Tilburg

Hi Y'all,
It has been an exciting couple of days for me in the Eindhoven area of the Netherlands. This week I have been trying out with the volleyball club in Tilburg. The training has been going very well, and I am hoping to have a contract by early next week. The area of Tilburg is sort of a college town. There is a Dutch university in the town so there are plenty of young people always around. Several players on the team are currently finishing up at this college.
The weather in the Netherlands is significantly different than that in Spain. If I had to compare its weather to an American city I would say it reminds me of Seattle. It is cool and rainy. It also seems as though the Netherlands is much wealthier than Spain. Most of the buildings and cars here seem new and well cared for. In Spain, many of the buildings were very weathered and worn. Another huge benefit of living in the Netherlands however is that almost everyone speaks english. This is very good because dutch is a very difficult language to learn and I would have much trouble communicating without english.
The players on the team are very friendly and patient. I have been staying with a family of one of the players and they have been insanely hospitable. Despite my efforts to help out, they insist that I only "eat, sleep, and play volleyball". They lift in a condo-like house which is connected to other houses. The house itself is very thin in terms of width but very tall. There are three levels and I am sleeping in the attic at the top. I will get some pictures of it as soon as I can so you can see it for yourself. In the back there is a garden, with an old wooden tea house. I will write another post after Saturday when I find out exactly what my options are in Tilburg, but as of right now it is looking like I will be staying.

Pura Vida,
Adam

Good News—I have been given a try-out for opposite with a team in Tilburg, Netherlands. I don’t know much about the city or the team but I am very excited. The team is a good division II team looking to move up this year. And they are looking for a player to push them to the next level. Hopefully, this team proves to be a good fit for me and I play well enough to earn a spot on their roster. I will write another post as I continue my journey in Tilburg.

Pura Vida,
Adam

P.S. I am including a picture of the “internet café” I have been using over the past few days. AKA random wireless on the roof.

Pictures of the Castle we visited and Some of Madrid

1. Old school streets. 2. Alley of shops and cafes in the Castle 3. In the cafeteria in Madrid 4. Outside the Spanish palace with Tyson 5. In the Madrid central square with Ammo and Jake Schuld

Madrid and the End of the Tour

So it has been several days since my last post and there has been no real news on the volleyball side. Since we have started training in Madrid there has been only one coach who has come to watch us play. And no one has left on try-outs on other teams. This has been very discouraging to everyone. Out of almost 40 athletes only 7 have left for try-outs on other teams. While this may seem a failure on the part of the agents, it mostly a reflection on the job market. Because of rule changes in the quantity of allowed foreigners on a single team many teams already have full rosters. This has put a squeeze not only on the tour players but for returning professional players as well. As you can expect the morale on the tour has been pretty low. Most of the players will just return home on flights later today or tomorrow. My plan is to head over to Holland and stay with Duncan Budinger for a little while until something pops up. While the situation may not be as predictable as first hoped, I am looking forward to hanging out with Duncan and seeing another country.

Madrid-- I have greatly enjoyed Madrid since I have been here. It is much different than Teruel. Madrid is a large metropolis with vast extended suburbs on the outer edges, much like Los Angeles. We are staying in an athletics facility in the suburbs of Madrid, about 20 minutes from downtown. Because there have not been many coaches visiting the training has been pretty light. We went twice a day the first day and then once a day for the next two. I am continuing setting as well as playing opposite in hopes of expanding my potential employment opportunities. Overall I have been very happy with my level of play despite the job situation. The food in Madrid has had much more variety then in Teruel. The cafeteria has served everything from steaks to spaghetti with meat sauce. Because we go eat lunch on our own I have been frequenting the local Kabob vendor. Their Kabob wraps have been the closest thing I have found to a burrito. (I cannot tell you how much I miss Mexican food). Since I have been there I have gone into the city twice on the metro. Downtown Madrid is a very cool place. The Palace is surrounded by huge gardens and statues depicting past glories. The urban center is overflowing with cafes and pubs which seem to always be busy. Some of the guys on the tour have been going to the discotecas (dance clubs). I stepped into my first one last night and while this may be an abstract comparison, it reminded me of a 16 and over dance club called Kokomo's (dark, sweaty, loud, and crowded with men with sleazy facial hair. haha). It only took a little taste for me to get my fill of that place and I quickly proceeded to a local Kabob place to get little taste of Mexico. For the next two days I will have in Madrid before I leave for the Netherlands, I will most likely just hang out in the local suburb.

Some pictures from Teruel

1. They Gym we train in. 2. Fletcher before he left for Sweden. 3. The view from my window in Teruel. 4. Self-portrait from the bridge going downtown.

Fletcher goes to Sweden, I go to Madrid

Well as you can tell by the title of my update, Fletcher left for a tryout in Sweden. The past couple of days have been very interesting. Several of the stronger players on the tour have left for tryouts in Sweden, Germany, Holland, and Belgium. As for me, there have been several misses hopeful opportunities but nothing has really materialized. However, I am hopeful that something comes my way during the second part of the tour in Madrid which begins tomorrow. Daily life here has been pretty busy. My routine goes something like this: Wake up and eat breakfast at 9, Leave for training at 10, Training from 11-1, Eat Lunch, Siesta 2-4ish, Leave for training at 5, Training from 6-8, Dinner at 9, Beer at a cafe/check e-mail, Sleep.
The city of Teruel is actually very beautiful. The climate is high desert, so it is warm but very dry. The architecture is similar to that to what I have seen in many parts of Italy. The best time of day here is in the morning. The air is cool and the view into the mountains is very nice. The mountains that outline the city are not like the alps, but rather smaller and very green. This time is when there are the most people out and it seems the cafe's are the busiest. Teruel is very small but it seems like a fairly wealthy area. There are no homeless people but there is a lot of graffiti on the walls and bridges. It seems that there is a certain level of political angst that exists here because several of the symbols I have seen in the graffiti have been swastikas and anarchy symbols; and I even say President Bush's name once. Nevertheless the people seem to be friendly and helpful. Almost no one here speaks English, however.
Anyways I hope to find a team soon but I will try to be as patient and open-minded as possible in the meantime. The other guys on the tour are great and we have had a awesome time so far.
-Adam

In Spain

Well, I left for the airport on the morning of the 12th very excited but sort of in a daze. Seeing as I have never been away from the US for more than a couple weeks, it seemed surreal to pack for a trip that would (hopefully) last 8 months. The mental preparation in leaving my home for this long journey felt sort of like walking a path in pitch dark. I knew that I should keep walking but there was a certain anxiety about being blind to both my destination and my feet. Nevertheless, with the encouragement of my girlfriend and family I pretended to be brave and walked tall onto my first flight. The traveling felt ridiculously long but it helped that my friend Fletcher was there to talk to. We almost missed our flight to Madrid cause of weather delays but luckily we and our luggage made it just in time. Once we made it to Madrid we had to take a 4 and half hour bus ride to Teruel, the location of the first part of the tour. Getting to the bus station was very easy on the metro as signs and directions were very straight forward. On the bus were some the other players on the tour, including Ryan Newell who I played with in high school for a year. Once we got to teruel Dave Kniffen, the director, met with us and walked us to the building called " La Feyda" where we are staying. This building is a catholic school during the school year and during the summer runs camps and retreats. Needless to say it is pretty basic but cozy. I am sharing a room with Fletch and a guy named Clint (who played at Rutgers). After that we went to dinner at a small cafe in the middle of the square. Pretty much the only thing people eat here is bread, ham, and cheese. Ham is unusually popular here (Ham flavored potato chips...). They have the sandwiches called bocadorres which are a combination of cheese, meat and tomato or onion. The cheese here is also quite good, it's very creamy and sweet. After dinner we went to a bar and had a couple beers and then crashed back at the place we are staying. In Teruel people usually start dinner at 9 at the earliest and it goes for at least 2 hours. We finished dinner at 12 and then made it back to the dorms at 3. I woke up today at 1pm and quickly ran to the cafe to get a bocadorra before siesta. Siesta starts at 2 and is a work break that everyone in Spain takes till about 4. Nothing in town is open at this time and Teruel looks like a ghost town. We had our first training at 6pm today and it went pretty well. There are some very good players and some not so very good players. It is pretty clear that not everyone will get picked up. I am still hopeful that I can get picked up but it will not be easy. The gym will be very competitive to say the least. I introduced myself to the agent Jon Walsh and some of the coaches and it seems that the Irish coach will take 2-4 players, the Swedish coach will take 4 players, the French coach my take a couple, and then there are some Spanish coaches who will take some as well. There are other coaches looking for players but I am not sure who they are or where they are from. I guess the way that they pick players up is through tryouts. A coach will ask a player to tryout for them and then either hire them or not. This usually involves a lot of traveling. There may also be oppurtunities for players to get hired as training players, but I am not completely sure about this. Anyways, there are many players for limited spots but I think that once we start scrimmaging I can make myself stand out. Internet has been inconsistent here but keep checking up as I will try and keep updates posting every couple of days.
-Adam