We've played a lot of games since my last post. Which is great because in pre-season you want to get as much match play in as you can. Our first weekend tournament wasn't the best result. Unfortunately we lost all 3 matches we played, but considering we hadn't really practiced much together it wasn't that bad. 2 of the teams we played against will be our enemies come time for the Dutch season to start, so it was good to see what we will be up against during the league play. During the next week we played a match against a team who finished in the top 6 last season (Taurus). This match was a huge improvement for our team. I think this was the first time we had our whole team together and it's pretty cool to see the improvements in such a short amount of time. We went on to lose that match in 5 sets, but it was the best we've played for my whole time here, and wins and losses in September aren't to important. The following weekend we played another tournament in Dodrecht (I think that's how it's spelled). This was against 2 teams from the second division. These were 2 of the more competitive second division teams. And so far I've been really impressed at the quality of the second division teams. Usually back home in Australia there can be a huge drop off in levels between first and second divisions, but these second division teams can play. You'll usually find a few players who could be good enough to play in the first division, however they don't want a full time training load because they also want to live and have things like a family. The next week we had a few more practices then we headed off to a tournament in Belgium for the day. When someone usually says to me that I'm going to another country to play a tournament, I'd assume that being from Australia I'm in for a long trek. But it's only a 2 hour drive, so we drove to Belgium and back in the same day. I'm trying to explain to my team mates that 2 hours of driving from Melbourne and you'll hopefully be in bendigo, still a long way away from even reaching another states border. Unfortunately we didn't get to do any sightseeing but it was still good to see a little bit of Belgium on the road. We didn't win the tournament but it was definitely a learning experience and it gave us a huge direction of what to work on in practices. Another practice match during the week against another league team SSV. This match was played at the Top Sports stadium, which in one word was 'sick'. During the year we play half our home matches at this venue and I'm super pumped cause it's a very nice stadium. Check out the photo below.

Besides all the volleyball, I'm still continuing to settle down. The club gave us bicycles to get around, because despite that fact that I haven't seen one person wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle, everyone rides bicycles. It's only about a 10 minute bike ride to our practice facility, so since it's still nice and warm we're enjoying as much vitamin D as we can until the sun goes away and it starts raining for weeks on end. I also went to a cycling school which helps. Besides our night practices we have also had some team events. The sponsor of the team Arbo Rotterdam had a cool function at his headquarters. His office is pretty cool. It's an exact replica of Winston Churchill's office. Their is also a bar at the office too. Not sure how you get work down with a bar but it's pretty cool. It was also a great chance to wear the team suits we have. Before I got to Holland I didn't know that team suits could be a thing but they're probably one of the coolest things going around.

Despite all that pre-season action of winning and losing, playing good and bad it's all really irrelevant. Our season opener is Oct 4th, so that's when the real journey begins. If I can find a stream I'll pass it on. It's all getting pretty excited leading into that first game. Everyone is fairly unsure of what the ceiling of this team is. Which is great because being a new team their is no ceiling. With so much room to grow, we can continue to improve during the season.

Peace out hombres.

It's been a wild couple of weeks for me. Signing a deal with my team the night before the state league grand final, then two weeks later flying to the Netherlands to commence the next part of my journey. It still hasn't really sunk in yet. I still feel like only a few days ago I was training at Dandenong complaining about how cold it gets. But that's all changed now. Soon I'll be no doubt complaining about a different stadium and when winter hits how cold it is. About a week ago I started my transit to Holland. Late on a Wednesday night, my brother dropped me off at the airport so I could begin the constant cycle of waiting for my next connecting mode of transportation. After being delayed an hour in Melbourne, finally got on the plane and sat next to some parents of someone whose kind of famous. They were the parents of Adam Gibson (a top NBL player, whose also currently playing in the Australian men's basketball team in the world championships in Spain). We had a good chat about sports, what it's like being away from family and how even though they don't see Adam as much as they like they love how he does something he's passionate about. This was only made better by the fact that the airline gave me an exit row seat too. Then a fun 7 hour layover in Doha (with free wifi thankfully), I was off to Frankfurt. I missed the last train out of Frankfurt to Rotterdam, so got to spend a cosy night at the airport, but again free wifi so it wasn't too bad. After my over night stay, it was on the train for about 7 hours with a few changeovers where I finally got to Rotterdam Alexander, where team manager Leo was scheduled to pick me up. Unfortunately I've never met Leo, so luckily he recognised me when he arrived. He drove me to my apartment, the place I'd call home for the season, and then left me to my own devices. After a quick trip down to the supermarket, where I was reminded I don't speak Dutch, I came home and met my country mate, room mate and team mate Max. Max had already been here a few days so helped me out a bit. The next day we took an adventure around the city centre. We're about a 15 minute train ride from the middle of the city, and since we don't have bikes yet the train is our main mode of getting around. Then on Sunday our president David dropped off the final piece to the Australian trifle, Sam Boehm. Our apartment is still missing a few things, but after talking to David, the club has been super helpful with trying to get us settled. They're in close talk with our main sponsor (ARBO) who helped us out with getting desks for our bedrooms, some sharp knives, a drying rack among other things. So far everyone from the club has been really welcoming, doing their best to provide us with what they can.

Now onto the volleyball part; I had my first practice with the team on Monday night. Monday nights are run by our assistant coach Victor, who is actually a former Australian beach volleyball player, who has been coaching in the Dutch beach volleyball program for the past decade. So another Aussie to make us feel like we know what's going on. There was a bit of rust coming off but good to see the general level of the team and knowing what to expect. On Tuesday we had a sit down with our head coach Rodin. Talking about the season, we learned that we don't really have a full roster of players yet, so we have a few people who only train with us and don't travel. So I still haven't met everyone whose on the team yet, but I'm told this will happen sometime next week. It's going to be a busy schedule. We had the first 3 trainings on Monday - Wednesday, then on Thursday we played a practice match against another team who got promoted from the 3rd division to the 2nd division. Then this Saturday we play a tournament somewhere (I don't really know what it's called) and that will involve 3 matches including one match against a team we will play in the Dutch league. The following weekend we will be off to some place in Belgium to play another practice match. So it's been straight into the deep end since I've been here, which is great cause it means the only thing to worry about is trying to get myself ready for the start of the season and figure out what I need to do to try and help my team be successful. It's going to be a long season. The Dutch league has expanded from 10 to 12 teams, so we have a 22 match season. Plus a few more matches in the Dutch cup. There's lots of volleyball to play, so hopefully there'll be lots for me to write about. I must apologise for the delay on my first post, so I thought I'd made it a long one to make up for it. We still don't have internet setup at our apartment yet, so I quick shout out to my friends at the Bibliotheek (I'm assuming the Dutch word for library) for kindly donating me some of their wifi for a good cause.

Peace out.