The rollerbasketball tournament we organised last week was a great success. Glad it’s over though.
I played in Amsterdam Dribbl I: we came fourth. Here’s us playing against Bremen, the winner of the tournament. We played 30-30 against them, the only time they didn’t win!
Expect some videos soon. We taped a lot!
Might organise it again next year, now that we know what it takes and what we need to do.
On our first day in San Francisco, we were skating through town. We’d just skated across Golden Gate and were, when this pictue was taken, heading towards Golden Gate park. Just when we were about to take off our skates to tackle the San Francisco hills we were accosted by a retired, 85-year old police officer who told us that skating on the sidewalks was illegal. He told us that his sister had been injured by a rogue skateboard and that “there aren’t enough officers to patrol but it’s against the law” (say this in the most exagerated American cowboy accent and you get the idea).
He would have been satisfied had he seen us take off our skates (nothing much to do with him though).
Ouch, my leg hurts. Stretched it too much while trying to prevent a goal during rollersoccer practice. Played a whole tournament without a scratch and now this. Hope I recover quickly, I wanna play basketball this week!
Milton uploaded some pictures from our trip in the US. Here are ones in which I figure.
If you were on Facebook and a friend of Joost, you’d be able to see much more, but there are only a few people so priviledged.
Here’s an impression of the final match in SF:
The team from Marseille played really well, but couldn’t score enough to win. The US beat them on penalties!
I’m hoping for a good video of some of our own matches later!
I’m having a day alone in San Francisco today. My mates are visiting Alcatraz. I’ve never been, but I felt like wandering the city on my own more than seeing an old prison. Just bought a bunch of new books at Borders (they’re cheaper over here). Later I might check out a movie, to give my legs a rest (new shoes, my old ones were wrecked in the walk up Half Dome).
Tonight, around 3AM, we’re heading back home. We haven’t got a hotel booked, so it’s gonna be a loooong day. Tonight we’re meeting up for dinner with Zack, June and some of the other rollersoccer players from SF.
Yesterday we drove up from Santa Cruz, along a scenic highway, through some beautiful Redwood forest. We drove through the hills above Palo Alto, from where I could see Stanford, where I spent three months about fifteen years ago. Brought back some memories!
We’re staying at Travelodge Central here in SF. The staff has a real attitude problem there. Man, they’re so unfriendly! I should be careful what I say though, our luggage is still there, waiting for us to pick it up at 3AM tonight.
In the evening we saw Man on Wire. Didn’t live up to the hype, but still: pretty incredible story!
SF is a real city of contrasts. You see so many dubious characters here, wandering amidst high-street shops. Beggars and what can only be junkies everywhere.
I’m not unhappy about going home. My work-situation will have changed considerably when I get back (new office, about 200 new colleagues) and my house will be emptied of most of Marine’s stuff, so that will be a change too. I’ll kind of miss moving house everyday though.
Man, it’s been difficult to find time to write anything on this blog! There’s wifi everywhere, but hardly any computers I can use. This computer is in the hotel lobby. I have to stand up to use it, pretty inconvenient.
Trip’s been amazing. We’re almost back to where we started, in Monterey bay. Tomorrow we’ll visit the aquarium and move to Santa Cruz.
We’ve been to Lake Tahoe, climbed Half-Dome in Yosemite, saw giant Sequoias, skated on Venice Beach in LA, went to the Universal Studios theme park. And of course, we drove. A lot.
Almost every day we move to a new hotel. It hasn’t been too difficult so far. We usually manage to find a room where all three of us can stay. Tonight we have two king-size beds and a sofa-bed. I drew the short straw tonight so I get the sofa-bed. No worries though.
We don’t plan too much, so it’s always a bit of a surprise where we end up. For example, we never expected to end up at Buck Owen’s Crystal Palace, a fake western country club in Bakersfield.
Most amazing thing we’ve done? I guess the climb up Half-Dome. That was like a vertical marathon, a walk of 36 km (if we believe the signs) up a mountain. This was my second time, but last time we did it in two days, this time in one. The views were amazing, the waterfalls stunning.
We’ve got loads of nice photos and videos but no way to upload them, at the moment.
We beat the Paris team and came third! Our defense was just perfect and Andreas managed to score two crucial goals. It started off badly, with a Paris lead of 1-0, but we kept our cool and pressed on. We won the $1000 price! We never expected to get this far, so we were quite chuffed.
The final was between Marseille and USA Red, Zack’s team. Again, nobody really expected the USA team to be able to match up against Marseille, but they came out really strong! It went all the way into penalties. Like a cheesy movie, Zack, the founder of rollersoccer, actually scored the winning goal. It was the best game I ever saw. As you can imagine, there was a lot of partying afterwards.
I took a ride across the Bay Bridge with June, Zack’s wife, on the back of her motorbike, with just a skating helmet on. Crazy, and I promise I won’t be doing that again. Fun though, weaving through all the traffic like that.
Milton and I are at the hostel’s computers at the moment, waiting for Joost to wake up. He’s been partying a bit longer than we have. And then we’re off! First, to pick up Milton’s motorbike somewhere up north and then east to Lake Tahoe.
We’ve had three tournament days so far. My team is starting to feel the strain: we’ve got no substitutes! We have reached the fourth place and have been playing really well. Our extra team mates, Andreas from Germany and Javier from London (although really a Spaniard), are really good players, so the level is quite high.
We beat Belgium, the team we lost from in the Paris world cup! Also, to relieve one of my team mates, I played up front for one half and scored within as minute, and another later on. Feels good to score. Doesn’t happen that often when you’re a goalie. I also played in the last match today. Milton was in goal, he couldn’t skate anymore, his ribs were hurting so much.
We’ve got one more match, to determine the third and fourth places, against Paris tomorrow. With a crippled team, I wouldn’t bet on us winning.
We don’t just play of course. Watching the games can be just as much fun. Belgium vs US went into overtime and then penalties today, really hair-raising. In the end Yuri, the 11-year old talent scored the winning goal. Must have felt good!
Some results are here. More later, I assume.
Yesterday evening we also did the local FNS, which was really great! Uphill, downhill and really crazy!
We’ve also discovered Vietnamese food. Why don’t we have that back home? It would sell! I love those rolls.
Monday we’re heading out, towards Lake Tahoe.
Greetings from San Francisco. Francisco with a ‘c’, not an ’s’ after then ‘n’, as I might previously have written it. Shame on me, I’ve spent three months close to here about ten years ago, I should know how to spell the name of this place!
The flights went smoothly. After travelling about 22 hours, we arrived at our hostel. We managed to hold off sleep until eleven, so today we haven’t suffered any jetlag. We’re in a youth hostel in the city center, in a dormroom with four bunkbeds. The fourth person in the room is some French dude. He warned us this evening: tomorrow morning he’s going to take a shower at five. Sigh.
We skated around town today. Crossed the Golden Gate Bridge (despite the no-skating sign) for instance. Loved it! My favourite though were the sea lions at Pier 39. Lazy bastards! Except the males, they wre always busy fighting and pushing each other into the water.
After al the sight-seeing we went to Treasure Island to see where we’ll be playing the next couple of days. It’s a bit like Ijburg in its early days: bit of a sand-heap. Turned out we had to help setting up the boarding. Tomorrow morning we’re intending to arrive early, to help with the rest of the preparations. At least, that’s the plan.
Packed and ready to go! Skates? Check! (What more do I need?)
We’re leaving at around 11 this morning, making a stop in Philadelphia and then off to our final destination: San Fransisco!
We just heard that the German team has befallen a family tragedy. They were already there and some of them had to return home. So now we’re forming a team consisting of Dutch, English and German players. The New York players we were originally supposed to be playing with are forming a team with US players. We’re still playing rollerbasketball with the New Yorkers though.
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