I never knew how important organized sports were to me until this spring. Ever since March, when the nasty winter weather was sloughed off, I have been itching to play sports. I began to develop this strange craving for any game that involved throwing, catching or kicking objects, such as baseball, frisbee, kickball. Of course, most of all, I longed to play sand volleyball, my favourite sport of all time.
Over the course of the year, I have been in search of a volleyball team, whether sand or indoor, to join. I've been in contact with someone who has a team, but with all my traveling, I was never in Madrid on the right weekends... until this past weekend. Finally, after months of agonizing withdrawal, I got a chance to play volleyball. I played with a misfit team of women in a tournament at a recreational sports center in the outskirts of Madrid.
I arrived at the sports center on Saturday only knowing that I was looking for a team with red shirts. One by one, the group came together and my circle of Spanish friends immediately quadrupled. Out of the 8 of us who played this weekend, only 3 were on the season team and all the others, like me, were either new or had only played with them once or twice. Despite the fact that we had never played as a team before, we meshed pretty well and everyone had a relatively decent level of play. On Saturday, we won both of our matched pretty easily, because our competition was almost non-existent since we were playing 15 year olds (I wish I were kidding). We played the final match on Sunday morning, and won the gold for our division.
O
h, it was so much fun to play! I was considered tall (ha!), so I played middle half the time. The net was really low, which allowed me to hit and block easily and impress my teammates. Considering I haven't touched a volleyball in over ten months, I guess I did play pretty well. I was encouraged and a little embarrased by having fans. Yadira, SK, and Ida came to cheer me on for our second match, and Yadira became the team photographer. It took a little while to get used to playing with volleyball terms in Spanish, and I spoke in Spanglish during play. For fun, we had an English lesson or two out on the court! Nice job.
h, it was so much fun to play! I was considered tall (ha!), so I played middle half the time. The net was really low, which allowed me to hit and block easily and impress my teammates. Considering I haven't touched a volleyball in over ten months, I guess I did play pretty well. I was encouraged and a little embarrased by having fans. Yadira, SK, and Ida came to cheer me on for our second match, and Yadira became the team photographer. It took a little while to get used to playing with volleyball terms in Spanish, and I spoke in Spanglish during play. For fun, we had an English lesson or two out on the court! Nice job. Of course, I was so thrilled to play my sport after the longest hiatus of my life, and I really enjoyed being out on the court. However, I think the best part of this experience is that I have set myself up for next year. I've been recruited to play on the season team that runs from October to March, and I am happy to have a new activity to get involved in next year. Plus, I have met some really fanastic Spanish girls, and I'm looking forward to pursuing those friendships next year.
It was great to be back on the courts!
Our team name was Las Otras (The Others)
Above: Players = Inma, me, Maria, Paula, Ana, Marian, and Ester
Below: Me, Marian, Ana, and Ester with our trophy and medals
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