VC Gotha, KSC and TG Russelsheim

Last weekend we played an East German team, VC Gotha at their place which was a good 5 or 6 hour drive from us. We left a day early and spent Friday night in a hostel on the top of a hill, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, that had a constant raincloud over it. Plus, the hostel was deserted us being its sole occupants. The beds weren't exaclty accomodating for peole our size. Picture Vlady, our 6'7" giant Belarussian left side hitter trying to squeeze into a bed that he was both longer and wider than. We survived the night and the next night managed to beat Gotha 3-0 in front of an angry, loud, air-horn-blasting East German mob of fans.

After the game, Pink says to Jorgo, our Greek club president, "So, off to the Greek restaurant?" Its an ongoing joke that we always go to Greek places to eat because of Jorgo and Pink meant it only as that. Not 2 minutes later, Jorgo gets off his cell phone announcing that he has made arrangements for us to eat at the local greek restaurant. Nice work, Pink.

Nothing to do at our deserted hostel but play cards.

Celebrating our wictory in the wan after the match.

Vlady and I at the Greek Restaurant in Gotha.

Matty and Edu.

Our coach (in the red jacket doing his best to look like Don Cherry) and the Greek man himself, Jorgo, having a little staring competition. The loser had to pay for the team's dinner.

Pink sure likes his Tzatziki sauce. No wonder he kept bugging Korgo to take us to a Greek restaurant.

The next day, Philip's parents arranged tickets for us to go watch the Karlsruhe soccer team (KSC) play at home. They are currently leading the German 2nd Division and will most likely move up to the top league next year. We took a couple big vans and took in the game, which for some of us was out first live soccer match. We had a great time and KSC won the match 2-1.

KSC warming up for the game.

After some chanting and clapping and singing, everyone held up a scarf or banner or flag, whatever they had with KSC colours.

Armen's loving it. He's the guy that organized the tickets for us.

More scarf flaunting.

After the bug win, fans were climbing on top of the fence to celebrate.

After the game, the entire KSC team came over and knelt in front of the bleachers while the 2 cheer leader dudes led the crowd in a song, I'm guessing to honour the team.

This past weekend, TG Russelsheim paid us a visit in our home gym. We were fairly well-prepared but Russeleheim's a big team. Last year they played in the 1st division but finished at the bottom of the table and had to move down to our league. This year they're motivated to get back up to the top league and yesterday they played like that. Some heavy hitting jump servers made it tough to run our offence, but we had a few highlight real blocks, thanks to Pink, and played a half decent game. Not our best, but these things take time. We're getting there.