During our snowstorm I took an adventure out to play in the snow with my teammate Julia

Thursday, August 27, 2009

So we have the day off of volleyball today which is very needed! Katherine and I cleaned the president of our clubs house today to earn some extra money. And now we are just hanging out at their house just relaxing. Tonight one of the men's pros team is playing so we are going to watch them. I'm really excited to watch high level men play vball in person! And I think that will be all that we are doing today!

I'm really missing mexican food right now! I haven't had an enchilada or fajita or guacamole in forever it feels like.....so hopefully at some point in time I will be able to make some! I don't think they have mexican restaurants here so it may have to be made at home! So enjoy every bite of mexican food you can in states!

Ok our ride is here to take us home.....talk to you all soon and hope you have a fantastic day!

Much love

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Hey all! So I'm in my second week of practicing and the body is still sore. I'm thinking it will take some time getting used to. We are all getting more comfortable with one another on the court which is nice, but we still have a lot to work on. We have our first matches this weekend against a top German team. Its a preseason match so I'm not for sure if it counts at all or not. I'm a little bit nervous but excited to see how we do! I don't know anything about this team but I will inform you on how it goes this weekend.

I am definitely missing all of you back at home! So I will keep reminding everyone to come out and visit anytime!!!

Well I better get going but I will update you when I have something to update you on!

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Hej (Thats hi in danish i think)

Well today we didn't have practice because so many girls couldn't make it so Katherine and I figured it would be a perfect day to do laundry. Laundry is so weird here.....the appliances are so much smaller than what I'm used to and everyone just hangs up their clothes outside. Even though we do have a dryer I don't know if people actually use it. And I was so spoiled in the states cuz now we have to pay to do laundry! crazy......So while we are doing laundry we ate out on our deck cuz the sun was out and now Katherine is reading her book so I thought I would come in and say hi to you all.

We will start up practice again on Monday. We have another coach helping us and he used to train the Japanese women's national team. His name is Mizuno which I thought was funny considering he's a vball coach and his wife Saori (who also played on the Japanese women's national team) will be joining us too. She didn't think she was going to be able to play this year because of a back injury but decided that she could. She used to be an outside but is going to play middle this year so that she doesn't have to take as many swings. And maybe that will help out with her back issues. I don't think either of them speak English or Danish very well or at all so it should be pretty interesting.

Practices having been going pretty good. Their isn't anxiety to play like there was in college. So you actually feel like you can just go out there and play hard without someone jumping down your throat! They treat you like adults and have high expectations but aren't there to rip you a part. They want you to keep getting better......huh interesting.....no wonder why europeans play till they're in their 40's! They just love the game and get so good at it!!! I love the girls on the team and we all seem to get along so far.....and I hope it stays like that!

Well I best be getting on with the day.....actually I guess its evening already....I have no concept of time because I don't have a watch, cell phone, and my computer is set to a different time zone. So I just kind of go when I'm told to.

Love you all!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Oh my goodness! I am so sorry to everyone that it has taken me forever to write! Yesterday was Katherine's (the American teammate out here with me) birthday and one of the warmest days of the year in Odense. So all Katherine wanted to do was go to the beach. So we didn't get up until noon (i blame it on the jet lag) and then just drank coffee out on balcony. Then we decided to figure out the transportation system and get in our suits to head to the beach. We totally looked like tourists with huge bags filled with clothes because we didn't know if the weather would stay nice or get cold. And then Katherine had to go and buy a map and I was so embarrassed that she was publicly letting everyone know that we have no clue what we are doing....hahaha. But we really needed it so I guess I'm glad she did. We made it to the beach very smoothly! The bus system is amazing and always on time which is nice. I can't even pronounce the name of the town we went to but it was a very quaint beach town. With cute little cafes all over the place. We started walking over this bridge, where little boys were jumping off of into the water, to get to the beach. We thought we saw the beach on the other side so we were like "oh no turn around we gotta go back the other way". So we turn around and start heading towards our "beach" and end up in the boat area. And for those of you who aren't familiar with parked boats at a dock the beach is nowhere near that. And as we turn our heads we see that the beach was on the side that we had just walked away from. You would think that there would be a couple bridges to crossover to get there, but why would they make it that easy for us. So we had to walk about a mile to get back over to the actually beach! We were so frustrated and tired of carrying our heavy bags! When we finally arrived at the beach it was starting to get windy. And within the first hour we had taken off our clothes to lay out in our swim suits, and put back on our sweats to stay warm! It reminds me a lot of colorado springs......you know because of all the great beaches and everything.....lol. But all in all it was a good day and Katherine got to do what she wanted to do on her birthday!

Today we struggled getting up and had to go over to the fitness center where we clean. Katherine and I absolutely love going here because the people are so fun to be around and we are trying so hard to get them to like us because we want to be friends. I'm thinking in a couple weeks we will work up enough courage to talk to them about where this friendship can go! It is owned by a family and they all are so nice to us. The grandmother however can't speak English at all so we just laugh with her and we try to figure out what one another is saying. The day we first started she had to ask one of the guys working out to tell us we were doing too good of a job and that we didn't have to clean that hard! And Katherine and I were thinking "oh yeah we are totally scoring brownie points with this family, this friendship is so gonna happen!" But today our normal driver was out of town so we had to figure out how to get there on our own. All we had was an address and we started walking to where we thought downtown was. We walked past some really cool places and were just loving where we were. Then all of a sudden we realized we had been walking for over 20 min and had no clue where this fitness center was. So we stopped and asked a couple who pointed us in the right direction. We got there in time shortly realized that we took a very scenic route to get there and that we could shave off some time next time we walk. But when Katherine and I get into conversations we totally forget what our purpose is of walking, but for some reason we always get to where we need to be.

Before practice today I had to coach some little 13 yr olds.....and when I say coach I mean I talked extremely slow and then the girls looked at me like I had ketchup on my face or something. I didn't realize how hard the language barrier was with the little kids. But I got through the practice but have no idea if I even taught them volleyball or not.

Ok so it is really late out here and I need to get some rest.....and I also need to tell this fly on my wall who has decided to spend the night tonight that I'm not comfortable with him buzzing around my head while I sleep. I'm pretty sure he will ask why I left my window open and invited him in. I'm sure we will come to some kind of an agreement. Maybe he can start paying rent or something........does anyone know if flies do that here in Denmark? I'm pretty sure they ignore you in the states....hahahaha....wow now I'm making myself laugh I really need some sleep.

I hope you are all doing well and to everyone who has sent me an email keep them coming! I love reading all of them and thank you for taking the time to talk to me!!!!

Much Love to you all!!!!

K

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Hey Everyone!

So I have already had 3 practices. The first one was last night and I was just drenched in sweat! The coach told the girls in our meeting before we started that I had been out of vball for quite sometime and had a back injury so it would take a while to get back into it, so he told the girls to be patient with me. It was kind of funny because I'm sure most of the girls were like why is she here if she's terrible. But the practice went well. It was so weird to be hitting again. Sometimes I would forget that I was a hitter and I think the word oops and sorry was my whole vocabulary for most of the practice....haha....They warm up differently here. You kind of just have to warm up yourself instead of someone directing you what to do. They expect you to be mature enough to do it on your own. We have some really young girls on the team and the youngest is a 16 yr old I think. And then our oldest is almost 40! And she can still play the game. So extremely different than what we see in the states. Most of the young girls won't actually be playing with us at games but they will be playing with a junior team. But they just want these girls to develop. We do however have a middle who is 16 but plays like she is in her 20's. She is already training on the beach so she will not always be with us at the beginning.

So needless to say the rules are a little bit different international and I learned that last night. I was in middle back and a girl dug the ball high and it hit off the ceiling and I bump set a perfect ball to the outside. NO ONE was there to hit it and I was like "are you serious where are you". Then the coach starts yelling "you can't play a ball off of the ceiling, you aren't in the US anymore Karlik". Everybody started laughing it was hilarious! So getting used to all these new rules has been interesting. And then later on a serve came between me and the libero and she called mine....or I thought she called mine....I don't actually know what she said but the ball landed between us and all I could think was "did she say mine or did she say you in Danish" But I didn't want to ask so I just looked at her and gave her a high five. She was probably thinking "why are you giving me a high five? you know we lost the point right?" But everyone on the team speaks English so it makes us foreigners job a lot easier. I'm not gonna lie my body has been really sore....I think it is saying "are you crazy lady! what are you doing to me!" It is crazy to think it has been almost 3 seasons since I've trained (because my senior year all I did was rehab). But please be praying for my back! It was acting up a little bit today so I had to sit out of a couple drills : ( but for the most part it has done its job!

I'm not gonna lie even with all of this new stuff I have still found time to be a little homesick : ( I miss all my family and friends and am truly grateful to have you all in my life! I know the Lord will give me strength and that I have to continually know that he has placed me ere for a reason. So if anyone feels that they miss my face soooooo much please come out and visit! I would love it!

Ok well I better get to bed we've got another long day ahead of us!

Much love to everyone!

p.s. i know some of you might be thinking the picture i have up is in Denmark....well its not its actually through the mountains in CO....our friend Tyler decided to put that picture up. but i will try to take some pictures asap!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Sorry Lauri


So Lauri VanDerMost (sorry for calling you out!) is unfamiliar with uggs so I just wanted to explain why they made my feet so hot. Well they are a sheepskin boot which is used to keep your feet warm. And since it gets so cold out here that's why I was bringing them. But my mother wasn't thinking that its not quite winter time yet so my feet might get a little hot on my 15hr trip out there!!!! lol
Hey All!

So sorry it has taken me forever to write! Life has been crazy since we got here. Ok well let me start from flying. We got to the DIA and this man told us to come over to where he was to wrap our bags with this plastic stuff. Apparently on international flights people like to steal things. I was like "well if you want my knee pads and spandex go ahead and take it cuz there isn't much else in there" the man started laughing and thought i was silly. Little did he know I was completely serious. So Katherine (one of my teammates), Michael (my coach), and I were all on the same flight to Frankfurt, Germany. They only had an hour layover and I unfortunately had 4 hrs. So as I waived bye I started thinking how in the heck am I going to entertain myself for 4 hrs. So I walked around a little bit tried to turn on my cell phone (which doesn't work over here) and then tried to get on my internet (which I couldn't find a connection in the airport). So i decided to go use one of the internet computers at the airport. So I pay the money and start trying to navigate. Well what I didn't realize is that they don't have the same keyboard as we do in the states so I couldn't find the @ button. So I push every button I can to try to find a way to get that stupid @ button. No luck at all so the only thing I could do was look at other websites. So basically I wasted 10 bucks to look at nothing. I was a little annoyed to say the least. And to top it all off my mother thought it was a good idea to wear my uggs on the flight so they wouldn't take up as much room. Well my feet were on FIRE for the entire trip! So thanks mom for the advice! I had hot sweaty feet!, no internet, no cell phone, no one to talk to. So the only thing I could do was make up jokes in my head and laugh (which i think entertained the people around me more than me) and people watch. There are definitely some interesting people in that airport.

So I arrived in copenhagen around 6 and had to meet up with Michael and Katherine. How we did this airport stuff without cell phones in the past was beyond me but I finally found them! Since all of us are moving into a different town Michael and Katherine had all the stuff for our apartment and Michael's car is TINY....when I saw the car I was like maybe I should have had my 4runner shipped over here! It was packed to the fullest so we had to put Katherine's bag on the roof! So 3 of us had to sit in the front seat of this car and drive 1 1/2 hrs to odense (i was like hmmm....should be interesting!) Well once we got everything strapped in we realized that we couldn't open the front doors because of how we strapped it in.....oh don't you worry we all became like noodles and crawled into the car! Needless to say we entertained a lot of people that way!

So my bags didn't actually come until the next night that we were in odense. So I had to walk around their downtown not having showered, the same clothes I had been wearing since friday afternoon, no brushed teeth, and the stupid uggs!!!!! So my first impression to everyone I met was probably "what a smelly and dirty American!" But oh well they will see me showered at some point in time!

Sorry this message was so long! But I will be on later to tell you how our first practice went! I miss everyone already and if you feel the need to leave the country please let it be Denmark and come see me!!!!

Much Love!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Packing : (

Hey everyone! So just in my room getting everything ready to go! My nerves are pretty high right now, but I think I just need to get there before I settle down. I thank you for all of you who are praying for me. I can definitely feel them!!! Talk to you all soon.....love and miss you already