Rainy Day in the Sand

It rained all day.  Two times it came down so hard that everyone had to go under the cover of the food tent just to stay dry.  The sand felt wet and hard.  A constant cool breeze was blowing with short gusts of wind periodically.  The sun was nowhere to be found.

Despite the weather, we played an all-day 4-person mixed volleyball tournament on the sand courts in Venlo, the Netherlands.  We were the most international team participating with two Germans, one Dutch guy, and one American.  Our teammates for the tournament, Dustin and Sarah, play together for a German club team just over the border from Venlo.  Dustin goes to school with Steve, so that's how we all got connected. 

At least it looked like we were at the beach, even though it was cold and rainy.

The four of us had practiced together two times on indoor courts before the tournament.  But playing in the sand is completely different.  Thankfully, it worked to our advantage as the sand courts are smaller with shorter nets.  We were a little shaky in the first game, but finally found our rythym by the end of it.

We won every game up until the final match, which we lost to a family who plays together on a regular basis.  Overall we took 2nd place out of 19 teams!

Our team name was "Ummer Zeek," a Dutch dialect phrase loosely translated to mean "always up to something."  And that we were.  If we weren't playing a volleyball game, we were practicing techniques, watching the other teams, running back and forth in and out of the rain, or playing games just for fun.

Ummer Zeek...always up to no good