Me and the tower bridge, and a fortress next to the tower bridge with tons of fake poppies.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Back in Cologne!
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.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Berlin
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 :)
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