First Week with the Sharx

Hey All:

Just wanted to check in and let everyone know that things are going great over here in Austria. I've been very lucky to get a lot of sightseeing along with practice and games with the Sharx. We met some of the American baseball players on the Dornbirn Indians and got to hang out with them on Thursday night. It was nice to have some solid English conversation!

Friday night we practiced with the team. We have to have practice during the week because many of the Austrian girls have full time jobs to hold along with playing softball. We are still able to get good practices in and the only bad part of the late night practices are the mosquitoes which are huge and vicious! Also, because our entire field is completely grass there is no where to retreat!

Saturday morning we traveled to Bollate, Italy for our first double header with the entire team. The first game we tied 1-1 and the sencond we lost 2-0. We ultimately struggled at the plate and didn't produce enough hits to back up our pitchers. There were some errors that came from us not having played together and some from the Austrian players who just lack confidence and experience. This is why we are here though to teach them about the game and build their confidence and love for our sport.

On Sunday morning we went to a place in Dornbirn that the Austrians translate as the "caves". Kelsi, Wolfi, Tera, Luci, and I all went together and had an amazing time. Tera and Luci are two Czech girls that travel and play with the Sharx. They do not speak much English or German so its hard to communicate but the are really sweet and fun to be around. Kelsi and I decided at the end of the hike to jump off a cliff into the water and it was absolutely freezing! Something that we will always remember though and we got free gelato from Wolfi for doing it!

Today, I went to the mountain in Dornbirn, Kerren, hiking. Its such an amazing cardio workout and when you get to the top the view is more than worth the hike. On the way back we stopped at the shopping mall, Messapark, to pick up some converters for the house. The electricity outlets over here are different so none of our electronics will work without these converters. Today was also the first day that all six imports rode our bikes to practice. The ride is a good 25-30 minutes from our house. After about 2 hours of practice there is a storm coming in from over the mountains that we have to quit practicing, pick up the equipment and ride our bikes home as fast as possible. On the way home my brand new bike blows two tires and my teammate and I have to get off ouyr bike and walk as quick as we can back towards our house which was about 3miles away. We ended up locking the bike up and riding double on another teammates bike but we still beat the storm. WOW what a trip!

Ciao! E