Danish Shenanigans

2010-04-06T04:39:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone! So sorry for not keeping up with this. You can all yell at me when i get home MAY 3RD!!!!! But just a little update about the season. We are in the final 2 weeks of the season!!! woohoo. We finished the regular season a few weeks ago and then started the playoffs. How it works is the top 4 teams make it to the playoffs. 1 plays 4 and 2 plays 3 in a 3 out of 5 match series. And we had 2 days off in between each match. It was very crazy and exhausting. So we ended the regular season 2nd so we had to play the #3 team, which was Brondby. Brondby has 3 Americans on their team. One girl played at University of Arizona and then I can't remember where the other 2 played. So we got to host the first match. We started off kind of slow and lost the first 2 games. Then somehow made an amazing comeback and won in 3! It was very exciting and very exhausting! Then 2 days later we went and played at Brondby's home gym. The first 2 games we started out very good and were up in both of them 20-15. But somehow Brondby came back and won both of them. We took care of them in the 3rd game and then in the 4th game we were down 22-24 and came back at won it! It was amazing! I'm still in shock that we were able to do it. And then we finished it out and won the match in 5! It was one of the most mentally and physically exhausting matches that we had been a part of. But so rewarding at the same time. Then 3 days later we played Brondby again at home. If we win we are done with the semis and move onto the finals....if we lose we would have to play again 3 days later. Once again we started off the match very strong taking the 1st and 2nd games pretty easily. The 3rd game was very tight and Brondby had chances to win it but once again Fortuna came out on top! It was very exciting. We had so many fans cheering us on and one of the boys professional teams here came and cheered us on as well! They were very loud which helped keep us going. We have a lot of respect for Brondby and it is always fun playing them. So now we are in the finals!!!! We will start our first match this friday the 9th at Holte. Holte is the team we beat in the Cup Final in January. So they will be coming out very strong. I'm pretty sure they will be playing the game online at Holte's website. When I know the website I will let you all know!

Now just a little catch up on me. I'm doing really well. I finally feel adjusted to European lifestyle...only took me almost 8 months!....hahaha. But as the season is coming to an end it becomes more real how much I am going to miss my teammates and how much fun I have had this season. I could have not asked for a better team to play on.

My mom gets here April 21st!!!! I cannot wait for her to get to meet everyone and see where I've been living for the past year. If anyone else is interested in coming hop on the plane with my mom! The more the merrier : )

And personally even though there have been tough times where I have felt very far away from God while being here, I have also been able to strengthen my relationship with the Lord which was something I was definitely in need of doing. And to all of you prayer warriors who had me daily in their prayers I thank you all so much for keeping me close to your hearts. Your prayers were felt here and I couldn't have made it this far without you! I am so blessed to have to many wonderful people in my life!

Once again I'm sorry I haven't been more on top of this thing, but I will be letting you know how the finals go and when my mama gets here!

Love you all.....vi ses from denmark for now

2010-01-25T12:51:00.000-08:00

Hello lovely Americans!!! So I have some fantastic news.....my team won the Danish Cup yesterday!!!! This was a big victory considering we had lost to this team both times we have played them this season. We have been preparing for this match since we returned from our Christmas break. There was a lot of anticipation for the match as we were all eager to go out and compete in front of a huge crowd. We won the match 3-0. Here is our website where you can see pictures from the tournament and also the link to one of the newspaper articles that has pictures as well. I know some of you may not speak Danish fluently so if you would like to read any of the articles or our website you can just copy and paste into google translate and see what it has to say. But just beware that some of the way things translate into English may not make much sense but you will understand the main idea. So here are the links http://www.fortuna-odense.dk/main/top/index.php and here is the newspaper link http://www.fyens.dk/gallerier/422835

I hope everyone is having a great start to the 2010 year! Fortuna Elite Volley is definitely starting the year off with a bang! I miss and love you all!!!!!

2010-01-03T21:38:00.000-08:00

So this is Debbie, the mom! I am sitting next to Kristen and have told her how annoying it is to check her blog and see November 21 over and over again so she told me to say something. Kristen has been home in Colorado since December 22. It was quite the journey for her to make her way home for Christmas. But she made it and now it's time for her to return to Odense. I think she's kinda sad about leaving and I know I'm very sad that she's leaving. The not quite 2 weeks went by way too fast. She is flying back standby which will be challenging, please pray for her. She's going Denver to Washington DC, DC to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Hamburg and then maybe taking a train from Hamburg to Odense. All in all, I think she's doing pretty well. She loves her teammates and hanging out with the guys from the men's team. In between practices and matches, she does some cleaning and coaching to make some money. Things are pretty expensive over there so every little bit helps. About 6 weeks ago, K told me that she believes she's suppose to be in Denmark but that she thinks it has nothing to do with volleyball. Maybe some personal growth, maturity, that kind of thing. I'm convinced that one day she'll look back at this experience and say that it was amazing. And she'll be so glad that she did it. In the meantime, she misses home and family and friends. And a toilet that works and a shower that's normal. Her team is doing well, they are playing in the Cup final on January 24 and Bill is planning to be there. Well, that's a little update from the mom's point of view. Thanks for being a part of this journey!!

2009-11-21T06:35:00.000-08:00

Hello! I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! Just a little update on me. We play Holte tomorrow which is really exciting because they are the only team that we have lost to in our league. So needless to say it should be an exciting match. I will keep you all updated on how we do. Next week Katherine and I will be moving to our new place....yay!!!! We are so excited to finally get situated. I am a little sad though that I won't be home for Thanksgiving : ( Just promise me that you all will eat extra for me! I know that won't be a hard request....hahaha. That's about all that is going on over here. I will let you know how tomorrow goes. Please be thinking about Fortuna Volley when you wake up tomorrow morning, because we will probably be playing at that time : )

2009-11-10T03:49:00.000-08:00

Hey Friends and Family!

So I want to apologize for not keeping up lately with my blog. So let me fill you in on the latest that has been going on. A little over a week ago we traveled to Finland to play in the first round of the Nordic Cup. We had a Swedish team and a Finish team in our pool. We played the Swedish team the first night and beat them pretty good in 3 which was very exciting. And for those of you that are knowledgeable in volleyball might find this kind of cool. The Swedish team had former University of Florida outside hitter, Marci Hampton, on their team. That was really exciting to get to play against someone who I played in college and now play against them in Europe. The other great thing was that we beat them! We ended up losing to the Finish team the next day in 5 which was a bummer. And it came down to points whether we qualified to play in the finals at the end up January. But we missed it by a couple of points which was such a bummer. We really felt like we deserved to make it. But oh well life goes on.

So that has probably been the biggest thing going on lately. As far as our regular matches over the weekends we have won all but 1 match. Our team just keeps getting better and better which is really exciting to see. We will play in the semifinals of the Danish Cup sometime in December before Christmas.

Ok enough about volleyball......I'm still slowly but surely starting to get adjusted here. I have now started riding my bike and am verrrryyyy slowly getting better. So far my crash total is at 3. I'm hoping it doesn't get much bigger than that but I really can't make any promises. Me and bikes were just not meant to get along. But I will say that one of my big falls was not my fault and I will tell you why. We were leaving on a train and had to be at the train station by 730am with all of our bags for Finland. Well Katherine and I had to ride our bikes to get to the train station. I have never had to ride a bike with luggage so I just threw the bags over my shoulders......big mistake! I got about 30 ft away from the house and the first words out of my mouth were "uh oh im going down im going down!" and sure enough I fell and then the bike followed. Luckily I landed on my bag but it wasn't an ideal situation. Katherine was behind me laughing and asking if I was ok and I couldn't even talk because I was laughing so hard. So then I realized that there was a strategy to balance multiple bags while you're riding which Katherine was so nice to help me do. But we finally made it!

Katherine and I will be moving again in about 2 weeks to an apartment that we will be in for the rest of our time here. We are really sad to be leaving our nice house but at the same time excited to have a place that we know is ours. Right now we have an Australian guy who just joined the men's team here living with us. He is 6'10!!! And really sweet! It has been so cool to get to know him and also great because he makes Katherine and I dinner a lot which we never pass up on : ) Our house just seems to be an orphanage for those that don't have apartments. But Katherine and I love it because we get to know more people that way.

Lets see I think that should be it for now. If there is anything you all would like to hear about please let me know and I would be glad to fill you all in! I hope things are going great out in the good 'ol US and I hope to talk to you all soon!!!

Love and miss you!!!

2009-10-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

Hey all! I APOLOGIZE with my whole heart for not writing in so long. My access to internet has been sooo limited that when i do get to use it I try to call my family. So I'm sorry for lacking in my blog writing : ( but I promise when I do have internet consistently that you will be hearing from me on a more regular basis!

But things are going good hear. My body is holding itself together which is nice and I'm slowly but surely getting settled!

I hope things back in the states are going well for everyone and I miss you all!!! Thanks for all your support and prayers!!!!

2009-09-08T04:15:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! sorry it has taken me so long to write. We haven't had a lot of access to internet lately but will hopefully get it in our house in the next week.

So just a little update on me. We went to Germany last weekend to play the top German team and another German team that took 4th last year. These teams were AMAZING!!!! Both teams had players girls that play on either the German national team or the French national team. So needless to say they were a little bit better than us.....hahaha. But it was really good experience especially for our young players to see that kind of volleyball. I struggled most of the weekend passing. For some reason my platform has not been the same. It has been really frustrating and I don't understand what is going on. I used to be so confident in it and now I feel like my confidence is getting lower with each practice and match. But hopefully I will snap out of it and get back into. If anyone has a nice perfect platform for sale I will pay anything for it!!!!!hahahaha (but seriously i will). We go to France in a week to play some of the top French teams and from what I've heard from the girls these teams are better than the German teams!!! So it may be a little rough! But I just hope that we take a lot of good from it and learn a lot as well. So just keep us in your prayers as we go into next week!

I'm slowly but surely starting to get adjusted. They got Katherine and I bikes to get around which makes me really nervous. I am a bad biker. I can't make sharp turns. I asked for training wheels on my bike but instead got a guys bike. And people can't really use the phrase "its like riding a bike" with me because it means nothing to me! But I will let you all know how it goes! It should be pretty comical.

We get to stay in the house that we moved in to because there are 2 American boys that are playing on the men's pro team, and they are living with us. They are both really nice so it should be fun. The only issue we have is that we only have 1 bathroom and shower. So it will be interesting to see how all that works out. But so far we haven't had any issues. But right now neither of them has a room or a bed so they both sleep on little mattresses in the living room. I feel so bad for them. Over the weekend while we were in Germany we let them use our beds and they said it was amazing! I felt bad taking my bed back but they should be getting their rooms here soon!

Well I am missing everyone back at home and I can't wait to hear from everyone and all the updates!!!

Love you all!!!

2009-08-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-26T02:58:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

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!!!!

2009-08-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

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!

Sorry Lauri

2009-08-17T06:55:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-17T04:47:00.000-07:00

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!

Packing : (

2009-08-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

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