which should put us over the top as the favorite to win everything this year. Other than that I have been dominating books on my Kindle and coaching twice a week on top of practicing 4 times a week so far. It has been a great first few weeks and I am looking forward to having a really nice stay here in Denmark.

The only bad thing really has been that I seemed to have agrivated something in my lower right leg and it is usually left throbbing in pain pretty bad after practice. I saw a doc and had an x-ray and he seems to think that it could be over use or some nerve problem. I am off of it until Monday so I hope to be 100% or really close to it by then. We leave tonight after practice for a team building camping trip of sorts I guess. They haven't filled us in on much of the details, but it should be fun. Orders were to bring a sleeping bag, a pillow, running shoes and a bike. I just say ok and show up I don't ask questions. Miss everyone! Keep checking for further posts and pictures...hej hej