Back in the USSR!

As I got off the plane in Ekaterinburg, Russia I couldn't help but sing the words..."Bu-bu-bu back in the U.S.S.R, you don't know how lucky you are, bu bu bu bu back in the USSR!" Who would have thought that I would be in the former Soviet Union Russia.

Ok, lets go back a bit before I started singing...We flew out of LAX on Memorial Day, Monday May 31, and had an easy 11 hour plane ride to Frankfurt, Germany. I sat in the second to last row in the back and had an aisle seat, maybe the worst sit you could have on a long plane ride. If you want to sleep, youre best chance of that is getting either a window seat, or a middle seat on the long row in the middle section. I, unfortunately, had the aisle on the long row. It wasn't all too terrible except the fact that once I had popped my 10mg Ambient, my neighbor needed to get out nearly every 30 minutes....needless to say my sleep wasn't too effective on the way to Frankfurt. We arrived in Frankfurt and had 4 hours to kill...so we did like any tourist would do, we went to the nearest Starbucks, I got a grande white hot chocolate...don't know if it gets any better than that. We went to the Star Alliance lounge (a perk of traveling and racking up a ton of Frequent Flyer miles) and had ourselves some nice big comfy chairs and couches to sit on, watched a little French Open and next thing we knew we were boarding our plane for our next leg to Helsinki, Finland....the Marathon day contd on!

To be completely honest, I don't even remember how long it took us from Frankfurt to Helsinki, maybe a two hour flight? Who knows, I put my headphones in, drowned out the airplane noise, put on some soft jams and I was out before we left the ground and woke up as we were descending into Helsinki! Not a bad trip at all!

I wish I could say the layover in Helsinki was as smooth as the layover in Frankfurt because, it was not at all, we had 6 hours to kill in the airport. It should be noted that 70% of Finland's economy revolves around Nokia phones...when they are good, the country is good. Another fact, the sun really never goes down in Finland this time of year. So...there were not a ton of people at the airport nor was there much to do. Ryan Millar and I, after rechecking our bags, went into the security area and found a nice little cafe with really nice soft chairs (a must for our butts after flying 16 hours at this point) but they were closing so we were forced to get our meals to go and eat them at the gate on the not so comfy chairs, a let down for sure. Millar (3 time Olympian, Gold Medalist, All-American BYU) snagged a wheelchair which was way more comfortable than sitting in the IKEA metal chairs in the airport. Literally, no lie, if you walked around the airport you would think you were in an IKEA store. Must be a scandinavian thing! So, i managed to eat my burger, which was made of minced meat, i think i spelled that wrong but regardless the burger was as bad as I misspelled that word. Finland is not known for its high quality beef i take it. Not sure if im excited for the food to come in Finland....Its been awful here in Russia!

After a 3 hour plane ride we made it into Ekaterinburg, Russia on Wednesday morning local time 6am. We left LAX mind you on Monday at 2:50pm. I was never a math major but that was a 30+ hour travel for us to Russia! But, we were all in good spirits, at least most of us because we have 5 players who just finished playing with their pro teams here in Russia and flew back to the states to train with us and 2 weeks later they had to come back, they weren't too excited about being back in Russia but the rest of us were happy to be off a plane.

This city is about 600 miles directly east of Moscow, in the flat land area. It is very green and lush here this time of here but very cold, -30 here in the winter time. Yikes! We flew into sunny skys and high 60's weather, can't complain. This city actually is on the border of where Europe and Asia are divided, and there is an actual line just outside the city that you can be standing on both the European continent and the Asian continent at the same time....I thought that was pretty cool actually. Also, a little factoid about this place, it has a famous church here called the church of the blood, it is a new church that was built on the site of the former Czar Nikolas Romanoff and his families mansion. The story goes when lenin and the red army were trying to take over power they came here, to the royal families mansion and killed the entire family, Czar nikolas, his wife and four kids in the basement. This was in 1917. So, they dug up the bodies 20 years ago or so and moved them to St. Petersburg and built this beautiful church on top of where the house was. The basement is the same as when the house was there though, so they left it as it were. Pretty crazy feeling though because they have pictures of the royal family outside the church all blown up really big for everyone to see.

Oh yeah, we came here to play volleyball, I almost forgot. Well, there wasn't too much to report there, the first night was absolutely awful, from what people have said it was the most lopsided loss by a US team. We lost in 3-0. It was not so great. We showed up a bit more prepared the next night and lost 3-1. A big loss to the team was us not having two starters, Reid Priddy and Clay Stanley. Reid actually made the trip but the night we got here he got a call from his wife and she was going into pre-term labor. She's not due until august. Soooo, Reid boarded a plane the next morning and flew back to Huntington Beach to take care of her. And Clay Stanley didn't make this first trip with us, he got back from playing in Russia days before we left. Too quick of a turnaround for him i guess.

Needless to say, we didn't have all our horses. Not much you can about that. We will though when we play them in Wichita in a few weeks.

Today is Sunday, an off day for us. Its a beautiful day out, we practiced a bit earlier so now we are going to go wander around the city and try not to run into the Russian Mafia.....

Its been a long month...and now we are in the Finals!

Well, i do need to do some serious recapping here....

What you've missed out on is this. We made a quick trip to China, really nothing going on there. It was longest 5 days of everyone of our lives. We spent nearly the entire trip it seemed in doors because the air pollution was so terrible. We were nestled in Nanjing, i think literal translation is remote china!...and we we split with China, not a big deal. Most importantly we all survived China.


Next, we came home for an ENTIRE day, and were on our way to Chicago for the biggest weekend of our World League up that point. Netherlands had dropped all the way to third, and Italy was on a 4 match win streak so this setup a big weekend in Chicago. Just like us, we came out tentative and got smoked the first night. That pulled Italy within 1 point of us, yikes. But we showed up the next night in dominating fashion, winning in 4. We then went out with the Italian coaches, who are awesome by the way, and had a really really nice dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Downtown Chicago.

Then, we had a mini vacation, well not really, we just had and extra day to prep for our last weekend to Wichita which ended up leading right into our trip to Serbia for the finals. Had we lost both matches against Netherlands, and Italy won both in China, they would have went to Serbia...but all we had to do was win one match and we would seal the deal. So, that's exactly what we did. We beat Netherlands both nights in fact and punched our ticket for the final 6 and instead of flying back home to LA, we flew directly to Belgrade, Serbia...

So tonight is the first night of the Finals...and we play Serbia in the Belgradska Arena...capacity 24,000...and it will be sold out they tell us! Should be fun!

I will update after the match!

USA vs. Italy

USA in Florence, Italy
We arrived in Florence Tuesday evening from Holland. Yesterday morning the team had a good practice at the site of Friday's match, Nelson Mandela Forum. The only hiccup thus far in the trip is that Alfee Reft suffered a minor ankle sprain yesterday in practice. He was going to set a ball that Kevin Hansen had just gotten up when he stepped on Kevin and rolled his left ankle. He's done that ankle before so it isn't as traumatic as it could have been. Alfee is walking on it and thinks he will be back very soon, but I think team trainer Aaron Brock will have something to say about that...
Speaking of AB, I've got a little video on YouTube showing how Brock can use Jedi mind tricks to get players, in this case Brook Billings, to give HIM a shoulder massage. View the video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArDk-6M2lUw.
The local federation treated the team to a nice dinner outside the hotel last night. We went to a very old ristorante in downtown Florence called Antico Fattore. There were photos on the wall showing customers from the 1930's. They treated us right with Bistecca Fiorentino, or Florentine Steak-a little rare for some tastes, but very tasty. Of course there was a pasta dish, and chicken liver pate and mushrooms over fried polenta as an appetizer. Authentic Tuscan food! View a video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dkqc9qsYcY.
There was time to see some of the sights in Florence. Everyone except for poor Alfee got to walk around the city center. Florence is known for its amazing art and as being the cradle and heart of the Renaissance.
Check out a video of the U.S. players standing around Florence's city center at www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-mCQ8bf59A.
The volleyball community has its own card game called Finniente (spelling, origin, and meaning of the name are a mystery). In Italian "finniente" would mean "never ending" which would be appropriate on this trip. If there are a few minutes to spare and enough space for 4 guys and a deck of cards then there will be a game of "finny". Marv Dunphy holds all the cards when it comes to Finniente, but legend goes back to the beaches of Southern California with stories of Wilt the Stilt playing Finny and taking it very seriously. You will find a clip of the boys playing in Rome's Fiumicino airport at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiUthX62Oqc.

Game day was typical. We practiced very lightly, came back home, rested a bit, then headed back to the arena. It was awesome, the areana was PACKED! They had pre-sold 4,000 tickets for the event, some people traveled from Milano, which is northern Italy, just for the game. It ended up being sold out. The gyms here are made of concrete and steal bleachers = loud and crazy fans. The average had to have been 14 years old, and the crowd was dominated by girls. So you have over 4,000 screaming 14 year girls, who are more into seeing the italians in there super super short shorts, i mean, these are Magic and Bird short!

We won the first set, easily. Started a bit slow in both the first and second sets but the second set we didn't play our best and still managed to pull out a win, surprisingly. We lost the third pretty closely, still not having played our best we were in the set. Then we took it to them in the fourth set and won the match. Had we played the way did last night against Netherlands, they would have wiped us off the floor. We are a much better team than the Italians, we just have to play well, our style of volleyball and we should dominate them tomorrow here in Sicily.

By the way, we got a police escort in a military bus from the airport in Sicily. Apparently this isnt much of tourist town...needless to say as Americans we have two guards that go everywhere we go, even if that is just up the street to get gelato....which we do every night! Don't worry, i found a gym and have been keeping up the body!

This is Day 10, and I'm feeling like my own bed sounds really nice right about now! A lot of us are glad this trip is coming to an end!

I love you all!

Chris

This is a pretty famous sculpture, it is the main plaza area, they have an open air museum with a lot of famous sculptures!

This is Ponte Vecchio, it is the only remaining original bridge that wasn't blown up by the nazis in their retreat out of Italy. So now there are all these shops on the bridge, pretty cool.

Me outside the Duomo, the Florence Cathedral!
So I was able to walk around and explore Florence on Wednesday afternoon...Its probably the most beautiful city in the entire world. The history and architecture just add to the whole mystique of Florence. Instead of talking about the city, i thought I would just post the pictures...

Amsterdam and Travel Day

We had an amazing opportunity to have a whole day off on Monday. Kinda. We practiced but just for a short bit then headed back to the hotel, some of us packed our things because we wanted to spend as much time in Amsterdam as possible! So we headed to the train for Amsterdam, it was about an hour train ride from Rotterdam so not bad. Pictures and more to come! We are in Florence now so I have a lot of site seeing to do!

Holland, Belgium Pics

Some of Holland from the train.

In the town square in the middle of Antwerp, Belgium.

Pretty famous Clock, with the city name under it. Antwerpen.

This a picture as you get off of the Train in Antwerp, Belgium. Some good chocolate in Belgium..mmmm, good!

A whole new season...

Same team, same guys...much different outcome today. It looked more like the USA team we have come to respect and the rest of the world. It's not easy having a huge target on your back after winning World League last year, and then a Gold Medal in Beijing. Defending either of those won't be easy, but even more so World League is such a grind. I wrote about our first night of competition, we got waxed! Well, tonight we started the first game up 5-1 before Netherlands called a timeout...I could tell things were going to be different this afternoon. As a side note, our games were 5, yesterday, and 1:30, today, because in Europe the night just comes to end much sooner than our culture, so we start our matches out here much earlier than the typical 7 start times we are used to. Anyways, Matt Anderson was on fire tonight, he hit about .700 attacking from the backrow, he couldn't be stopped. Even when they put up commit block on him, pretty much that just means, the blocker knows its coming, they still couldnt stop it....Awesome to watch actually. Mattie, as we call him on the team, didn't go to his senior year at Penn State, instead took a 6 figure contract in South Korea to play pro there. Mattie won the natl championship as a junior at Penn State and was National Player of the Year, not bad. Most of the guys on our team play pro in Europe, a couple guys in Holland, Italy, Germany, and a couple in Russia....So our guys are familiar with some of the Dutch players and vice versus. Well....none of the dutch guys knew of Matt Anderson, but they sure know him now. He is a special talent, and a really genuine, down to earth guy. It's funny, at USC, I carried all of the gear I needed myself, and so now on the Natl Team, all of the younger guys like Mattie, Russell Holmes (BYU), and Jayson Jablonsky (UCI) have to carry nearly everything for me...its pretty cool. It makes going through the airport so much nicer, I don't have to hold up the line by taking out 5 computers, a projector, video camera, dvd player, printer....UgH, so glad those days are done.

Well after losing last night, I knew it was going to be a late night for the coaching staff, so I planned accordingly, I walked to the only open store at the time, a little gas station store and stocked up on Coke and candy (typical diet at times). I was good to go. Alan (Head Coach) had me doing a serving chart with Data Volley, and doing most of the shot charts. To explain a bit, Data Volley is a software designed by the Italians, it is what the modern volleyball world powerhouses use to stat and scout other teams. It gives me everything i could ever want on another team and their players. There is a scoutman, me, and we input code for an entire match, who served it where, who passed from what zone(1-9), who hit what set and where, and who dug that attack and in what zone...and so on and so forth. Its incredible software. Its a far cry from what they did back in the day. Rob Browning, who did my job in the 90s said they would get a tape of the match, and have two tape decks and have to fast forward till they got through every Rotation, 1-6, pausing and starting....he said it was the most tedious thing in the world. NO THANK YOU! So, to make this short and sweet, Data Volley saves coaches from being admitted to mental institutions. Rob has been a huge help to me on this trip. He is our team leader. What that means is he deals with all of the administrative things with the FIVB, and helps the coaching staff in whatever way he can. He is EXTREMELY good at it, he is very familiar with the international volleyball scene. He is the head womens coach at St. Mary's College in the bay area, he coached at BYU as an asst for a number of years before and during his time with the National Team. Where was I? Oh yea, so our late night. Well, Gary Sato, one of the assistants was having a tough time staying awake in his chair, he kept nodding off while watching the match video...so funny, he would sleep for 5 points or so, then wake up and start scouting again, not realizing he missed anything...it was entertaining! So us youngens...i.e. me and Alan, well not so much Alan, more so me. He and I stayed up till about 4am getting everything we needed to have for the guys at 9am video, I took a short nap at 4am and woke back up at 7, ichatted with Zoe before she went to bed, and I was just about to start my day...9 hour time difference is incredible. And just like that I started my day again!....It was a long but extremely fun first World League weekend...and I got my first win. Hooray! We dominated the game winning the first set 25-16, 32-34, 25-16, 19-25, 15-9....took us 5 sets, but we were in control the entire time.

Typing this took every ounce of energy I had left, so I'm off to bed at 9:30 here in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and its still sunny and bright outside.

I love you all, and will let you know how Amsterdam is once we get back tomorrow after taking a field trip.

Some pictures from our random trip to Antwerp, Belgium!