First Practice

Welp!  After our first practice, it's clear that our Head Coach has her work cut out for her.

For two solid hours straight we focused on getting in quality touches.  Coach said no jumping at this practice, which reminded me of some good advice Naoto gave me when I was going to try out for the dream team in 2012 - "stay grounded".   :)  I didn't jump once!  Haha!  Oh, and my serving looked a lot better today (thanks to Coach's focus points)!  For a lot of reasons (but mostly to protect the privacy of my coach and teammates) I don't want to write too much here...  Coach stopped us about fifteen minutes early to do partner stretching and massages.  A great way to end the team's first week back!  So far, I feel great about the team, the work, and the community.  Everyone is really really nice and hard working!  Possibly my favorite combination!!

Vocabulaire du Volley Ball

ball - le ballon
net - le filet
court - le terrain
team - l'équipe
coach - l'entraineur
game - le match
practice - l'entrainement
serve - le service
to pass - balancer
to set - passer
setter - passeur/passeuse
to hit - attaquer
hitter - attaqueur
to block - bloquer
to go block - aller au bloque
to dive - plonger
to jump - sauter
in - dedans
out - dehors
short - court
deep - long
mine - laisse
sorry - désolée
good play - bien joué

Linguistically, I'm following most of what is said around me, but when I try to chime in, all I do is joke and my vocabulary and grammar is all wrong, so I'm getting a lot of blank stares - which I'm kinda used to anyway - Haha!  I'm gonna keep at it...  Right now, I'm just reading everything I can get my hands on and enjoying my silence.  I've always envied introverts - so I'm mimicking a little bit of that and trying to observe and listen more: skills I've been wanting to hone more for about as long as I can remember!  :)

There are still some players on vacation, so we won't have the whole team until our next practice on Tuesday night.  We have private meetings with the Head Coach (Maggy Paes - yes, she's a badass - google her!) on Monday.  

More later!

Day 2 - Culture Clash

I feel at home here in Slovenia.  It's not that the Slovenian people are exceedingly welcoming, but I still just feel good - like I belong!  That said, there are definitely some differences here I've noticed that are fun and interesting...

1.  Here they keep the peanut butter next to the nacho cheese sauce in the junk food aisle!  Not next to the jam, honey, or nutella...  Nop.  It's next to the cheez whiz.  Ahahaha!

2.  Scrabble is green:

(Quit looking at my letters, cheaters!!)

3.  Ice ("led" in Slovene) is served on the side in a separate glass with it's own ice-cube-sized serving spoon.

4.  No Bikram   :(    .... yet!  Although I have met some other Bikram yoginis on the tour, and they are awesome!

Well, that's it for today!  The volleyball players here are really amazing...  I wish it could just stay like this and we could be paid to play with this group of ladies because they are a spectacular accumulation of both talent and personality.  I'm feeling the love and lovin' it here so far.

Tomorrow, here I come!  9AM practice and 6:30PM game, which will be live streamed here:
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/4789101/events/2307714