"Slow down everyone yer moving too fast, Frames can't catch you when yer moving like that" -Jack Johnson

So my birthday was last Wednesday and let me tell you the days leading up to it were NOT the best of my life... I really needed to slow down and enjoy life...Things really started to turn around right at 12:00 though... I had a ton of hilarious text messages and awesome early birthday presents!!! My mood was instantly changed. Then I went to lunch with my coach from college, Pete. It was super fun to catch up about vball and life. I spent the rest of the day packing up for Chicago and playing my guitar!

(Wait lets back track a bit... I was in Madison since I got home from Wiesbaden, Germany last May. I spent the summer running volleyball camps with my friend Sheila, for our new business that we named Sports Up, after the workout place we went to every day (well were supposed to go to everyday) in Germany. Besides all of the camps I spent the rest of the summer playing in beach volleyball tournaments and enjoying being back in the States! For the fall I spent my time coaching at Oregon High School, just outside of Madison. I had the most amazing season, even though our record wouldn't show it. I absolutely adore these kids, and was super lucky to really have an awesome group of coaches to work with. So I just finished coaching the season (which I think I was slightly depressed for a bit after, because I missed my kids so much...)

Soooo back to last Wednesday... I was getting ready for my Bday dinner at the gritty and had just gotten off of Skype with my roomie from Germany, Erica Lott! The coolest EVER... right so just got of the Skype and I get another call... this time it was from my agent. He told me there was a team in CYPRUS that was interested in me but it was a lower level and less pay than last year...however, IT WAS ON THE BEACH! I said "oooohhhh emmmm geeee" YES-A!!! So now begins the waiting game...

I had an AWESOME bday dinner and then went home for round two of bday events with the family. This consisted of TBELL, Movie Night, and of course CAKE! (Orange for Oregon where I coach). It was an awesome time and since then I have been unpacking and repacking until I found out more about Cyprus.

I heard today that I need to have the bags packed because the flight is being bought for probably sometime this week! I started doing some research on the team and the town...

LARNACA, CYPRUS...

http://www.wordtravels.com/Cities/Cyprus/Larnaca/Overview

So as you will read... Larnca is a BEACH town with winters in the high 50's to Low 70's and is NOT a Greek island... even though it is an island in the Mediterranean and they speak Greek (My Bad)

Our club has a Men's Soccer team and Basketball team as well as a sports academy that I might be able to coach some youth volleyball at!!! So many fun and exciting things!


Also a few differences about our club! We have team colors!! As you can tell by my blog our colors are Green, Yellow, and Black! Sweet! We even have a mascott this year which I think is some kind of warrior or something haha not sure because I can't read Greek! We also have a much lighter schedule than Germany... We practice 4 times a week and 1 game a week! YES THAT MEANS 2 DAY OFF!! I KNOW! I am so excited also because we play on Tuesday and then Sat morning practice, Sunday OFF, and Monday is not till 7:30 at night so we practically have the weekends free. I can't wait!

I will be sure to take pictures when I get to town so you all can see everything!

The End Is Near...

We are in our last two weeks of season and I am so excited to begin packing and gearing up to head home. It has been such an adventure since I first arrived here in November. So many memories good and well "things I can learn from", but I have continually surprised myself and learned more about who I am.

If you would have asked me a month ago if I was sad this experience was nearing its end I would have laughed, but things here have been pretty good the past month. (still with its minor ups- and downs). A large part of this is the weather! It has been amazing here. Summer type weather and we have spent some time down by the river. We also have been hanging out off the court and making some new friends as well. With only 12 days left, we had a BBQ in the park. It was perfect and made me feel like I was home. It was today when I was looking around and realizing that YES I am going to miss this place. I am going to miss my teammates, and our own special GermEnglishiessse that we speak. I am going to miss our silly dance moves, and names for each other. It is amazing to me how similar people from 8 different countries are.

We have been locked into 5th place with 8 matches left... now with only 2 to go we have kind of relaxed and enjoyed playing with each other. Last night we upset the top team in the league knocking them into 2nd place. This win was especially nice because the first time we played them, they destroyed our team making us look almost foolish, and it was our last home match. The match was on TV so here is a link for you to watch...

http://www.sportdigital.tv/index.php/show/wmv/12291/1.VC_Wiesbaden-Rote_Raben_Vilsbiburg

Log in at the top right corner with WackyJackie5@aol.com and the password is badgers.

> Then click Mein Profil. Scroll down to the bottom and our match is against Vilsbiburg. Click Zum Spiel.

Also here are some pictures from the past few months....

Andy's Bday and St. Patty's

At Irish Pub

I got a job Bartending at the Sports Bar

Proud to be an AMERICAN!

So last weekend we had free! So what did I do... I escaped to the "land of the free"... or as close as I could get to it! My friends Katie and Danny live about 45 mins from Wiesbaden because Danny is an officer in the US Air Force! His title is something along the lines of "Super Special Officer In Charge of Intelligance Against Bad Guys And Protector Of The Planes And Other Important Things". No Joke, his title is alomst that long! haha Anyway, I spent the weekend with two amazing friends and got to have a few pieces of home.

Firday night we went to the base and saw an AMERICAN MOVIE "7 Pounds" with Will Smith. I bought Ben and Jerry's "Americone Dream" Ice cream (shout out to Lynn), A "Medium" popcorn and soda that are the size of a Euro XXXXL!! It was great! Oh and I bought it with US Dollars, well Danny did! haha

At the start of the movie they played the National Anthem and I have never been more happy or proud to hear that song played. All of those times it played before the Badger matches doesn't even come close to the feeling I had in that movie theater!

After the movie we went out on the town. As you can see, we started with Meter and then had a Liter. It was a good night! Of course any night isnt complete without some competitive Mario Kart on Nintendo Wii! I won, although Danny tried his best!


The next day was filled with shopping for magazines, hair products, wheat thins, SKIM milk, and all of the things I have taken for granted in my life. Like Yankee Candles and Twix! Later on we went bowling where Katie kicked our buts in, even though we tried to put a curse on her and distract her while she was mid throw. She had 7 Strikes in one game! TWO TURKIES! (Show off) After our beat down, we went to Chili's where of course I had the Fajita TRIO! YUM YUM. We went to the movie store and rented Batman: The Dark Night and ate a TON of candy (well, Danny ate most of it!)

It was the best trip I could of asked for and it was so nice to feel like I was at home even for just a few days! I really hope I get to make it back down by them before season is over. If only for the "all you can eat sunday brunch"! What is more American than that!?!?

Hip Hip Hop Hip Hopanatomus

Yesterday our team went to a private Hip Hop dance lesson with one of the Judges from "You can dance", Kelechi Onyele. This show is the German version of America's "So you think you can dance?" When we arrived at the studio we met with Kelechi and some reporters and photographers and got ready to learn some new dance moves.

The girls were all nervous and super excited. Kelechi started with some basics to see how we were as dancers to decide how hard he could make our choreographed dance. Much to our surprise he stopped us right away and was really surprised at how good we were. So we jumped right into our dance routine. He started with moves that were taken from actions similar to those we use on the volleyball court. It is crazy how creative he is and was able to take basic athletic volleyball movements and turn them into Hip Hop dance moves.

The team had a blast and we convinced our club president to set up a few more lessons for us. It was seriously a great work out too and I was sweating more than I do at our volleyball practice. The lesson was supposed to last 1.5 hours but we stayed an extra hour longer because we were having so much fun and wanted to learn more.

We went to lunch with Kelechi and spoke with him about teamwork and what it takes to get to your goals and how working in a group of people can help or hinder that goal. It was amazing to hear how there are so many parallels between the dance world and the sports world. Over all it was one of the best experiences of my life and I LOVED every minute of it.

This past weekend we had two days off so Sheila and I went to Paris. She played there last year which made the trip that much more exciting. When we first got into town Sheila drove me around town and we did a quick drive by of all the sites Paris has to offer. Here are a few pics I took hanging out of the car like the paparazzi.

After the Drive by tour of Paris, Sheila and I went to the Louvre and were super lucky because the 1st Sunday of every month is Free Admission!! We went and saw the "must sees" like the Mona Lisa and the Statue of Venus, but I of course had to see the Egypt wing since I have been borderline obsessed with it ever since my amazing Ancient Egypt course I took at Wisconsin. However there were some things that I thought where way cooler than things everyone goes to see....


After checking out the Louvre, we met some of Sheila's old teammates for dinner at a Canadian style sports bar. Little did I know that Emmy the Canadian who plays in France with one of Sheila's old teammates is from UNH where my best friend Jessica played volleyball! What a crazy small world. I also found out that there are Professional American Football leagues in Europe! Two guys that Emmy knew were visitng from Italy where they play football. Matt played at UNH and Ryan at Harvard. It was so fun to meet new people and have a great dinner.

After dinner Sheila and I headed to the Eiffel Tower to take some fun pics...

Our last day in town we went and saw a few more attractions, did some shoping down the side streets, saw where Sheila played last year, said good-bye to our old friends, and then.....

Got some of Lenny Kravit's favorite Falafels!!

This weekend we have off and I am planning on heading an hour south to visit my friend Katie who is living in Germany with her Husband who is in the Air Force! I can't wait to see her and go to the base to see an AMERICAN MOVIE!!!

My New Hobby

So I have kind of been in a little rut lately with only 2 months left I decided to pick up a new hobby. I have wanted to try out photography for a while and was inspired by how cool Erica's friend Lauren's pics were. I saw some of her work from the Xmas Markets and finally decided I was going to get a camera and try it out. After all I am in a pretty cool place and need to pick myself up and get excited about something, since volleyball just is not doing it lately.

So here are some pics from my first few days with my new camera....