Vacation!

   This blog is long overdue and is not as detailed as it should be. Oh well, here it is:

   Starting on July 30th, after we nearly beat the German national team in a friendly match on the 29th, was our two week break. During this time, Sonja and I planned a trip to Paris and Barcelona. After this I would go to Switzerland for Kristin's American Party on August 6th. We had everything planned....

     Lesson 1: never plan an entire trip without securing train reservations. Although we both had train passes (mine Eurail, Sonja Interail) that allow us to travel on any train within a certain amount of days, some trains require reservations. Sometimes these reservations cost money but only 2-20 Euros and not all trains require them. Anyway, we went to the train station a couple of days before our trip  in order to secure a reservation from Munich to Paris on Saturday the 30th. Well, the entire, yes entire weekend was booked from Munich to Paris!  After a quick plan B action we decided to head to Zurich on Sunday the 31st and then from there hopefully secure a train reservation for Paris on the 1st. Also, from here on out we decided we were not making anymore plans! Improvising through Europe, interesting...

    Thankfully, Kristin said it was okay for us to stay with her and the Lehmanns. So it was set, the morning of the 31st we headed off to Switzerland. Although we missed the first train out of Munich, we hopped on another and eventually found our way. Kristin greeted us at the train station and we drove back to her farm. It turned out to be a great evening and Sonja and I both said that although we didn't make it to Paris this was  great alternative.

      We left Switzerland the next morning, I was sad Kristin couldn't come with us because her, Sonja, and I got along so well...but alas, we arrived in Paris in the afternoon. We walked from the train station to our hostel, checked in, got settled, and headed off to eat. We found a nice cafe/restaurant nearby and to start my vacation off right I got a steak and a mini banana split. We got back to the hostel, looked at some brochures and decided that the hop on hop off bus tour would be perfect.

      The next day, we got up early to not waste anytime. Our hostel provided us with breakfast (croissant, orange juice, milk, and coffee). After that we headed down to where the bus tour met, hopped on, purchased the ticket while the bus driver was driving, almost got into an accident because of this, and made our way to the top of the double decker bus. Transportation with facts about everyplace you go, I love these tours! First stop, the famous Louvre museum that is home to the Mona Lisa. Next stop, Notre Dame (where we ate). Then finally the Eiffel tower. After a long, exhausting day of sightseeing we went back to the Hostel. We freshened up, rested, and decided to go see the city at night. We met an Aussie and three guys from Switzerland at our hostel to accompany us. We thought this was a good move, being girls and in a foreign country at night. After a couple hours out we headed back for a good nights sleep. Paris is also beautiful at night!

       Day three of our adventure started out with us going to this beautiful old church on a hill that was only about a 15 minute walk from our hostel. We did not expect to stumble upon this but it was spectacular and I was happy that improvising was in our favor. We did the same bus tour but a different route. This time we did not stop at as many places to get off because we were both tired. After the tour we went back and rested. Then decided we wanted to see the Louvre and Eiffel Tower  because we heard it was even better at night. This time we met up with a guy from Texas. He was the definition of a Southern gentlemen, so nice! We got a little lost trying to find everything and ended up at an Irish Pub for french fries and some Guinness. After that we found the Louvre and then the Eiffel Tower. We discovered  that at every hour the Eiffel Tower has an awesome light show. :-) It was another great day in Paris.

    Day four of our trip was suppose to be spent in Lyon, France. However, we were having such a great time in Paris we decided to stay and the Mona Lisa was the priority of the day. So we went back to the Louvre,  and stood in line for 40 minutes to get in. It was definitely worth it. Not only was it free for us (because we are under 26) but it was spectacular inside. This was the museum to end all museums. It would take you  at least a week just to look at everything. After exploring ancient Egypt for awhile we headed off to see the famous lady with the ambiguous smile. It was so surreal to see something I have seen a million times in person. Our trip inside the Louvre was great despite the insane amount of people who had the same idea as us. After a couple of hours, we decided to get a little snack. Then  we went back to the hostel because later that night  we planned to go out to eat and then to the top of Eiffel Tower.


We headed  out to get something nice to eat via their train system which is not as clean as Munich but still easy to figure out. We stopped at our favorite food destination which was near the Notre Dame area. We stumbled upon this amazing little restaurant. The food was great and we even met this older couple from Minnesota who were both very friendly. After dinner we headed to what we had been waiting for all day! Up, up, up the Eiffel Tower to see all of Paris. After waiting in line for an hour we finally made it up. Simply amazing, it was such a beautiful sight to see :-)

    While I was in Paris, I found out that Lisa was leaving for California on Friday. Instead of going from Paris to Switzerland on Thursday I made a last minuted decision to go back to Munich to see Lisa off. I got into Munich on Thursday around 3pm. I hung out with Lisa, her friends and the family. Went to bed at 12am and at 3am got up to go with everyone to the airport. After we said good-bye, we drove back to the house and I sprinted to get everything together so I could catch the 6:40 train to Central Station  for the 7:13 train to Switzerland.

     The next couple of days were a lot of fun :-) Kristin had an American Party at her host family's restaurant on Saturday. Kristin, Roman (her host brother), and I comprised of the grill team. It was a successful evening but I was beyond exhausted!! The rest of the time was pretty chill compared to Saturday. It was nice to get to know her host family better especially Roman!

      On my return journey, I got a little mixed up. Lesson two: Make sure when you get off at a stop that its the right one. Yes, I made this mistake. I got off at a stop that had the name of my stop in it but was not the one I was suppose to be at. This little mishap added an additional 4 hours to my trip back to Munich. It also caused me to miss practice. In the midst of this  my german phone ran out of money...oyeee! Eventually I got back but I hope I never make that mistake again!

        I learned sooo many things, ate wayyyy too much, had a lot of fun, barely slept for a week straight, traveled by myself, got lost, met new people, and improvised my way through Europe...What a trip!!!!

Update

      Softball is different here. The last stretch of games we had was a makeup game on Friday the 8th and a double header on Sunday the 10th. The game on Friday was against Gauting, one of the bottom dwellers in our league. The pitcher was  Mandy's 16 year old host sister, Caro.  Her pitches were so slow I think they may have had an arc to them. I was having an off day and did not hit too well. The game was slow, boring, and we won in 3 innings.

     Two days later we played Karlsruhe, the team who we are tied with for second place. In the first game, the pitcher, who is literally in her 40s (my mom could be playing !), pitched almost as fast as Caro. My first two at bats were bad and I would like to forget they ever happened. Moving on, in the bottom of the 5th, we were still down by one run. It was my third at bat, there were two runners on, and we needed to score. All I kept hearing in my head was my Dad saying 'take it to right field. take it to right field.'  A little creepy haha but after my first two at bats I needed something.  After fouling one off, I drove the next pitch over the right fielders head for a triple . After this everyone started to hit and we eventually run ruled them the next inning. Crazy sport. 

     The next game was very important. Karlsruhe has a good American pitcher, a big lefty with a drop ball who hadn't had an earned run all year. Hitting wise this game was no problem for me. I think it had to do with the fact that I was use to seeing lefties with curve and drop balls (Julie Dimatteo and Ali Grab). Unfortunately, Mandy was having an off day. After the first inning Karlsruhe was up by a couple of runs.  After they scored we came back and took the lead even going up by three runs. By the fourth or fifth inning we had a solid lead. Then....some fatty pitches and a couple of errors later it was a tied game.  They held us to zero runs the next inning and another bad inning  put us in a three run deficit. We had some solid hits and runners on but couldn't manager to come back. It was a tough loss but it wasn't the end of the world seeing as though we are still tied for second place and we would win the tie breaker rule if at the end of the season we are still tied with Karlsruhe.  Also, I was very impressed with our hitting we put up 6 earned runs against a pitcher who hadn't given up any all season. This will be good as we face the first place team,Mannheim, this weekend.

    We had a week off from games but I still had to coach the second team. Actually, I was the head coach for the second team game. I was not told any of the other coaches were not going to be there so I had to make the line up and organize everything on the spot. It was somewhat stressful but Sarah (who is on the first team but sometimes plays for the second team) helped me. We were successful in our head coaching debut winning both games! The first in four and the second in three. The hardest part was getting everyone playing time. With only seven innings to work it was pretty difficult. Not too mention the fact that neither Sarah or I knew the substitution rules. We both joked that we never had to think about it because we have always been players and  the coaches handled stuff like that. It was a good game and all of the girls were very excited afterwards. 

     Aside from softball, I have done some pretty interesting/fun things:

    Watched the World Cup game at my host family's house with my host family, their friends Nikki and Ingi (who are always around) and Nils. It was an intense but great game and everyone was cheering for the U.S. which was nice. After they choked the game away I was sad so Mascha offered me a shot Vodka (real Russian Vodka of course!) 

    I went to this festival with my host family. We had to get up at 3am (Yes, 3am!) and leave the house by 3:30 to ride our bikes 35 minutes to downtown Munich near the English Gardens. There was 12,000 people at this festival eating, drinking, and dancing. It was a crazy experience and I was veryyyy tired afterwards!  

    I also finally saw the last Harry Potter movie with Mandy, Lisa, and Nils. It was very good :-) 

  

:-) :-)

     Believe it or not, I wanted to be a professional soccer player when I was little. Soccer was my life...until softball came along. On Wednesday the 29th, part of my dream came true... I went to a World Cup game!!! It was an amazing opportunity and awesome to be a part of a world event especially in another country! I went with Sonja, Julia, Tanja, Kathi, and Toni. Tanja and Kathi are on the second team and Toni is Sonja and Tanja's dad (he also a big part of the club). We saw Norway vs Equatorial Guinea. Norway, the  favorite, won the game even though Equatorial Guinea played better. That's soccer though.


    Sunday was Mascha's birthday. Of course there was a huge party to celebrate. It started at 10:30 am and lasted until 10 or so at night! Lisa and I made peanut butter balls and ants on a log (celery, peanut butter, and raisins). It took about 30 minutes to describe what ants on a log meant haha but they loved it. We also came up with a dance to one of Mascha's songs. It was so popular we had to perform it about 4 or 5 times. I ate entirely too much food but it was a great day !!


     On Monday, the 4th of July (my favorite holiday), I got up at 5am for my trip to visit Sits in Switz aka I went to see Kristin in Switzerland. I caught the 6:00 am train to Hauptbahnhof (central station) for my 7:13 train to St. Gallen. It was a one way shot so there was no way for me to get lost. I arrived at about 10:40 and Kristin and Nadja ( the daughter of the family Kristin stays with) picked me up. We headed to the farm where Kristin lives to pick up some tables and such for the 4th of July party at Nadja's apartment. I was able to meet her host family and see her room. It was nice to see everything in person :-) 
       We helped prepare food and the apartment for the rest of the day until the party. Kristin made pizza dip and I made rice krispie treats! Again...I ate way too much food but everything was delicious. I  got to meet most of Kristin's team which was awesome. We also taught them how to play some American "games"  It was yet another great day...


    On Tuesday, we (Kristin, Nadja, and her boyfriend Andi) headed off for our trip to Tessin which is in Southern Switzerland close to Italy.  Although Kristin and I slept through the first part of the drive we woke up in time to see the best part, through the Alps. It was stunning :-) We stopped for a bit, ate, and headed back on the rode for the remaining hour and half drive. When we finally arrived we unloaded everything, set up our tent, and chilled. Kristin and I went to swim and sun  (pictured right) while Andi and Nadja went to the store. They met us at the lake and we continued to sun for awhile until we decided to head back for some food! We grilled different types of  sausages, had some veggies, bread, and pasta salad. Yum. After this we played a game that Nadja made up on the spot. We later named it Swissican pong. After a couple of rounds we finished and headed off to bed.  


   Wednesday we slept in a little which was wonderful. We ate breakfast and packed up some things for our day trip to a spot that Nadja and Andi knew. The first stop was this huge dam which reminded me of the Hoover Dam. :-) This dam, however, was used in a James Bond movie. cool. 


   After the dam we headed to our destination for the day. It was a rocky area with water flowing through and of course mountains surrounding it. It was beautiful. We found our own private beach area and set up our things for the day. We layed out, listened to some music, and grilled. The weather was perfect. After our wonderful food was devoured we went swimming and did some exploring. This turned out to be a great idea because Kristin and I spotted a platform where some kids were jumping off of. Being the crazy risk takers that we sometimes are (sorry mom and dad) we decided that this was something we should do. We got Nadja and Andi and headed off to the platform which was about 20 feet from the water. Kristin was the first to jump. Then Kristin and Andi went. Finally, Nadja and I who were both a little  nervous went. It was soooo much fun!! Kristin and Andi decided to be even more adventurous and headed to the steel bar that was over the platform which was about 40 feet from the water. It took them awhile to climb up and get their barrings but soon enough they we flying through the air (pictured right). 


    After our adrenaline rush, we headed back to our little spot. We stayed there for a little bit longer and then packed up and headed back to our camp site. We showered, played Swissican pong, and ate some more food. It was such a great day :-)!!


      Thursday we woke up early, packed everything up, and headed off to the train station. It was raining all morning which reflected  how I felt having to leave. I was having so much fun! We stopped at a little place next to the train station to eat some croissants and chocolate milk. Nadja also ran and got me some Swiss chocolate. It was so nice of her!  Finally it was time to leave. I got on the train in Locarno, waved good-bye to my friends, and headed off for my very long 7 1/2 journey back to Munich. This time I had to switch trains twice and was a little nervous especially traveling alone through foreign countries. The first switch was in Bellizona which was 25 minutes from Locarno. Luckily, I overheard some English speaking people and asked if I was in the right spot for the train to Zurich. I was! I got on the train for the 2 1/2 trip. It was a gorgeous ride (pictured right)!!  Once I got to Zurich, I had about a half an hour until my train to Munich. I had no problems finding it and was soon heading back on the final train. I met two people from Ohio State who were on a trip for school. Also, the man that sat across from me who looked like Colin Firth from The King's Speech was very friendly and I had a good conversation with him. 


   I finally arrived at Hauptbahnhof around 5:30..I caught an S-train back to Gronsdorf, grabbed my stuff, and headed for practice at 6:30. Just in time. 


What an adventure!! It was a great trip and it was so nice to see Kris and meet her life in Switzerland :-) I can't wait to travel more... 

Finally An Update

Yes, I know I have been slacking. SOOO let's start with last Monday...
Monday June 20th:
    I went to one of the most famous castles in the world, Schloss Neuschwanstein, which Walt Disney used to model the famous Disney castle after.  I took this lovely trip with Sonja, her friend Mark, and the daughter and mom of his host family from when he lived in Australia (didn't quite catch their names, oops!). We got up early in order to go because Sonja and I had to be back for the second team practice at 6pm. The drive took about two hours and thankfully most of it was not on the Autobahn. Within ten or fifteen minutes before arriving  you could see the castle on the mountain/hill that it is located on (pictured right).
    Once we parked we got our tickets for the tour. Sonja reserved the tickets so we didn't have to wait in the ridiculously long line (my dad would be proud!). Once we got our tickets we headed up the hill  to King Ludwig II's castle. The trek took about 30-40 minutes. It was a gorgeous walk and it didn't seem like it took that long. We finally reached the castle with plenty of time to spare for our tour. Naturally this down time was used for a photo-shoot. Finally, the tour started. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take pictures inside the castle so sorry I cannot personally show you all how amazing it was. I was in awe the whole time, everything was incredible. For example, fourteen carvers worked for over four years just on the King's bed canopy!!
 Here are some pictures of the interior from google (http://www.google.com/search)

       The castle was built to look medieval, even though it was built in the late 19th century. At the same time it had all the latest technology such as a flush toilet, a telephone, etc.
   The tour was very short, it only lasted about 15-20 minutes but it was definitely worth it. After the tour we went to the bride (pictured  left). From the bridge was the most spectacular view (pictured right)!! Again, I was in awe. We did some exploring under the bridge, saw a waterfall or two and then made our way to where we started to grab some food. We ate at this little restaurant and Sonja made me try a typical Bavarian dish (Bavaria is the Munich area). The dish I had was called Schweinbraten. It was meat and this potatoes ball thing. Delicious! We had a little more time to kill before heading back to Munich so we decided to explore the town that was close by. It was a cute little town with old buildings (which are all shops now) along a winding street. We took a look inside this huge church which turned out to be quite impressive. It had beautiful architecture and gorgeous paintings on the ceiling. After walking around for a bit we headed back to the car. From there we drove the two hours to Haar and made it just in time for practice. It was a great day !!

The rest of the week did not compare to Monday so I will not try to explain the events in detail. Although the English Gardens, a party for one of the family's friends, no German class, and softball all contributed to the weeks events.

   

What a Week !!!!

First of all... These people are nuts. Why do I say this? Well, on Saturday the second team (the team I coach) played. This does not sound like anything out of the ordinary, but for me it was. The weather was bad.  It rained the entire day. It was not just a light rain ,but a nice, steady, even at some points pouring rain. It was absurd. If it was America the games would have been cancelled before I even got out of bed. I also got hit in the rib from an overthrown ball. So as you can see this was not my favorite day of the trip...On a lighter note, Lisa made me steak and mashed potatoes when I got home. Food cures everything.

On Sunday, we were finally suppose to play after a week off. I really enjoy playing here and I was super excited to get on the field again. We got to the field early in order to fix the dirt up from the rainy hell on Saturday. Kid you not, as soon as we were finished preparing the field it started to rain. It rained hard, very hard and even threw in some hail. Just for me I guess. After awhile it stopped raining so we fixed the field again. Then it rained...again. The rain stopped and finally there was blue skies so we started to warm up. Ten minutes into the warm up it started to rain again! Of course no decision was made until 20 minutes after game time. These people are nuts! I went back home, soaked to the bone once again. I took a shower and went into the sauna that is in my bathroom with Mascha. We had a typical Russian evening. Sauna, Russian music, and food. It made my day better.....

Sorry for the confusion but I am going to back track to Wednesday the 15th. 

On Wednesday, I went to the mountains with Mascha, Franky, Julia (a girl on the second team and a family friend of the Stoeckels), her parents Hazi and Gitty, and another friend, Ron. Franky referred to these mountains as the pre-Alps but I cant remember the exact name. Anyway, we started our day by taking the 8:20 train from Gronsdorf to Central Station. From here, we took the train to the mountains at 9:00. Hazi, who is the spitting image of Robert Plant, told me that the trip would be exactly 1 hour and 3 minutes. All of their friends love to joke around so it is quite a fun atmosphere to be a part of.  When we got to the little mountain town we stopped for ice cream :-) before our journey.  Then, it began. For two hours we went on a path that was basically straight up hill. We stopped after the two hours to eat and drink. After that we continued. It was so beautiful :-) words cannot describe it so I posted some pictures here. 

   After another forty minutes we stopped at this beautiful restaurant in the mountains. I had Liver Cheese. Don't worry it was not liver that was just the translation. Everyone got a kick out of that. We continued on to our final destination, the lake. It was amazing!!!!  We caught the ferry over to the other side and jumped on the train back to Munich. 

After we got back to the house we quickly showered and went to Hazi and Bitty's house (a short bike ride away). We had some really good food. Hazi also showed me a video of him and his band. Apparently they were very popular in Germany! After dinner we went to the park to see the red moon that North America could not see :-) haha. 

What a week. 

Kids Are Crazyy Monsters

      Saturday marked the start of the 3 day baseball camp that I had to work from 8-5 everyday. It was definitely an unique experience to see how a camp, something I am very familiar with, was run in a different country. There were a lot of things done differently, both better and worse than in the U.S. For starters, the name of the camp, Uncle Tom's, is probably not something that would go over too well in America. But hey, the words politically incorrect have no meaning here.
      The camp was unique compared to ones in the U.S. because some of kids stayed overnight for two nights. Here, baseball is not nearly as popular as it is in the States and I can see how some parents used this camp to get rid of their kids for a couple of days.
     The kids, mostly boys because it was a baseball camp, ranged from 5-14. Personally, I think 5-7 is a little young for baseball. Even the simplest form of the game is still to complex for this age group.  Also, another thing that was different from  America was the fact that safety was not top priority. If kids got hurt, it was really not a big deal they just patched them up and sent them back out for more. It's not something I enjoyed watching especially because it was hard for me to do anything about it due to the language barriers.
        The typical day started off with breakfast at 8 am. I had bread with nutella (which they love here), some meat, and coffee. Then we started with stations (20 minutes x 6 groups). The first day I taught fielding, the second day I taught bunting, and the third day I ran the fielding competition. After the stations we had a two hour break for lunch. Not going to lie, they had some pretty good German food! After lunch was the start of the games. The 6 groups had enough players to fill 2 teams so the kids got to play actual games. This is something that I had never seen before but I thought it was great. They played three one hour games. My job was to ump  for the little little ones. This group was the 5-7 year olds so the coaches softtossed to them. It was really fun to watch but after awhile a little boring too! After, the games they had the player of the day awards followed by dinner. I loved all this food!
       It was a long three days but overall not bad at all. One of the most difficult things was the communication. I felt bad for the little ones because they would come up to me and ask me questions and I had no clue what they were saying. Also, whenever I explained how to do something it had to be translated and sometimes I don't think the translators could understand exactly what I wanted. On a lighter note, I worked the camp with Mandy, Maike (a girl on my team), Nils, and Ryan (the American on the baseball team). We all got along well  and I had a good time getting to know them better.

I'm going to the mountains tomorrow for some hiking :-)  Gut Nacht!
   

Friday Friday

I have decided that I will spare you all the mundane details of my life and just post every few days. Or maybe I'm just too lazy to post everyday!

Nothing too exciting happened on Wednesday and Thursday except for:
- In my German class there are people from all over the world: America :-), Africa, China,  Cuba, Taiwan, Poland, Romania, etc. Most of them speak English but a few of them do not. The miscommunications that occur during the three hour sessions each day are hilarious. For example, my teacher, who is about 8 months pregnant, was talking about her doctors appointment (or at least I think because this was all in German) to the lady from Taiwan, Jeanette, who happens to speak perfect English because she lived in the states for over 10 years. So, our teacher was telling her how much the baby weighs as of now but Jeanette got confused with the pound and kilo difference and thought that our teacher said something along the lines of 10 pounds. It was very confusing for everyone but also very funny.
-On Thursday we were suppose to have practice but we decided to have a team dinner instead due to the rain. However, it was only lightly sprinkling, definitely not enough to cause any problems. This is not D1. Ha!

Fridayyyy:
Today was great! I went to my last German class before the holiday (I get two weeks off). After class, I rode the train to Haar to meet with everyone for our club's annual BBQ. I met up with Mandy and Nils (my new friend on the baseball team) and watched the U16 team take on a mix of older and younger boys. It was interesting. We were all starving so before the game finished we headed over to the tent where they were making food. I got a steak!!, potato salad, noodles, 2 egg rolls, bread, dessert, and a beer for only 5 euro. What a deal! Everything was delicious but I was so full :-) After we ate, we watched the Alumni Slowpitch game. Some of the older guys looked like they were straight out of the 80s and they played with the intensity of major leaguers. Very entertaining! haha  Towards the end of the BBQ my host family came and met some of the people in my club. I'm turning them into softball nuts !

I also learned a very important phrase today: Ich liebe Schokolade which means I love chocolate :-)

I have to work a camp for the next three days from 8-5 each day. 130 kids. On that note, Gute Nacht!