The next morning I rode into town and used some internet and did some sightseeing. Then I rode to the next town and took a train to Carcassonne, a medieval fortress that is super impressive! I knew I wasn't making very good time riding to Barcelona, but hey, I'm on vacation!
On Monday I spent a lazy morning at the campsite and then finally went to the store and bought some food to prepare for my attempted ride to Barcelona on my polo bike. I sent a heavy bag of stuff and my polo gear with the Czech travel van so I wouldn't have to carry so much with me. I only got a little lost the first day, and got to see some lovely French beach towns. With the help of a guy walking his dog I found a lovely bike path along the Mediterranean that I followed for most of the evening until I found a place to camp on the beach. It was a beautiful night and I enjoyed the perfect weather and a sky filled with endless stars. I even found a place to set up my hammock. The sunset was beautiful as well! The next day I had to head inland to follow the easiest route to Barcelona. Unfortunately in the heat of the day I got three flats and could barely find any shade to fix them in. In the evening a guy offered to carry my bag to the next town, and I could meet him there and get my bag. Which was a really nice offer, but I knew I wouldn't be making it to that town for the night!
On Wednesday, I wandered around for a bit while trying to find the courts. The GPS coordinates provided by the organizers didn't quite match up to the courts. Fortunately I wasn't playing Wednesday so it didn't really matter when I arrived. As I got closer I kept running into more and more polo players, but I also got a flat about 1km away so it was slow going. Then I arrived to four beautiful courts in the blazing heat! I got to cheer on my friends playing in the wildcard tournament. Afterwards we went as a group to the campsite (I was camping with my German friends). We made dinner and relaxed before preparing for playing early the next morning. Unfortunately one of my teammates, Kat, realized her frame was broken so someone lent her a bike to use, but some parts had to be transferred over.
So we got up early in the morning and headed to the courts and still couldn't find our teammate Jacki. Finally we found her, though she arrived late, and we could finally get our bikes checked for safety. I think we were the only all female team playing in the main tournament. Unfortunately we didn't do very well the first day (but what does one expect playing in the worlds tournament with two people you've never played with before?). We lost four games and tied one the first day. I feel like it was difficult to get a good team dynamic going. I stayed to watch the afternoon group, and spent the day watching games or hiding from the sun. Afterwards a big group headed to the after party but there were rumors of €7.30 being the cheapest beer plus I was hungry so I headed back to the campsite. Then another somewhat early day. We were in the bottom 48 teams and we won two games and lost two games. Unfortunately one of the games we won was against my favorite Czech team, Krystalis. It was a fun match though! Then there was the Friday after party, which was a bit more organized than the party on Thursday. Still the beers were €5 but there was a big group of people there and also some dancing to mediocre music. Finally they closed and kicked us out and groups split so I rode with a group of people to some unknown destination and then decided to go home after all.
The next morning the Germans woke me up at some ungodly hour, since I had gone to bed around 4 or 5 and they woke me up well before 9. So it was a rough morning, ha. Then another day of watching world class polo! The games were fantastic and the heckling and cheering just got better as the day went on. The weather was perfect all weekend, albeit quite hot. I got to hang out with friends new and old. Then the after party Saturday was quite the riot! A giant group of polo players crowded on a square being quite drunk and unruly. I felt like I had been steamrolled the next morning, ha, but an early morning swim revived me. Then a group of us from the campsite all rode to the beach, which was awesome and beautiful. As we hung out, random other polo players showed up until we had a huge group. Afterwards we went out for pizza in town and had much confusion with who ordered what and how many despite having a French speaker with us. Then an early night back at the campsite!
I arrived in Frankfurt and stayed a couple of nights at the flat of two of the guys from the Edisons. I had a chance to do some sightseeing, and of course got drenched a couple of times too. Frankfurt is an interesting mix of old and new- beautiful old buildings and skyscrapers as well. Then on Tuesday morning Lukas from Giessen picked up a carload of players and we drove forever to Montpellier. I think we were all overdressed once we got there; the weather went from cold to quite balmy. Our bikes came a couple of hours later in a polo van. So a group of us trekked on foot all over downtown. Montpellier is quite beautiful! The pictures in this post are only from Frankfurt.
OK, I left off right before traveling to Ulm for my 5th polo tournament. I was fortunate to get a ride from Cologne to Ulm with my friends Jan and Kati. They decided to play at the last minute so it all worked out well. We arrived at the court Friday evening and then found the party which was in a pub by the river. Not long after, the police came and told us all to shut up since the acoustics in the place weren't quite conducive to a polo party. We went to another bar then, causing mayhem the whole way. Poor Ulm. Finally camping at the courts and I enjoyed using my hammock just feet from the court. I played with Chris and Lisa from Nuremberg. The one rain storm all weekend was during one of our games, and it was actually quite fun. The whole court turned into a lake so it was pretty much just playing around with a floating ball. We couldn't pass or shoot or anything; the ball would travel only about a foot in the water. We all got soaked (and so did my hammock, ha). After the game the six of us all gathered around a bum fire and dried ourselves and our polo stuff. Then party time and more camping at the courts! Shenanigans ensued, including the taping of shoe soles with the clip-in cleats attached to flip flops = click flops. Then two guys rode the same bike at the same time with one on each pedal. They did remarkably well! I slept in Jan and Kati's car that night since my hammock was a sopping mess. On Sunday we only played two games but as I recall one of them was quite close. So time for beer drinking and heckling! It was a great tournament! At the beginning of one of the final games, there was an epic crash where Hagen's bike collapsed under him during the joust, and the front end of the bike took out the guy going for the ball on the other team. Fortunately he was fine (scraped up of course) but he was quite shocked to have no bike underneath him suddenly. There were a ton of sponsors and prizes given out at the tournament! I'd never seen so many prizes! After the tournament I rode with a Frankfurt player to spend a couple of days in Frankfurt before heading to worlds in Montpellier.
Me and the tower bridge, and a fortress next to the tower bridge with tons of fake poppies.
So after being detained by the UK immigration for 3.5 hours, I was finally approved to enter the country. Unfortunately I had to abandon my comfy carpool and then found that a walk-on ticket for the ferry is €40 which is outrageous. So after waiting a couple of hours with a sign, I successfully hitchhiked with a great German guy named Tom. He had a badass LandRover and some excellent travel stories. He dropped me off at the outskirts of London, as he was traveling to Scotland and had no interest in getting stuck in London traffic. I took a train into the center and then biked to Hackney Wick in north London where I was staying. Nikola's husband Ryan met me and we went back to the canal boat that they live on. If I didn't have Nik's phone number, I'm not sure the UK officials would have let me in. The boat was awesome and I love it! It's my new dream house! I interrupted a last minute tournament planning meeting but then it was dinner/hangout time.
On Thursday I biked around London and did some sightseeing, and Friday was court-building day. Then it was time for the London Open! I played with Chris from Sheffield and Jordan from Brisbane. So it was a super international team! I had a fantastic time playing with those guys. Good polo, good attitudes. I think we tied for 13th but I'm not actually sure. Podium, the common program used to run the tournaments, crashed big time leaving the organizers at a loss. Thanks to hardworking Sophie from Bristol, the tournament was up and running again with a pen and paper.
I'm not a big fan of the London weather! Fall is approaching and within an hour you can be too warm, too cold, and soaking wet from rain. I should savor it though because I know how the weather is in Texas right now! Monday was the court teardown. 300 pallets had to be moved into a giant truck and a bunch of plywood had to be carried off. And it rained on us three times. Then I carried my belongings over to Maddie's flat since Nik had to host her father on the boat. I did some more sightseeing on Tuesday and after several difficulties finding a carpool from London to Cologne, I finally got a ride that left Wednesday around noon. It was with a nice guy named Derick from Cameroon. We listened to African party music the whole way. Finally I arrived back in Cologne after taking the last train from a city to the north of Cologne. Hooray! Today I will travel to Ulm for my 5th tournament in a row! Last night we went to a checkpoint and after party of the German cycle messenger championships. After the bar closed, a substance called Molotov soda was busted out, carried around in a gas can. It tasted like hangovers.
Wow, time really flew by in Berlin! I rode in a car of polo players from Cologne; one guy was able to borrow his parent's large nice van so it was a comfortable journey! We ran into a lot of traffic on the highway which got pretty old.
I played with my friend Jan and a traveling polo player named Erik from Corvallis, Oregon. It was really crazy that we played with him since he was just a random american that showed up the morning of the tournament, and we happened to be looking for a third player. He had to borrow a bike and equipment for every game but he played well despite the hardships. And it so happens that I know one of his polo clubmates well and played with him in Mobile, Alabama!
We played our first 4 games on Friday and then my disc brake had some catastrophic irreparable fail so I had to borrow a somewhat ill-suited bike for our last game. Then, since I didn't have a bike with a brake to ride around on, I was shuttled around in the giant rented polo van. We went out to eat and then all crashed at one of the polo players' flats. When I got up, the van had already left with my bike in it, which left me stranded 45 minutes by bike away from the courts with no bike. But this actually worked out well because Jan and I took the S-Bahn, the above ground train, to the courts. And while we were traveling, a guy named Reimer went to pick up a cheap replacement brake from a guy who owns a bike shop (but it was across the city and Reimer kindly agreed to go fetch it) and then a guy named Christian set up the new brake, so when I arrived at the courts I had about 5 minutes to put my gear on to play in our first game of the day. Excellent timing! We played 5 games on Saturday and played well but most importantly had fun. And drank beer.
On Sunday, we were eliminated after two games and thus tied for 25th of 33 teams. I think Jan was too sober to play :) We watched some amazing games for the rest of the day. The finals were a ton of fun to watch! Unfortunately there was some rain during the semi finals which made it a little more dangerous to play, but the courts eventually dried out and there was an epic rainbow! The crowd was so into cheering for the teams and some cities even have their own cheers. Then the awards ceremony, and afterwards the beer was free!
On Monday we returned to the courts to help clean up and tear them down. My friends from cologne left and took some new friends from new Zealand with them :( And then it rained forever and we were trapped under a tent! Finally the rain stopped and we played some pickup games while waiting for a truck to come. About the time the work started I was scheduled to meet up with my new host, Dirk. He is a messenger friend of Jan's that was hanging out with us at the tournament. His flat is really awesome! It was built around 1900 and hasn't been fully renovated and it has sooo much character! The flats on each side of the building have floors at all different levels! Also Dirk told me that his flat once was two separate flats and that two separate families would rent the flats at once back in the day, one working the day shift and one working the night. Dirk has a bunch of really beautiful bikes and we nerded out about them for a while.
The week really flew by! I did some typical sightseeing and some lazing about recovery from the tournament. When I turned around it was Thursday already and Dirk and I went to help rebuild the regular pickup court in Berlin to help prepare for the Mallet Dolorosa, the ladies single player shuffle tournament. What that translates to is playing 8 rounds with random teams each round and then an overall ranking of players. From that ranking, teams are organized with a top player, a mid level player, and a lower level player. Then as teams win or lose the teams are shuffled again for each following round. I'll get more to the results on that...
On Friday, instead of playing pickup on the nice, rebuilt court, I packed up my stuff and moved it over to Anne Merrill's flat. She is a folk dancer from Austin and a very recent transplant to Berlin. Her flat is beautiful!!! Nice high ceilings, tons of light, and even a balcony and a clothes drier! And much closer to the court too :) We hung out on Friday and had some delicious food, and then went out to folk dancing. Which was amazingggg! They had almost a completely different repertoire of dances, and so many ethnic people singing along to songs in their native tongues. Like polo, dancing is another universal language and it was so awesome to be able to take part in something special where you don't need words to communicate. Most people spoke English though! Plus the average age was way lower than we were used to which was awesome. Folk dance happens four times a week in Berlin!!! Anne found a friend who also studies herbs so she has insider information on more stuff she can go check out while she's living in Berlin. After a great time at dancing, we were invited out to go drinking on a boat. The park where the rec center is located borders a branch of the river and on the river sits a boat which is a bar. Such a cool hangout place! Only slightly different from Hyde Park ;) The dancers wanted us to return on Saturday to do some Kurdish dancing, but I of course had a tournament to go to!
On Saturday we played I think six rounds with the random teams of players, partially because we got started late and partially because we had a rainstorm in the middle. While we were playing, the guys were working on rigging some lights for pick-up games. During the tournament, I got checked in the steering arm (an illegal move which was called by the ref) but I landed on the very end of my handlebars which stabbed me pretty good (but barely broke the skin due to a plastic cap on the end). The bruise immediately started developing and I knew it would be a good one. Also during the games on Saturday, I landed badly on my ankle and twisted it, but that didn't stop me from playing a bunch of pickup after the rounds.
On Sunday I woke up feeling like I was hit by a bus but I was fully expecting it. Anne's boyfriend made omelettes for breakfast and got some croissants so we had a delicious meal! I arrived at the courts to find I had been subbed out for my first game but i had no problem with that. Especially since my "team" won anyway! We were finishing the last of the 8 rounds before starting a double elimination tournament.
Once the sorting happened (I was ranked in the top 8) we were placed on our first teams. My team lost and I was in the losers bracket, and then the next losing team was randomly mixed with our three players. Then my new team also lost so I was on the first team to be eliminated. Time for beer! :) My ankle was pretty happy to be done. I watched some exciting games and made some new friends and saw the aftermath of some crazy crashes. During the awards ceremony I co-won the award for prettiest bike along with my future world's teammate Nele.
After the tournament we hung out for a while and one guy was pretty trashed and passed out a few times. Pictures were taken and drawings were made. He kept waking up and partying more! We hung around until after dark and then a storm blew in suddenly and we had to hide out under tents again. Finally the storm blew through and we were able to clean up everything.
So of course when I woke up on Monday I felt like roadkill instead of just being hit by a bus. I spent a fair amount time figuring out ride and team logistics of future tournaments. Anne and her boyfriend and I went out to dinner at a delicious Italian place and afterwards Anne and I went down to "Museum Island" to a dance venue right next to the river. It was all lit up with strings of lights and lots of people were hanging out enjoying the music and the dancers. On Monday night they do swing dancing. We enjoyed some dances and also watching the dancers to see which ones could become Anne's new friends! It was a beautiful venue and the perfect temperature and atmosphere. Jealous!!!
On Tuesday Anne and I enjoyed some delicious Turkish food and conversation, and finally made our way back down to Museum Island. I wanted to go to the cathedral (or maybe it is just a church) but they charge 7€ just to go inside and that's absurd. So we wandered around and did some sightseeing and on our way back we were entranced by a hurdy gurdy player sitting on the bridge to the island. He played la bastringue (no I can't spell that) and he played a waltz for us. So we danced! It was a pretty magical experience!! :) Then we headed back and Anne helped me figure out how to get to my meet up spot for my carpool to London. Actually a carpool to Brighton but that's close enough. I previously had a ride arranged with my teammate but she had to cancel due to some understandable circumstances so I found a ride oncarpooling.co.ukwhich is a pretty cool website. So now I'm playing with Chris from Sheffield and Jordan from Brisbane (I met him in Berlin at the mixed tournament). So that should be a fun team! Also it sounds like I may be sleeping on a boat in London! Pretty cool :)
So after some more exploring in Cologne, I headed out Thursday evening to the location of the German Championships for bike polo in Oberhausen. Since I have been staying with the organizers I of course pitched in to do what I could to help prepare for the tournament. And boy was it a lot of work! The tournament was amazing!!! So professionally run and we were lucky to have no rain also. I lost my front wheel to an unfortunate accident during a pickup game but was able to buy a brand new one at the tournament so it all worked out. I played with Marc from Berlin and Karsten from Leipzig. They were wonderful to play with! We placed 17th out of 35 teams, pretty good!
On Monday I helped Kati and Jan with the cleanup afterwards (after partying late into the evening on Sunday!) In Germany you get 25 euro cents for every plastic bottle you turn in so that was a big chore for the day since we had bags and bags of plastic and it is suspicious if you go to one supermarket to use the automated machines to get the money back. We had scaffolding to return from the referee stations and trash to get rid of and the van to pack again. Then I took the train back to Cologne which is all good because Jan found us a ride to Berlin on Thursday with another polo player!
First day of wandering around cologne...it drizzled most of the day but nothing too bad. I saw the Cologne cathedral and took some shelter from the rain. I also saw an archaeological site and wandered around the Rhine for a bit before getting a call saying that my bike had arrived! I went back to the messenger shop where it was delivered and hastily put it together to play some bike polo. Less than 24 hours here and already some polo :) Afterwards we hung out in the messenger shop to celebrate a birthday. Maybe some museums tomorrow?
I finally arrived in Cologne last night and was very fortunate to have my hosts, Kati and John, pick me up at the airport! Unfortunately the airlines lost my bike but it sounds like they will deliver it to John's messenger shop sometime soon. It has been raining today and I will be venturing out shortly!
After so much preparation, I am finally at the airport! They didn't charge me anything to check my bike and didn't even ask what was in the package! I got pretty lucky- hopefully they don't lose any of the pieces inside (I'm not feeling so confident about taking my disc brake off now, ha). Istanbul bound!
