First Day of Competition

Our match was scheduled for 6PM so we slept in. Had breakfast around 9:30 and then made our way to the courts for practice. We moved around with Kessy/Ross and Ivy/Fendrick. Afterward, we had lunch and watched the other teams in our pool play.

We still had 3 hours to kill, so we went back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit. We made our way back to the site and did our full warm up.

The first set of our match against the Swiss was great. We came out serving, blocking, and siding out really strong. We got quite a few aces and blocks. We won 21-13. Next game was not so good. They served really tough and got a load of aces on us. We played good enough to win, but we should have been much better. The important thing is that we won and we are 1-0 in pool right now.

I definitely had first match jitters. It was odd playing our first match of the tournament at 6PM. We have tomorrow off, but we are going to practice at 6PM because our next match on Saturday is scheduled for 7PM. It is difficult getting a routine down with such odd playing times . We are figuring it out and finding what works for us.

The daylight hours make it very difficult to get to sleep early. It isn't dark until after midnight. The sun starts to come back up around 3AM. We have been staying up until 12 or 1AM and sleeping in as long as possible, which usually is until around 8 or 9AM.

We found a great Indian restaurant in town. We ate there two nights in a row and will probably go back there tomorrow night. The food here is outrageously expensive at the restaurants. We are trying not to spend our money on eating out, but the food at the Indian restaurant is so good, we can't resist.

We started watching the HBO series, True Blood, last night. We watched one episode and then we were hooked and had to start the next. We both fell asleep half-way through it, so we will watch it again tonight.

I get to sleep in tomorrow and am very much looking forward to it!

I just got some very good news that Tyra, Ty Loomis, Ryan Mariano, and I will be visiting the Troops stationed in the Balkans this coming August. Tyra and I will go straight from Austria and meet the boys there. I am so excited that this has worked out and we will get to go visit! These trips mean so much to me and I am so honored to be able to be apart of them!


That's all for now!

Angie Akers