Week one: getting adjusted and first games

  Munich, Germany
Tuesday, June 3, 2008

          Hello again! Now we've passed day one and we're on to the rest of the week! basically, this week (wed-sun) was focused on softball and getting adjusted. What was the first thing I did? I slept. I woke up at about 1pm on Wednesday. After I finally rolled out of bed, my first order of business was to go into the city center to take care of some things. I had to email my parents to let them know I was ok, I had to fix my watch so I would finally be able to tell the time (it is so wierd to not know the time), and I wanted to walk around Marienplatz once again. The last time I had been there was when some of my classmates from Salzburg and I travelled to the city to enjoy Hofbrauhaus and a game of football. That was in December of 2006.
         This is a picture of me on a train again for the first time since then.

I thought it would be a fun moment to capture. Turns out I also documented the first time I went the wrong way on a train. I didn't pay enough attention to the underground map and ended up going all the way to the end of my line. The sad part was, I didn't figure it out until the train started going the opposite direction. Luckily, I learned, and I have gone the correct way since then.
         When I got back to my apartment around 5, Ingo was there to meet me. He then gave me my cell phone (to me, a better clock more than anything.) Then he walked me to the grocery store. I bought the usual things that a non-cook buys: stuff for sandwiches, pasta and chips. Don't worry though, I will eventually learn to cook for myself. I'm already getting tired of pasta with olive oil, salt and pepper.
          The next obstacle was internet. I couldn't get internet in my room, so I went to this place a couple times and bought a drink in exchange for an hour of internet.
                             
Of course, I somehow forgot how strong the drinks are here and walked home tipsy the first night I went to this place... After two drinks. Oops. Don't worry Mom, it is very close to my apartment. Now i don't have to go there anymore though, because I found a spot right in front of my window where I can get free wireless. It's actually pretty nice with the fresh, cool air and all the green around.
         Unfortunately, my technical problems did not end there. When I plugged my hair dryer into my "converter" on the second day, I quickly found out that it was an "adapter." I got a nice black spot on my hand for the night and killed my hair dryer. The big problem, I would later come to find out, was that I had also blown a fuse. I discovered this when my little mini fridge started peeing. Of course, I couldn't find a circuit breaker, so I had to call my coach, Clemens:
                                                                     
He was totally awesome and came straight from his house, even though he had just gotten home from work a few minutes before. He found the circuit breaker and made sure everything was working and I was back in order... for now at least. 
        On Thursday, I didn't do much. Again, I stayed up late doing who knows what and slept until way past noon. By that time it was time for practice. Practice went a little better this day, but I didn't throw much because I hurt my arm trying to be a hot shot on Tuesday. I'm too old to play 100% after just getting off of a plane, apparently. : ) Friday was another lazy day of getting adjusted. That night, one of the girls from the team, Sarah, called me. She's a pitcher and outfielder on our team.
                          
Sarah asked me to go out to a pub with her and some of the American baseball players to a pub. I love pubs and I wanted to get to know the girls better, so I went along... even though we didn't leave until midnight. As it turned out, it was just me, Sarah and about 12 different boys throughout the night. So much for getting to know my teammates. I just kept thinking, "Oh man, what is ryan gonna think!" He just laughed and said I'm going to end up being her wingman for the summer. That's ok with me.
         So our night began at an Australian pub (Sarah was in Australia for a while, I just can't remember what for.) That place was loud and fun and I enjoyed just sitting around and talking to everyone. When closing time came rolling around, I was thinking to myself, this was a good night! Then we went to another club... then a couple hours after that, another.... About the time the sun started coming up, Sarah finally said she was tired. I must say, this is the first time that I have stayed out until the sun came up. Here's the proof:

         Well, I was worried because my usual pregame ritual at home is to get a lot of sleep two nights before a game. Getting home at  6am didn't seem to quite fit into that plan. However, I slept until two so I guess I made up for it. I did play pretty well on Sunday. : )
         Now we're on to Sunday... Game day! We arrived at the field at 10:30 to set up our dugouts. Yes, we had to make our own dugouts. We just put up tents outside of the fence. It worked out pretty well. Here's what it looked like.

We then played a double header against the two time German champ, the Mannheim Tornados. They are a very good team. Half of their players are on the national team (I heard this numerous times from various girls on my team.) You can just tell they've played a lot longer and more seriously than our girls have. They crushed us. We lost 12-2 in the first game and 5-1 the second game. We can play better though. We didn't hit at the right times and we made a LOT of errors. I think we'll do much better next time. I think the girls were just too timid because of the team we were facing. I'm interested to see how we play in our next games on the 15th.
         So that wraps up week one. If you have any questions or if you think I missed something, please message me! Here's the link to my team's web page: http://www.disciples.de/teams/index.php?action=7 It's in German though, so I don't know how much you'll get out of it. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this REALLY LONG entry! Miss you all! Thanks for reading!