WUCC 2014 - Lecco, Italy

The World Ultimate Club Championships (WUCC) in Lecco was the inspiration and driving force of this trip.  I was invited to play with Ragnarok from Denmark and Cara, of course, played with Showdown.  It was a long but seemingly quick week apart spending time with our teams and playing ultimate.  

The wet weather leading up to the tournament left the fields under water and caused the first day of games to be canceled.  This WUCC will be remembered by most for muddy fields, pasta portions that were too large to finish, and dorms that weren't really even dorms.  I'll remember my teammates, an amazing hotel, the beautiful Lecco mountains and lake, the kindness of Riccardo, experiencing the Italian healthcare system with Cara's broken leg, partying with Jeff, Jerrod, and Kiran after we found out the next day's games were canceled, the never ending pizza and pasta, and reconnecting with many of the friends we met earlier on our trip as well as friends from past trips (Lee and Karen with new baby Tom, Nic, Chevi and Juani to name a few).

Above our hotel on the side of the mountain were two churches.  This was taken near the first church in Vercurago the first day we arrived.

The amazing view of the lake from our hotel on the side of the mountain in Vercurago.  Cara and Showdown were not as lucky with their accommodations and were housed in a futuristic hotel a 45 minute drive away outside of Milan. 

Ragnarok - 14th place

Top Row: Me, Svene*, Andreas*, Jeff, Alex, Faiss, Mads'Alto, Peter, Bjarne, Mads*, Punisher, Jonathan, Esben*, Guijl

Bottom Row: Kristien, Kiran, Jerrod, Lars, Stefan, Elliott, Mads'ito, Daniel, Viunner, Yan, Puck, Sve

Huge thanks again to the team and captains for welcoming us and accepting us into your strong viking culture!

Cara suffered a broken fibula for the second time in her career after a collision during their game against D.C. Scandal.  It was a personally disappointing way to end what could be her last tournament with Showdown, but Showdown continued to perform and ended up going to the semis! Los dos, los dos. 

Sad selfie in the hospital with our guardian angel Riccardo.  Kiran, Jeff, Jerrod, and I met Riccardo the first night we went out to part in Vercurago.  He helped us get home that night, making sure we did not get into Marco Pizza's car, and then came to fields to cheer on Ragnarok and Showdown for the rest of the week.  Mille grazie Riccardo for being so generous with your time, for all the rides (late night and early morning), and for the sideline support.  Riccardo has one more year of nursing school to finish and we hope that your future career can help you find your way to Austin so that we can try to repay the generosity you showed all of us this past week.  You are awesome!

Two hours, one x-ray, one cast, four prescribed syringes with blood thinner, and zero dollars later Cara was on her way to recovery.  Socialist medical care does work!

Thinking back on this trip it's hard to say which were my favorite places or things we experienced.  Mostly, I will take away a rejuvenation of spirit and a reaffirmed belief in the inherent goodness of people.  I was amazed by the kindness new friends showed us along our way.  We have come to expect the frisbee community to accept us with open arms as we are traveling through, and the European communities did not disappoint!  This is why I love Ultimate.  But this kindness, generosity, and acceptance was just as quickly given by the others we met along our way that did not know us through a shared sport.  We are so glad to have met all of you and hope to see you again in the near or far future!

Tomorrow we return to our home in Austin.  The adventure continues...

Slovenia Road Trip - Maribor, Ljubljana, and Lake Bled

After WJUC, we rented a car in Milan for a quick road trip to Slovenia before heading back to Italy for our own Ultimate Champtionships, the WUCC tournament. 

Autogrill is the Italian Buckee's! One stop shop for all things necessary for a good road trip: gas, coffee, clean bathrooms, and tractor tire sized wheels of parmesan cheese. Like the rest stops/gas stations in the Midwest, some of them go over the highway. This is me with my loot from our first stop. 

Our first night we drove all the way to Maribor, a small city in the northeast, to visit with our Slovenian friends from Spinning in Paradise. Jaka invited us to his house for dinner, where we enjoyed a delicious home-cooked meal, home-made wine/spirits, and great conversation with his parents, Zen, Sbeila, and Jaka's girlfriend. 

We stayed with Zen in his awesome flat in the middle of the town, and then met up the next day with the crew while Jaka played tour guide. He took us around town and told us interesting things about the history of the city, a cute little riverside college town. 

This statue in the main square commemorates the plague of the 1680s that claimed one third of the city's population. 

Next we went to see the oldest living and producing grape vine in the world! It's over 400 years old, and they continue to make wine out of it today. 

Of course we stopped in for a wine tasting of Slovenian wines. 

Jaka and I along the main river, the Drava. 

Mike and Jaka the tour guide in one of the traditional handmade wine barrels that are no longer in use. 

Jaka then drove us to a nearby town (Vurberk) with a castle (grad)

at the top. The view of the surrounding countryside was incredible. The castle was used as many things throughout it's existence, from private residence for nobles, to a Russian Red Cross station during WWI and then a health sanitarium between the wars. It was then take over by the Germans during WWII and used as an officer training camp, until it was bombed out. 

It's also apparently a center of some immense electromagnetic energy, since there are signs everywhere telling people not to sit for more than 15 minutes or fall asleep on the benches because their energy will get all out of whack. 

Next stop was Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Jaka hooked us up with a few Ultimate players as well as his friend Nate, a college student on summer vacation who kindly offered us his flat for two nights. We got in a practice with the Ljublana team and their awesome captain Spooks. 

The next day we explored the adorable city of Ljubljana. At a local market we tried bear sausage for the first time!

There was a pretty excellent Slovenian history museum at the Ljubljana Castle, atop a hill above the city. One of my favorite pieces was this mural called "Dance With Death", which depicts the emerging ideas popularized during the latter Reformation and Renaissance that class didn't protect anyone from death. There is a series of poor peasants and rich royalty all making the march to the casket. 

Dragons are everywhere in Slovenia! Slovenia has a lot of karst topography (Karst was a Slovenian!), which is made up of porous sedimentary limestone. The geology in some places is eerily similar to Austin in fact, and caves are a big tourist draw here as well. Well, similar to the endangered Barton Creek Salamander in Austin, there is a species of pigment free salamander called the olm that lives in the caves of Slovenia. After a heavy rain in the 1600s, olms were seen outside of the cave and people believed them to be (or at least wrote down) that they were the baby dragons. They ran with it and dragon lore is entrenched in their oral and written history. 

Beautiful church in main square of Ljubljana. 

View of the "3 bridges" area of Ljubljana, a stunningly picturesque section of town with beautiful architecture, a waterway, and outdoor cafes. 

Another view down the canal in Ljubljana. 

A view of Ljubljana Castle from below. 

The next day was my 32nd birthday (whoop!), so we drove to Lake Bled on recommendation from our friend Bjorn and every person who has ever been to or heard of this incredible little forested country. 

View from atop the Lake Bled Castle. 

One the way back to Ljubljana we stopped in the adorable small town of Radovljica to visit a museum about apiology, the art/science of beekeeping. Beekeeping was revolutionized in Slovenia, and a few passionate individuals led the field for a while, publishing books on the subject. It was incredibly interesting and informative; the highlight was watching the live bee colonies where you could follow individual bees as they went about their highly structured and role oriented hive business. 

My second favorite part of the exhibit was the collection of decorated hive panels dating back from the Middle Ages to the present. For something that was mostly practical in nature, they sure did expend a lot of energy (and money, often they hired professional artists to do it) painting these intricate scenes depicting religious, historical, or secular scenes. The picture above was in the section on "Mythology". 

I have no idea what in the world this depicts, but the giant snail was awesome. 

World Junior Ultimate Championships - Lecco, Italy

We have officially started the Ultimate portion of our trip.  After our coaching clinic in Croatia, we flew to Milan, Italy to cheer on Brett at the World Junior Ultimate Championships in Lecco.  Brett's parents, Rich and Mary, were kind enough to host us in Como and transport, feed, and clothe us (check out our sweet Gramman gear!) for two awesome days of spectating.

Beautiful mountains surround a wishbone shaped lake.  This was taken from the shores of Como.

The Italian chapter of the Brett fan club!

Enjoying dinner in the Como duomo plaza.  Pizza, pasta, and great conversation.  It was great to hear about Rich and Mary's early adventures of starting a family in Austin and traveling the world on their tandem bike.  Two incredible people that have raised two incredibly smart and hard-working sons.  Thank you for generous support over the years, we are so thankful to have you as friends!

Beautiful mountains in the background at the stadium fields.

Bookends!  Brett had a huge foot block on a huck late in the second half followed by a thrown score to help the USA gain momentum in their comeback effort.  The USA would eventually lose on the final point to Canada 16-17.  It was an amazing game.

Cara and I were so proud to watch Brett play with confidence and spirit, demonstrate how to be a great teammate, and excel at the highest level of youth ultimate.  UMass is lucky to have you next year.  Good luck in the fall!  

Spinning in Paradise - Jelsa, Croatia

"Pomalo!"

The Croatian term for "take it easy" or "chill out, dude" was a perfect summation of our week of true paradise on the Croatian island of Hvar. Since we knew we would be traveling for a while before the World Ultimate Club Championships, we thought we would try to find opportunities to play/coach while we were traveling the continent. Our friend Brummie from GB, famous from such blahg posts as "Cheerio, Mate!" in July of 2010, told us about an opportunity to coach a weekend of skills clinic in Croatia, so naturally we jumped on it. 

It turned out to be an absolutely incredible week of new friends and old flames. New friends because the people at the weekend clinic were amazing people from all over the world. Turkey, Australia, Italy, Germany, Croatia, Slovenia, Canada, GB, France, and the US were all represented in the pool of players. These people were kind, funny, talented, eager to improve, intelligent, interesting, fun to be around, and they love Ultimate SO MUCH. It was a true time warp back to our roots in the sport, a reminder of one of the main reasons we fell in love with the sport (the community), and a perfect way to begin to wind down a 14-year period where Ultimate dominated and dictated our calendar, decisions, destinations, and life goals. It was a tremendous gift to be surrounded by the collective enthusiasm and joy for the sport that brought Mike and I together and shaped our lives for so long. 

The coaching crew (Mike, me, Holly, and Brummie) and Vinko, the man with the vision and ambition to put this incredible endeavor together. 

Clinic crew plus some early tourney arrivals: Martje, Zan, Levke, Baris, Sev, Brummie, Nejc, Marko, Mafia Marco, Gerard, Zoltan, Mike, Carly, Sofie, Spela, Paul, Adam, Callum, Vinko, and Holly (less Jaka, behind the camera, and Ofolko and Ricky). An amazing group of people!

We woke up early to work out before training, then had a three hour training in the morning from 9-12, then hit the beach or mountains for 6 hours, then came back for another night time training from 6-9, then hung out at night. 

Mina Beach.  Another amazing shallow bay to play picigin and frisbee.  This was our daily hangout spot during the clinic.  Frisbee, Beach, Frisbee, Shower, Eat, Party...REPEAT!

Plenty of room to lounge and take a nap when you grew tired of the water.

More and more players rolled into camp throughout the weekend for the Hat tournament.  This is the final crew.

View of Jelsa, the city where the clinic was held. It was a 5 minute walk from town up a mountain to the fields/gym where the clinic/tournament was located. People camped in tents behind the handball gym, and we slept dorm style on gym mats on the floor.

Our snorkeling gang post swim and cliff jumping (from the left: Sev, Martje, Zoltan, Levke, Sion, Holly, Paul, Cara, Mike). Brummie caught some footage of the cliff jumping and snorkeling on his GoPro...can't wait to see it!

View of Hvar City from the castle atop the hill. Hvar City was beautiful, but packed with tourists, where as Jelsa was as beautiful and almost empty. After a day of snorkeling and cliff diving, we borrowed Barbara's (awesome Swiss player) car and explored the rest of Hvar island by car. 

Hvar city harbor

Prom pic! Beautiful Jelsa harbor 

Texas frisbee friends have arrived! The last day we were there, Charlie, Walch, and Edith came to chill on Hvar and take our place for the tourney. 

Sorry about the earlier picture Brummie.  Here is the most flattering picture of you we could find.  Peka!!! What seemed to be a whole roasted goat in a huge pan with roasted potatoes and onions. It was incredible. Let's make it a goal to share another meal as amazing as this in the future.

Huge hvala to Vinko for putting this amazing week together for the love of the game. And thanks to everyone at the clinic for the amazing times! 

Dubrovnik and Split!

After our visit to western Europe it was time to explore central/eastern Europe.  From Paris we flew to Dubrovnik, Croatia to meet Holly and see the Dalmatian coast.  This part of the world lives up to the hype.  It has become a popular tourist destination in the last few years and it's easy to see why.  The Adriatic Sea is a beautiful green and blue that can be as calm as a lake.  I was actually surprised the water was salty the first time I jumped in.  Dubrovnik is a beautiful walled city nestled between the mountains of the mainland and the coast.  There are islands to explore, beaches to relax on, and cobblestone alleys to stroll along.  Croatia here we go!

Sunset from our apartment.

The first morning we ran up the mountain that separates Dubrovnik form the mainland.  You can see the city just to the left of Cara.

The view from the rocky beach we spent an afternoon on reading and swimming.

These purple flowers seem to be everywhere in Croatia and were in full bloom.  Any flower experts know the name?

Throughout Dubrovnik there are narrow stairways to get you from the coast up to the apartments and shops spread up the hill.

Nothing needs to be said for the next two photos.  Dubrovnik is that beautiful.

After our short stay in Dubrovnik we boarded a bus for the 4 hour trip along the coast to Split.  Split is a larger city with an international airport and the jumping off point for the ferries to most of the islands.  We had a day to relax on the beach and walk through the city before Sion "Brummie", our Great Britain frisbee friend, joined us to travel to the island of Hvar.

Enjoying a few drinks in the alleys of Split before dinner.  We found a vegetarian restaurant that was amazing!

This beach on Split, like another we'd find on Hvar, was great for throwing a frisbee and playing Croatians favorite game Picigin.  We would play this A LOT on the island.  It's basically hacky sack with your hands with the goal of making it a little difficult for the other players to return your pass.  You pretty much try and force layouts and great plays.

Split is also famous for Diocletian's Palace.  Diocletian is an old Roman emperor famous for persecuting Christians.  What's left of the palace has been turned into restaurants and shops.  It was nice for a quick walk.

Another view of the bell tower.

Brummie's here!

We then boarded our two hour ferry ride to the island of Hvar.  On Hvar we would meet Vinko, the mastermind of Spinning in Paradise:  a two day clinic followed by a 5 day hat tournament.  We had a weekend of coaching ahead of us and some amazing people to meet and hang out with.