Home Opener

Hello everybody. Thanks for checking in. Last week was our home opener. We played Lyngby that moved up from the first division last year. To say they were bad is an understatement. I can't imagine playing them two more times, once was too many. At least we only have to go there once. We won 25-14, 25-14, 25-16. Since that match not much has been happening on the volleyball front. We played on a Thursday so we had the weekend off.

This week practice resumed as usual. Our practice schedule has been a little brutal this year though. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are all 8-10 pm. I'm not home until 10:30 most nights. If I didn't make an early dinner before practice I am not eating until 11 or later which isn't good. We also lost sauna Tuesdays. Last year practice on Tuesday was at 4 so after we would have a nice long recuperating sauna/cold pool. The only good thing about practicing so late is that I can get a nice hard lift in at CCS and still be ready to go later. I have been hitting the pool hard to on any day off that we have had. I have been to the pool 5 times so far. Been doing pretty well. Today I did a quick 50 lengths in a 25m pool in just a little over a half hour.

My shoulder felt pretty good at practice yesterday, almost no tightness or pain in the initial hitting warm ups. I hope by next week I'll be back to 100% so I don't have to be tentative every time I hit a ball not in perfect stride. Wondering if this all out swing on an out of system set is going to hurt or not. Hopefully my next post will be the last time I have to mention it, and it will only be mentioned to say it's over.

This weekend we travel to Copenhagen to play Hvidovre, a team that was in the bottom of the elite division last year in Denmark. Should be better than Lyngby but not by much. Wish we could just play double headers with some of these weaker teams in Copenhagen so we wouldn't have to drive 4 hours round trip to play less than 60 minutes.

Molly has been doing really well. She is now 10.5 weeks old. Getting big! Well bigger. We live half a mile from a walking path through the woods down near the Odense harbor. Molly really likes to get down there and get all the different smells and do a bit of hunting. She walks pretty well most of the time. We also live about 2 blocks from a huge soccer field that is actually two soccer fields adjacent to each other so she can be unleashed and run free a bit. She can't run very fast but she has a pretty legit first step burst. She also has started to recognize her name so she listens more and stops doing bad things when she hears "Nej!"

All for now. Talk soon.

Pre-Season Comes to an End

Last Wednesday pre-season came to an end, kind of, when we had our first LandsPokal match of the season. The LandsPokal is the Danish Cup. A single elimination tournament consisting of any team that choses to enter from the first division and elite division. This side tournament is actually a pretty big deal in Denmark. The finals is played in Odense at the end of January in front of 2,000+ spectators by far the most at any one match all season. Our first opponent was Lyseng from Århus. They were from the 1st division so we were not expecting a tough match. It was really just a nice warm-up match to work out some "real game" kinks, play a few different line-ups, and most importantly put on the new jerseys. We won 3-0 pretty handily and yes we looked good doing it!

The next day we scrimmaged a team from the second league in Germany. A team from Kiel which isn't too far from Hamburg. We agreed to play 4 sets no matter what. We played a different lineup every game while they kept their same team on the court for all 4 games. We split the games 2-2. They were ok, they would probably finish 4th in Denmark's elite division if I had to take a guess.

We had Friday off so I headed to Middelfart a day before the weekend tournament there and stayed with Christa's family. We brought little Molly (9 week old brown Dachshund) along and she had a blast playing with Christa's family dog Ceta ( 2.5 year old Springer Spaniel). Christa's little sister Line especially loved taking care of Molly as much as possible and just wanted to hold her every second. Christa and I stayed the whole weekend and Christa's parents were great as usual. We had great meals, great wine, and had a lot of laughs. It was a nice weekend.

Since Wednesday's Pokal game was the first official game that counted in the win/loss column, pre-season should have technically ended, but anyway this weekend we had the Middelfart International Pre-Season Tournament. I think the international part should have been dropped because there was only 5 teams all from DENMARK! Which was a bummer because we play all of these teams 3 times in the regular season, maybe once in the Pokal, and maybe a few more times in the Nordic Cup. It's always nice to play some unfamiliar teams if only for bragging rights in the end. For the first two matches of the tournament a lot of different lineups were used again. Different personnel on the court for every game. Good to see everyone get out there but not the best for game chemistry. Lots of cold bodies coming in, or lots of once warm bodies but now cold coming back in for the third set, fourth set, or even fifth set. I'm not saying we shouldn't have done it this way. What I'm trying to say is that it's really hard to make substitutions in volleyball. It's not like basketball where people need occasional rest to stay at the top of their game. Volleyball players typically play a whole set/match, then players are switched if necessary. But that 1 set takes every bit of 30 minutes. I might have been able to sit 30 minutes and come into a game in high school or college but I just can't do it anymore. My knees and back would be so cold they would shatter after one jump. It's a tough job coming off the bench in volleyball and I respect that a lot if someone can do it and do it well. Ok, so anyway, we won both of our Saturday matches and everyone got a good amount of time out on the court, so that was good.

Day two, we had an early start. A 9am game to be exact. The day before it was decided that we would play all of the young guys in the early match to see if that would make them more comfortable as a unit. They came out pretty flat lost the first two sets. We changed some guys around and ended up taking the match in 5. Middelfart was 3-0 and we were 3-0 so the last game of the round robin was for the title. Middelfart has a lot of new faces this year. We alternated sets. They won the first in a very close back and forth set. We won the second pretty easily after they made a lineup error swapping the opposite and outside spots by mistake. Set three back to them in another very close game. Set 4 we won comfortably. Going into the fifth set I thought there was no way we were going to lose. 8-4 switch was looking good. 10-6 sideout ok nice. 12-9 well on our way. But then we never scored again. They ran 6 straight on us and just like that we lost the match. It was pretty disappointing to lose in such a fashion after playing hard for an hour and a half. But hopefully all this loss does is give us some more motivation when we face off again.

My shoulder held up pretty good in the match against Middelfart which was good. I had a good amount of power with little or no pain until the 5th set. Some 60+ swings later, so I hope the worst is behind me with this darn thing. I have been back to swimming at the pool, twice since Friday, and I really think that has helped a lot in turning my shoulder around. Well if not completely around at least in the right direction. I was telling Joe today at the gym that today was the first time in a month that it felt like my shoulder was actually part of my body again and not me vs. my shoulder. Practice tomorrow will hopefully confirm that I am on the right track.

I have found a website online that streams the Bears games every week for free so I have been able to keep up to date with this wacky team. Week 1 looked like the Bears might win maybe 4 games all year. Week 2 made the Bears look like a 10 win team or just really highlighted the fact that the Cowboys aren't as good as everyone thought. I just hope the Bears can continue to win in the only way they now how, UGLY!

All for now. Thanks for checking in. Next week I'll upload some pictures of the new apartment as well as little Molly!

And we're back...

Hello all, it's been quite some time since I last wrote. "Quite some time" is an understatement, but in my defense, every year I think I have been writing more and more consistently. And yes I know, I have never finished an entire season on the blog. So lets set that as a goal this year. To update every Sunday for the entire season. (Yes this post counts as a May 12th post!) Can it be done? Sure. But it's not going to be easy.

I had a great summer at home. Highlights were playing beach ball, hanging with the crew, spending quality time with the fam, Phoenix, Michigan, Lollapalooza, and the Danes visit. They aren't listed in any order but all stood out in a fantastic summer!

I have been in Denmark now for just a day over two weeks. I'm all settled in to the new apartment. It is starting to feel more and more like home everyday. Solid upgrades on the living arrangements are 1) Dishwasher 2)Washing Machine/Dryer 3) Normal sized Fridge/Freezer. Check, check, and check! The location is nice too. A stones throw from the train station, and centrally located between Marienlyst Center, Idraetspark, and CCS. The three places that I spend most of my time over here. The weather has been reasonable too. No heat, but it has been relatively dry which is nice for the daily commutes. (It's raining now wrote this first part this morning!)

My shoulder has been a problem basically since I got here. I'm not sure if I tweaked it lifting luggage on the train into the overhead or I slept on it funny. All I know is the day after I arrived when I woke up I couldn't lift my arm. I tried to practice a bit that night and it never loosened up at all. I tried to swing once and I think I tweaked it even more. Lots of ice and ibuprofen since then. Also lots of light shoulder work at the gym. It has been making progress. I have regained most of my range of movement but I still can't go all out on a swing without pain. So it's a waiting game right now. I have treatment scheduled tonight before practice so hopefully we can figure this thing out. Not being able to play is very frustrating. I need to get going because I haven't really played indoor ball since nationals which was the end of May. I know it's a long season and I shouldn't rush it but I have never really been injured in my entire career so sitting out is not something I'm used to at all and I really don't like at all. I've got my fingers crossed that I will be 100% for the Middelfart pre-season tournament next weekend.

Some new additions to life in DK in the last two weeks have been pretty big as well. As most of you have heard by now Christa finally got her baby dog. We are picking up little Molly this Sunday. She is an 8 week old brown dwarf Dachshund. And as many of you have also heard I got my little baby too, a red Puch Maxi K scooter that I have already got a ton of enjoyment out of. And no Mikkel it's not lazy riding a scooter, but yea ok maybe gay.

We have finally just got everyone to practice so we can see how we are going to look this year. We have a lot of new faces. We lost 7 players from last years team. We added 5 players. The average age has gone down dramatically. I was in the middle last year. This year I am the third oldest. Not sure if that's good or bad but it's just different seeing all these different faces in the locker room. No Bits stories and suana oils, Merty Gerdy hammer left leg, Soe's shoe collection, Travis' saying "nah mate" or "I reckon", Nelly's Ray Lewis hagabow D, Joaks flailing on the ground, or Bertle aka Dilf blasting balls off the ceiling with foot or fist. We will miss you guys. The 5 new guys signature moves TBD.

We had a team trip last weekend. Laid out all the team goals, expectations, roles, and grievances. First night we slept on a gymnastics pad that was harder than the Marienlyst gym floor, if thats possible, in sleeping bags. The next day, after maybe sleeping 2 hours because I couldn't get comfortable and Hjorth was snoring like a chain saw right next to me, we had breakfast and our first team drill was flag football. I ran QB for our squad. Spread the ball pretty well I think everyone on our team scored a touchdown or a PAT. We won 35-13, gave a pretty good beating to the other side. After that we biked to the military obstacle course just like we did the year before. Man that is tough work. Lunch was sandwiches and a beer and then we walked and talked with a partner all the way back to the city center to Munke Mose which was a good hour away. Once we all arrived we had another team building exercise where we had to use some strings and a bike inner tube to move a bucket filled with water to another bucket 50 ft away all while not coming closer than 5ft to the first bucket at any time. And once you have moved it to the other bucket you still need to dump all the water from bucket 1 to bucket two while not spilling any We failed the first time. Second time through we nailed it. After that we biked all the way out to Kaj's house which is not close either probably 30 minutes by bike. Once we got to Kaj's we had to set up a 9 meter x 3 meter tent so we could all "maybe" sleep under it. The "maybe" is because there was this weird secrecy to everything that we were doing. Not at any time did we really know what was going on or what was next. So every question we asked it was either "yea maybe" or "I don't know we will have to see". Once the tent was up everyone had to take a shower. No problem Kaj had a nice outdoor shower with only cold water. Wait what? Yea it was maybe 50 degrees outside and he had a only a cold water pipe on the shower. I said no way I'm not doing that, that is crazy. But according to Kaj no food if you don't shower. So I sucked it up and had the coldest shower of my life by far. It actually felt kind of good but I wouldn't do it day and night like Kaj half kiddingly said he does. After that we sat around a table and went over what our hour long walk talks were about but this time in front of the whole team for people to comment on. And finally at this time we had some ice cold beverages at hand. They were well deserved. We went through that and got ready for dinner. Just about everyone had a job to get the meal ready. Some in the kitchen, some on the grill, and some on table duty. It ran smoothly we ended up with a ton of meat. Chicken, steaks, and sausages. Cold ones going down and wine flowing we were having a good time. After dinner was done we had some more team stuff to do. This time it was called something like team or sport theater. We had to first play a game similar to telephone where you pass on a word down a line and see what you come up with, but this game was a bit different. You had three words to pass on, a weapon, a handicap, and a profession. With only acting using no words you had to get the next person down the line to guess the three words that the other team came up with. The first person in the line is the only one who knows the real words. Once you act each out and get a thumbs up you were done and out from the back room the next teammate would come out and the guy who thought he knew what you just showed him, did it all over again but with what he thought the words were. As you can imagine down the line things were lost and by the end it was hilarious. We had ninja star, dyslexia, and glass blower. I think at the end we had bare hands, illiterate, and fire eater. Bare hands was funny because it initially started out two words 1) ninja - so there was kicking and breaking of necks 2) outside pointing to a star. Then tying it all together. As it progressed to the end all that was left was a guy coming up and breaking someones neck going "ahhhh" it was really funny. We played a few more acting games that were hilarious and then got ready for bed around 2ish or so outside in the tent. Was really cold outside but the sleeping bags did a good job only the ground was so hard my back was and still is really tight. In the morning we had a nice pancake breakfast and went out for a walk to get a stretch in. We had one more team meeting and that concluded the team weekend. Lots of laughs and we got much closer as a team so it was overall a success.

Other than that we have just been practicing and lifting like usual. We did have a scrimmage last night in Arhus but it was pretty uneventful the competition if you can call it that was very poor. Good to see us in a 6 vs 6 against someone other than ourselves but the other team didn't help us much other than to put it bluntly waste our time. Sad but true. We have this weekend off and next week we will be very busy. We have a German second division team coming up to scrimmage us. And next weekend we have the Middelfart pre-season tournament. Like I was saying earlier I hope to be good to go by then otherwise I might go crazy. So it should be good to see how we match up even though it's just pre-season and doesn't really mean much other than bragging rights. We are looking good and I expect us to be just as good as last year or better. Things are looking good. All for now. Miss everyone at home. Talk soon.

Updates coming soon...

silver & GOLD!!!

Well, it's been a while since I last checked in, and for that I apologize. But other than the two championship weekends not much has really happened. We had three routine wins against teams from the bottom of the barrel of the elite division which really isn't worth reporting unless we played rock, paper, scissors for the match instead of actually playing volleyball. But the possibility of winning two championships in a span of two weeks? It doesn't get any better than that!

January 24th was the date of the Pokal Finale in Idraetspark in Odense. This building is practically our home away from home. We practice there twice a week so we were feeling really good about taking the top honors. I felt like we had a decent week of practice leading up to the final, not great, but not terrible. We didn't have any substantial injuries or anything either so again, our spirits were high. We even set up the Teraflex floor the night before as a team so we were able to get a feel for the transformation our familiar setting was undergoing. Game day came and we went early to watch the women's championship match. The women's team from Odense won 3-0. The gym was crowded with at least 2,000 in attendance. It is a really special game. So the time came where it was our turn to go out and get one of our early season goals. Set 1 went as smooth as possible we took control early and held for a 25-22 first set win. The second set went even smoother. They made tons of errors and we got out to a really big lead. I think we were up by more than ten after 15 points. I think the game was going so much easier than we thought we took our foot off the accelerator and started to relax. Gentofte looked like they were just going to give us the medal Set two we won 25-12, we were up for so long we definitely lost that killer instinct and settled into thinking that Gentofte was going to lose and we didn't have to earn it. Game three we wen't down early and expected Gentofte to make a ton of mistakes like the first two sets but that never happened. We never recovered from the early deficit and dropped game 3. Game 4 you could almost feel the momentum switch and we got really tight. We started playing safe not trying to make errors and that is not a way to play. It only compounds the problem. Again we got down early made a late rally but couldn't close the gap and again we failed to even get to 20 points. And on to a 5th set. In a shortened game anything can happen so it is really important to get out to an early lead. That is just what we did. We rushed out to a 7-5 lead one point away from the side switch. We failed on three straight side out attmpts to get to eight and they got the switch first. Gentofte played a pretty good fifth set but I have to think that we lost instead of them beating us. After 7-8 we had a free ball hit the ground, a miscommunicated float serve ace down the middle, and a middle trying to set a dig when the setter was right behind and getting a double. Can't do that after 8 in a championship 5th set. But even after all this we still were given another chance. At 14-13 Gentofte's Jonas Napier hit a ball off of our block and the refs failed to see it so they awarded us the point. Now we should have lost right there but what can you do? Either way now its 14-14. Nelly hit a jump float that they overpassed and I crushed to give us match point. What a crazy turn of events! I for sure at this moment though that we were going to win. Next point was theirs however to tie it back up at 15-15. Now I'm not entirely sure about the exact sequence of points for the rest of the way, but what I do recall is a down ref who decided to take it upon himself to be in the spot light. Setter in position 6, puts me in position 3 where I am stacked near the net where I have to be to the left of the middle blocker and in front of the setter. We are in black on the left as shown below.

As you can see, it is really close. But my feet are in front of the setters just before contact. This is the closest we could get it from the video. But regardless, it is so close that if you have to have a debate about who is right is a joke. You simply can't make this call in a 5th set beyond 15 points of a championship. You just can't. That is like calling a foul in basketball with .02 left on the clock on an inbounds play of a tied game. It doesn't happen? Why? Because it shouldn't happen and everyone knows that. Ok, well they missed the touch call so we should have already lost so I guess we are even now so it wasn't time to blow up completely the game wasn't over yet. We side out to tie it back up at 16. Looks like this is going to be an epic battle now for the championship. They side out right back to go up 17-16. Routine pass, great set, I hit the ball as hard as I can for the line it hits the block goes right over my shoulder and out of bounds. Game again tied at 17 all. I am on my way back to serve when I look over my shoulder and see that the down ref, same idiot again, says that the ball touched me on the way out. The ball was 6 inches away from me at least I did not touch the ball. I watched it go right over my shoulder and out. The one time in Denmark we have line judges and some down ref decides to over rule everyone. The up official signaled touch and awarded Gentofte the point and championship point! Sad to see the officials blow 3 calls in the end of a fifth set! This picture explains it all:

It was a tough way to go out. What a game it was. It had a little of just about everything. But who knows how great it really could have been if we were allowed to continue to play? I did somehow manage to get the pokalfighter award which is the game ball for the match. Thought about punting the golden volleyball into the stands, but that thought quickly faded. Here are a few more of the pictures that appeared in the paper:

The good times!

Hitting the outside ball

The good thing about playing another championship the following week was that we had a chance to redeem ourselves. We boarded the bus at 6am on the following week for a nice long 12 hour bus ride to Sollentuna which is a suburb of Stockholm. This championship weekend was a bit different though. It was between 4 teams and it was a round robin. So basically the team with the best record after playing the three matches would win. We came into Sollentuna really wanting to get that championship monkey off of our backs. The first match was against Sollentuna the hosting team. They had just unveiled their new home court a few weeks before so it was a nice championship venue. This gym actually had a higher percentage of doors locked than the Marienlyst Center! You needed a microchip to get into the locker room! We came out pretty flat lost game one playing terribly. However after we settled in we played much better and Sollentuna on the other hand played really poorly so we won the next three sets. Taking it 3-1.

The following day we met Falkenberg. They had lost the night before in 5 to Middelfart so they needed to win this match. We came out strong with a little extra intensity with Joakim on the court. He played for Falkenberg the year before and they kind of treated him unfairly so he was really ready to go and crush them. We came out pretty strong winning the first two sets relatively easily. Our middles started going off and that was the difference for us. We did have a slight lapse and dropped game three but we came back strong and took game 4 for a 3-1 win again. Middelfart won as well after us so it came down to a Danish final winner take all.

First set we came out really hard and played quite possibly our best ball all year. We could do no wrong. Wherever Middelfart hit the ball we were right there. It was a beating and we won 25-12. Second set we were cruising again but we had a passing break down in the middle of the set and never recovered. Dropped the second set. Third set we came back strong again and battled back and forth until we finally broke them and took the set. Set 4, again passing break down middle of the way through and Middelfart looked to be shaking some of their tiredness and were gaining confidence. They held on and took the 4th set. So again to the 5th and decisive set. Jordan started serving and boom first serve ace. Good start. I think we got another two more points and we started up 3-1. We had some troubles and lost the lead and we were down 7-5, the other side of the score from the last championship. But the same thing happened but this time in our favor we got the next 3 points for the switch put us up 8-7. From here we scored more points and took a good sized lead to match point 14-11. First match point I got the ball took a hard swing but it was dug and they ended up scrapping for the point. 14-12. Next play we went to the middle and it sailed out, 14-13. Uh oh, time out us. This is getting interesting! We were in one of our best attacking rotations to so they surely couldn't stop us three times in a row? I got the last set and crushed it down the line off the liberos knee and into the stands and everyone rushed the court! Here is the final point and some other pictures from the weekend:

Kill and court rush!

Hitting vs Sollentuna

Serving vs Middelfart

So much better to win GOLD!!

This is what it looks like to win Silver! See the difference...

New Years and Championship Month

So what is everyone saying for the new year date? Are you going with Twenty-Ten or Two Thousand and Ten? I thought Twenty-Ten was lame at first, but it's been growing on me and it seems like the favorite now. Two-Thousand and Ten is a mouthful, saying the other is definitely easier. But what about next year? 20-11 vs 2011? I might have to switch for that one. Right now I'm not really digging the "y" in twenty and the "e" in eleven together. We will see.

The days leading up to NYE Christa and I went to Copenhagen to visit our friend Kristine. She is from Middelfart so she is good friends with Christa. She moved this year to Copenhagen for school so we promised we would have to come visit once she got an apartment and was all settled in. So this time was just as good as any to go check it out. We jumped on the train and embarked on our journey. I read on my Kindle and Christa still had her Ipod glued to her head for the duration of the 2 hour ride. Kristine met us in the train station in Copenhagen to ensure a smooth arrival. Her apartment was just a few bus stops from the train stop. Her place was nice. All decked out in IKEA, naturally. The first night we just had some drinks and dinner in her apartment and caught up a bit. The next day we set out for the town to just walk around a bit and see some of the city. Our first stop was to check out Christiania. It's basically a free zone in the center of Copenhagen. Consisting of abandoned military buildings and facilitiess taken over by and interesting crowd of people, free spirits if you will. The area is a tad bit shady but not dangerous during the afternoon when we were there. Wikipedia defines it as:

Christiania, also known as Freetown Christiania (Danish: Fristaden Christiania) is a self-proclaimed autonomous neighbourhood of about 850 residents, covering 85 acres in the borough of Christianshavn in the Danish capital Copenhagen. From an official point of view, Christiania is regarded as a large commune, but its relation to the authorities has a unique status in being regulated by a special law, the Christiania Law of 1989 which transfers parts of the supervision of the area from the municipality of Copenhagen to the state.

Christiania has been a source of controversy since its creation in a squatted military area in 1971. Its cannabis trade was tolerated by authorities until 2004. Since then, measures for normalising the legal status of the community have led to conflicts, and negotiations are ongoing.

It was really special because it was just in the center of Copenhagen, yet it didn't have the normal feeling of being in a city. It really was like you were in a different country or something. I thought that the sign when you were leaving through the arch was pretty funny. "You are now entering the EU."

After that we walked around some more, passing by the Royal Palace. The guards had the bayonets and bearskin hats doing the super stiff walk back and forth. Here there was a pretty impressive view of architecture, from the center looking at the palace and then directly down the street to your right is a massive cathedral. We popped our heads in for a quick peak and continued to walk on. We were getting hungry so we decided to get a late lunch early dinner. We went to a buffet off the shopping strip. It was a buffet without meat. When I heard that I was like umm ok well what am I supposed to eat! But it was fine, pizzas, pastas, rice, veggies,etc. Could have done with a little meat but what can you do, haha. After the dinner we thought it was time to check out Tivoli.

We walked over and got in line to get tickets. We lucked out here because some old guy and his wife were selling two tickets for the price of one including the unlimited rides ticket. This was perfect because Kristine and I were only planning on going on rides anyway. Christa will be mad at me for saying this but she is a baby about rides so she just got the entrance ticket. Anyway it worked out perfect saved a little money and got right in. It was a visually fantastic landscape inside the grounds, Christmas lights on just about everything. The theme of the place was kind of a fairy tale land meets and old carnival. They did have some rides but probably only two that would really get me going. The first ride we went on was called the Demon. It was just a simple rollercoaster. Really short ride and didn't really give you the whoa factor. Ehh not riding that again especially after waiting for 20 minutes. After that we started walking again to the next ride. They had a Giant Drop, which they called Gylden Tårn, or The Golden Tower. There was no line at all, so naturally I was super pumped. It might be my favorite ride ever. I rode it three times in a row, oh man I loved it. After that we went over to the new ride called Vertigo. It was basically a giant arm that rotates a car that resembles a plane, 360 degrees, like a giant arm on a clock. Top speed was 60 mph. We had to wait a good hour to ride this one because only one of the two arms was working. One car only held 4 people! The wait was definitely worth it though, the whoa factor was definitely present. And plus we had a good view of the nightly fireworks show from our vantage point in line waiting. No wonder why it cost so much to come in. Every night they blow the place up like its the 4th of July! After such a long wait we needed to warm up so we hit up a place to grab a drink and a snack. We had some æble skiver and some gløgg. Æble skiver is a Christmas time pastry of sorts. The best way to describe it is that it is like a pancake-crepe in a ball shape. It is served with strawberry jam and powdered sugar. The gløgg is the warm wine with I want to say vodka in it with nuts and raisins at the bottom. My drink was stiff enough to be carried by a Saint Bernard on a ski slope rescue mission. I wasn't cold after that, no sir...ok, well not quite it was a cold night. The next ride was the big boy spinning swings. This thing took you way up, I mean way up. It wasn't scary but what it was was really cold. Whipping through the air way up there at a pretty good speed. Ok one and done on that one too. Back to the Golden Tower! Again no line. I kid you not I rode it 5 times in a row bringing my tally to 8. It was incredible. Get off and then get right back on no waiting. Basically my theme park dream come true. There were 5 different sides to the ride so I rode them all to get a different view of Tivoli as well as Copenhagen. The view from the top was amazing. Then the free fall....awesome!

The next day we went down to the Copenhagen shopping area. Just the downtown street where stores just went on and on and on for blocks. We just walked around occasionally popping into a store to check it out. But it was pretty slim pickins seeing as it was after Christmas and everything was on sale. After we started getting cold and it was getting later we thought it would be a good idea if we headed for the train station to get home. It had been a really hectic break up to that point. I left the day after our team party for Norway. The day after I got back there were 3 straight Christmas parties. One day off, then we went to Copenhagen. It was really nice to finally get home and sleep in my bed.

The next day was NYE. We didn't really have anything planned. It started getting to a point where we were just going to make a nice dinner and maybe just go outside at 12 and see some fireworks. But nah, it was NYE we had to do something. So we invited Travis and Joakim over. It was good because they were in the same boat as us, nothing to do. But get us all together I'm sure we could get into some shenanigans. One of the soccer guys from Marienlyst named Søren offered to have us over at 12, they had some fireworks. We said ok, after all it was in the same building just around the corner. At midnight WW3 erupted in the streets. Professional grade fireworks being set off by normal people. And every party on our block as well as all the blocks around us that I could see were having their own private fireworks show. It was impressive. If you did a 360 you would see legit fireworks in every single direction. I had never seen anything like it. Didn't seem like the safest of scenarios but we made it out unscathed and impressed with how well the Danes celebrate a new years. After that, we went up to the party that Søren was having and had a few beverages. The night was capped with Singstar. All in all a great holiday season. The only way it could have been better would have obviously been to come home. I think if I do play again next year that will have to happen for sure. I do miss family on the big holidays.

Volleyball started back up on the 2nd of December on a Saturday. We have been practicing since then. The first couple of practices were rough. It's funny how much you can lose in such a short period of time. All the food and drinks obviously didn't help, but my god 15 days off and I felt like I never played before. Each practice was better than the last and we don't play until next Thursday so we have plenty of time to get back into form. After all this is an exciting month for us. On the 24th we face off against Gentofte again for the Pokal Cup Championship which is the Danish Cup Championship. And the following weekend we are going back to Stockholm for the 4 team round robin Nordic Cup Finals. The other three teams are Middelfart from Denmark, Falkenberg and Sollentuna from Sweden. Should be a fun weekend. We are driving again so winning it all is really our only option. Losing then having that monster drive would be miserable. But partying the whole way home would be fantastic. All for now miss everyone from home! I updated my Skype number so I have it for another 3 months. Feel free to call whenever would be good to hear from you all! Hej Hej and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas/Glædelig Jul and the Rest of Break

Lots to report here so grab a cup of coffee or take a nap you might need a little extra boost to get through this post. Ok, wake up, lets go...

My birthday wish for a win over Middelfart in the Pokal semifinal came true. We won 3-0 at home to advance to the final versus Gentofte at the end of January. The game went smoothly we took control early in set one and built a solid lead. This is nothing new against Middelfart. The two previous matches we had big leads in set one but managed to miraculously lose that lead right back and eventually lose the set all together. This time, however, we just kept the pedal down and sprinted straight to 25. Set two was a bit closer, but we had the lead the whole way. Taking set one and getting another early lead made them back off on thier serves and that really helped us sideout at a high percentage. We won set two and three largely due to this. And you also can't forget that we don't lose in the black jerseys. That might have been the most important variable of all.

After the game we had our usual post game beers in the sauna to unwind and regenerate any bones sacrificed in the "bone yard." Our home court is the "bone yard" because the court is concrete with the thinest layer of rubber ever, if you can call paint rubber. So whenever you play in there the floor claims one random bone in your body. You won't know which one and you won't know when you will get it back. So yes, the sauna helps to speed up this recovery process. The first round of cold pool from the sauna was substituted with a run outside into the snow where we did snow angels on the soccer field. It was classic!

The next day was our team Christmas party. We got to the gym and played a few rounds of hagabow. No idea how to spell it but it's a combination of soccer and volleyball. Got a good run in while sipping on a few beverages to set up the feast that was to come. Grabbed a quick shower, cleaned up, and then sat down at the table for an epic feast and a lengthy snaps session. All the Danish dishes that I have come to know were present. There was at least 5 rounds of food. And there was no shortage of snaps. We went through 4 bottles and there was only 15 people there at the most. Not only was the snaps flowing at a ridiculous rate the julebyrgs were practically jumping out of the box. Whoa...Let's just say getting up at noon to go to Norway with Joakim was interesting.

Morning came quicker than I'd like. And Joakim, who I had just seen in my place 4 hours earlier, was at my door and ready to roll. We were pretty banged up to say the least. Joakim's dad came down for the match and stayed for the Christmas party so he could drive us back to thier home for the holidays. Joakim invited me to come a while back and I thought it would be a great opportunity to get some skiing in and see another country that I had not been to. The weather was a little sketchy so it took somewhere around 8 hours to get from Odense to Joakim's home town of Sarpsborg, Norway. We unpacked and sat down in the kitchen for a nice dinner with Joakim's mom and dad. It was a nice dinner and they were really nice people they made me feel right at home. After dinner we went upstairs to get settled in and prepare the guest bed room. I layed down at 8pm. No intentions of sleeping but did...for 14 hours!

We got up had some breakfast and Joakim said we had a mission to do. His brother was admitted to the hospital the night before with some sort of flu and was unable to get a Christmas tree. So we put on the warmest gear we could find, grabbed an ax and a hand saw and headed out into the forest to get him one. It seemed like an easy enough task, but to find a tree that was just right proved to be pretty tough. After probably an hour of searching we found a winner. Joak took a few hacks and tiiiiiiiiiimber...ok it was only 8 ft tall so it was more of a slow fall and roll, but still we conquered the forest. I had a flannel on under my jacket so I looked the part at least! We carried the prize to the street where it could be transported to his brothers house later.

After we won gold at the outdoor games we took the car into the towns center area. Joakim's younger brother was in from Oslo and he came along as well. It was so cold out that we didn't get much walking done, but we did more of a pub crawl. Made it into some old taverns right on the water and had a few Borgs which was the local favorite beer there. After getting a few beers in a few different places we stopped for pizza. Had a really good taco pizza and another beer, and continued the mini pub crawl. We had made arrangements to see Avatar later so we were just burning some time until then. We hit up one pub that had a pool table but it was ridiculously expensive to play so we only played two games. It was 20kr a game which is $4. Pretty bold at a pub on a coin taking bar table. Anyway, we bounced to one more place then made it to the movie. Avatar was a pretty incredible movie. The only problem I had was when the Na'Vi spoke in their native language the subtitles were also in Norweign! It was funny because I asked Jaokim what did they just say and he looked at me oddly. I was like dude the subs are in Norweign!! Oh yea...But it was fine I got the gist of what was going on none of the dialog was that far out there. We got home around 1 am and Joakim's mom was still up. She had some Gløk out on the stove. It's a Christmas beverage that you add raisins and almond bits to as well as alcohol if you wanted to. We wanted to get up early to go skiing so the virgin blend did just fine. Really nice either way. Bed by 2 am.

After Joakim hit snooze literally 9 times we finally got up. I wasn't arguing I was so comfortable I couldn't get up either. So we got out of the house an hour later than we wanted to but our goal of to be on the top of the Kongsberg mountain at noon was only off by a half an hour. It was -12 degrees Celcius at noon. It was quite a site riding up the lift for the first time all the trees were heavily covered in snow. The top of the lift was 1600m and you could see down to the city below when standing at the top. The mountain was an old silver mining site. Joakim was on a snowboard and I had skis. My first run was a little shaky took me a while to get to the bottom. But by the third time down I was pretty much settled in. I didn't fall all day! We could have stayed and skiied all day but it came to a point where our hands, feet, and faces were just too cold to continue. We made at least 16 runs over a 6 hour period so it was a good day. Walked away with no injuries we were just so cold it was unreal. We left the ski resort and headed into Oslo.

We were on the way when we figured out that Joakim's brother accidentally gave us the wrong keys to his apartment. So we luckily were able to get a hold of Joakim's uncle who lived in Oslo as well. Really nice and interesting guy. He made us some dinner, we had some wine and chatted for a bit. It was funny I just asked Joakim if it was wierd having to speak English to his family when I was around. Not a minute later Joakim's uncle came in and said you know it's wierd talking to my nephew in English, we have never done this before. It's strange for me because obviously they would never speak English when I am not there but it's really cool that they can so easily just go into either language so effortlessly. And since they don't use it all that often, them being so good at it is really impressive. Joakim and I agreed that we wouldn't set an alarm because we didn't need another 10 snooze morning. Bed by 1am.

The next morning we had breakfast and rolled out into Oslo city. The traffic was incredibly hectic. There were street cars whizzing up and down, cars everywhere, and pedestrians crawling everywhere. Coming from Chicago and knowing congestion I would even probably have to pass on trying to navigate Oslo by car. We made it to a parking garage and headed out by foot. Again it was super cold. And now I'm not dressed in 40 layers for skiing, so it's really really cold. We did a quick walk around the town and got some Christmas shopping done. Oh and there are Subway franchises in Norway! I had to eat there even though it was 3x the normal price. I asked them what the hell happened to the $5 foot long? The commercial in Norway must say $15 dollar foot long, geeez! After lunch and a bit more walking and shopping it was time for me to head to the airport. There was an express train that only took 25 minutes from the Oslo train station. I got to the airport in plenty of time to check out the duty free shops and sit down and have a $15 dollar Carlsberg .6L beer, man these prices make my head hurt! Flight was on time and I was back in Denmark an hour later.

Christa called me while I was in Norway and thought it was funny that the lamp and the table were in odd places when she stopped in to grab a few things before going home to Middelfart while I was away. She just thought we had a crazy time here after the team Christmas party. Not for a few hours after I talked to her did I have a weird feeling that something was off here. When I walked into the front door I saw the bowl on the table where I knew I left money and the bowl was on the couch. Now why would that be. I saw the coffee table drawer was out as well and we never use that. I said ok Christa we've been robbed. She said wait how do you know. Well apart from those two things I mentioned, one look in the bedroom and I saw two more drawers that we never used opened. I pulled up the blinds and saw the window clasps were busted. The only things that were taken, thank god, was the money I had left in the bowl and Christa's camera. We had all of our other belongings with us but still that was not fun to come home to. Just knowing someone was stalking this place looking in the windows is enough to make your skin crawl. Upon further inspection the dude tried three other windows before he was able to bust the bedroom one. He actually tried to get into the bathroom window which is less than 2ftx2ft and that made me laugh a little bit. I already mentioned this in my Thanksgiving post but I have the greatest grandparents in the world but this just confirms how great they really are. After my mom told them what happened they wrote her a check to replace the money that was stolen because they felt bad for me during Christmas. It doesn't get any better than that. I love you guys absolutely amazing!

And now we are on to 3 more Christmas parties in a row...Is anyone still there??? Here are a few pictures from the Middelfart game on December 18th for a brief intermission. These pictures appeared in the Odense newspaper.

Jordan dishing to a middle who is going to crush

Celebratory dive for the fans!

I like Lots of line...

Thanks for coming, yea we are pretty happy!

Ok so you made it this far just 3 more Christmas parties to go! December 24th is the day that is celebrated as THE day. I went to Svendbog to Christa's grandparents on her mothers side. It was a nice party lots and lots of food and I absolutely love the duck that they serve on Christmas Eve. So good. The wine also spectacular. After dinner we got up lit the candles on the tree and did the traditional walking and singing around the tree. All the songs were in Danish so I couldn't sing them but I had heard them before. After all this is my third Danish Christmas. I was even allowed to pick a song so I just went with Jingle bells and we got through the first verse, but two times. All in all, a great nite. I got a juicer, a diesel belt, a long sleeve shirt, and some Dior cologne. Christa and I went in together to get all the presents for her family, but the one I did have to get all on my own was a present for Christa. I got her a purple Ipod nano and she has practically had those ear buds glued into her ear canal since then. So I think I did well.

Party 2 on the 25th was back in Middelfart where we went to Christa's parents friends to do it all over again. Another great time. Great food great people, and pretty much everyone made an effort to try and talk to me at some point. I need to learn Danish because these long dinner parties are tough when 95% is in Danish. After a nice dinner they busted out the Wii dance game not sure what it's called but it was pretty funny. Some of the dances are hilarious to watch as an outsider and even funnier to be a participant. After this we headed to Buddy Holly the bar where there is an annual Christmas party. Bo who was a teammate of mine when I played in Middelfart came to the end of the house party so it was nice to catch up a little bit with him and once he came I knew I then had to go out. I also had to beat him in Wii bowling!

Party 3 - Whoa, tough to wake up again, oh man, lots of refreshments at these Danish parties. On the 26th this party started a bit earlier but it was just as long if not longer and this time we were near the German border at Christa's fathers sisters house in Aabenraa. This one is more of a lunch/dinner. Starts off pretty light with breads and meats and slowly builds up to sausages and ends with tons of cheeses. I mean round after round of food just kept coming. We must have been seated at the table from 2-7. Just the list of food from these parties would probably be longer than this blog in itself! Three parties so much food so many cocktails, but really all great people which made for really nice and unique parties. I had a really nice holiday this year.

So now what? I leave for Copenhagen tomorrow for a few days. Going to stay with a friend of mine as well as Christa's. Definitely making a stop in Tivoli it's supposed to be really nice this time of year. New Years we don't have any plans but I'm sure something will pop up when it gets closer. All for now. Congratulations you made it all the way through this blog, well done! I promise none will be longer than this again! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!