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.
