Monday 24 July 2006

Camps at Stowe and NYC

I came to NY and took the cheapest way to get to my sleeping spot: by taking 3 different subways from the airport. It was very well doable, but it just took a lot of time and I had to carry my 20+ kilo backpack all the time which is not my favorite thing to do. I am not build to carry a backpack hat heavy and long. I am more into the delicate things and suitcases with wheels… ;-) But of course I am a though guy and survived it! I got more respect for my brother though, as he hikes like this in the mountains for days... I had a great place to stay in Brooklyn at a very nice guy. I got his address and contact data trough the internet community I am a member of, where you can offer people to stay over. It is for free and since I wanted to do it all low budget, it was the best option. I tried to see a friend of mine a couple of blocks away, but she wasn’t at home, so I walked 30min in the pouring rain back, as I didn’t know which bus would take me back to my sleeping spot. The next morning I took the train to Vermont and it was a beautiful train ride. I could have gone faster (1 hour by plane instead of 9 hours by train), but since I am not that fond of flying and I just love to travel by train, I just did it this way. I wasn’t in a hurry anyway as I arrive 1 day early to the camp.

The camp at Stowe, VT itself had the first week around 45 campers and the second week some 75 ones. All girls in the ages of 14 till 18 and all with very different levels of skill. They play here on grass and that is something totally different from what we play in Europe like on astro turf. The game is here so slow and difficult, because the ball gets stuck in the grass a lot and even the coaches can’t do it all perfectly. We had some good coaches around though, from the Spanish National competition, from the Scottish national team, some American coaches (who don’t have the same skills as we do) and me. I might play in the best country of the world with the best club competition, but they play for better teams or even the national team. They were good fun though and we have a lot of laughs and have nice games between each other.

The schedule was so tight and I was busy all day on the fields that I simply didn’t have the energy to write on my blog after it all. Breakfast was at 7, the first training session starts at 8.15, then lunch from 12 till 13.30, second training session and a match till 17.15, dinner, more matches till 20.30 and then an evening activity till 22.30hrs. Besides that you had to prepare your trainings for the next day, see what exercises you would do and write them out and plan them with the other coaches on your field. It is tiring and I can’t see myself doing this for more than 3 weeks. Some coaches do it for 7 weeks and go to a lot of camps to make money, but I guess I would go mad by doing that.

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