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!
