So it seems to be normal that I write my blog the day before our hockey game. But I have to rewind the clock a little cause I have a fair bit to go through. Wednesday - the 2nd of 3 painting days... we painted. - see photo. Training on wednesday night was horrible... our coach doesn't seem to train on wednesday's but he is always here, so another player takes training, and the same as baw-baw; there is a fair few players that live out of town and come back just for weekends, so the attendance was poor. Morale was at an all time low, mistakes were made - it was just bad. So we left hockey after trying to organise some stuff - which comes to my announcement. We are going to the Australia V Germany soccer game on tuesday. We can't wait. I have been trying to organise the tickets... but it had been very difficult, why you ask? well, due to scalping they only sell 4 at any time, but we have 13 people that want to go. So.... I had to ring places and fax paper with addresses and details and blah blah, but anyway, long story is that we are goign (unless it sells out in the next 2 days). They don't allow you to book the tickets and pick them up at the ground.. stupid... so we have to keep an eye on how many tickets are left on the internet. If it fills up too fast, we drive an hour to germany to the stadium to buy the tickets.So - wednesday we were collecting money, and trying to call the ticket hotline. Wednesday night I went for a run with tarks for 23 minutes and then went to the hockey ground to play soccer with some of the younger guys from hockey (16-18) this was strange. they played this game called 'arse'. One person was the goal keeper, and the other x amount of players had to score a goal without the ball touching the ground, and depending on which part of the body you scored with, was how many points you lost (the keeper lost) if you missed the goal or the keeper caught the ball, then you become the goalkeeper.... You started with 10 points, and funky was the unlucky one to run out of points first. - they didn't tell us that you have to stand in the goals and get the ball kicked at you by everyione else!! but he escaped ok, (they aren't very good kicks) and then we played a game against them. We smashed them - probably because they are young, but we were winning 17-8 with only 3 of us and 6 of them... We also won the "serious" game 10-9. So 1 up for the aussies!
Thursday was australia vs india cricket day - but we had to paint still... so we left a bit early and got back in time to watch australia lose.. but we did try and explain the game to merlin and casper... they had no idea whatsoever.. Boring for them,but we explained cricket.. Australia lost to india... boo... but with how they had been playing - what do I expect.. Friday started off not busy, and ended up not busy, but with a few frantic moments built into it. Wouter came at 12.00 to pick me up (I watched st kilda v geelong in the morning) and do some internet/paperwork/washing and try and make sense of the immigration forms that we have to fill out. Our appointment is on monday to finally try and get our work permit/permission to stay here for a year... (weird, cause I thought I already had. but it turns out I am here for 3 months, and then they have to approve it while I am here) - bureaucracy at it's best. thanks netherlands. So we had a meeting to get our all important lease agreement, without it, we can't get a car or work or anything. But we finally got that - and I read one of my books for the first time in the trip. not bad for someone who took 8 books... Friday night at training was much better. I coached the a1 juniors and made them do running and drills, and I hope they understood me cause I obviously don't speak dutch, I wish I did cause I could tell them off better when they stuff around. But that was from 6.30 -8:00 then I had training from 8-10.30. it was a long night. It was much better, but what I don't understand is the lack of belief some of the guys have. We are playing a much better team today, and when I arrived to the group saying - so we going to win on the weekend, most of them said "no they are too good" - I'm like.... well why do we bother training, lets go home now... ( i didn't say that though) but after training we spoke to them and changed their midsets a little bit... but geez!! So friday night we went back tot he pub and had tea, and I had to look after andrew and mark, the younger (party style dutch guy) took them to nightclub, and by the time I got there with the older dutch guys (we are nicknamed the oldies) to see if they wanted to come home they were in big trouble.... it was an interesting ride home for me with mark on the back of my bike... Amusing... they spent saturday in bed.
Saturday I got up early and watched hawthorn lose as I told u before, and then rode my bike around a little bit looking at boxmeer, - what is amazing and what is constantly something that I look at is how the same and how different things are here. Like food is so similar, but oh so differernt, and houses are the same kinda, but so so differernt, And when i was riding past them, it is cool to just look around at things and observe how things are different. Horses in front yards, no fences on most houses, bricks are smaller and weird coloured, the roofs are pitched at frightening angles etc.. and then I went to hockey to try and organise tickets for football. No luck there... but I stayed at hockey talking to some people and watched a few games, and then went shopping. We made spag bol, which was surprisingly good, and then watched a movie - london boulevard - I don't think it is out yet, but it wasn't very good. - I fell asleep during it, so I can't tell you much about it, except that it is an english movie with colin farrell... So today i'm about to go down the street to go on the internet, hopefully talk to some of you on skype if you are around, if not then I'll just have breakfast at the cafe... My leg is almost better, but it still hurts when I get fatigued, so a 20-30m sprint is ok, as long as I have time to recover. - of course that is not how hockey is played, so I'm not at 100% yet.. here is to hoping that we can win, boxmeer needs to knock off one of these top teams... (people on the dutch hockey forum told us we would lose 5-0....) hmmm.... anyway I am off, hope everything is going well back in australia.
Tot ziens..
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