New Jersey, USA

After Grandma's party dad and I drove to Raleigh, where we spent the night at an Uncle and Aunt's place then took off for New Jersey Monday morning. Dad and I have spent a lot of time together in the prius (see all the excitement of out journey from Breckenridge to Charlotte near the end of this post) and I have gotten really good at navigating the satellite radio stations.

We arrived safely and spent the next few days preparing for the upcoming festivities: grocery shopping, getting mani-pedis (the upselled us to gel manis... quite the rip off), accessorizing our wedding outfits (this means buying warm things, as it was an outdoor evening ceremony in November). Dad and I even hit up the local fishing hole, but had no luck -- even though they had stocked the pond that morning. It was the most miserable fishing experience of my life, and I didn't even fall in-- cold, rainy and no bites. We also ate at Jim's Lunch, a south Jersey institution with a special sauce.

My cheeseburger

with onions and sauce. Tasty!

For Thanksgiving I made a coconut ganache pie. It had pressed and toasted coconut for the crust, a layer of homemade carmel, and dark chocolate filling. I might get disowned for saying this, but it was too rich. Thanksgiving spread covered the basics: turkey, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, and stuffing. All delicious! I was able to talk my dad into making some broccoli, so there would be some non-starch veggies. My Uncle Todd's plate was filled with all white food! Dessert was great: pumpkin pie, apple pie, my pie and reese's pieces cupcakes. Plus we went over to my dad's cousin's house where his extended family had gathered where there was spice cake, more pies and cookies.

My pie

The sugar caramelizing!

The Fam around the table!

After all that food, we had to get up the next day and get all fancied up for my cousin Megan's wedding. It was so cold at the ceremony, but they had a hot coco station, so there was a little bit of warmth. The ceremony was celebratory and casual, with lots of clapping and wooooo-ing. We were able to get a full family shot during the cocktail hour and several informal photos during the reception. The food during the cocktail hour was, as Meg would say, slammin'. They were so impressive that there was some scandalous discussion about if there would be a dinner to follow. Apparently, dinner is standard at northern weddings. There was dinner and it was tasty as well. My little sister also taught me how to order a martini -- she is so fancy and cosmopolitan. My family hit up the photobooth and we even got my dad out on the dance floor. His lack of moves made me feel better about mine, but also worried that I looked like him :)

All of the cousins!

Happy family!

Saturday we said goodbye to my mom and sister and went fishing with some of my dad's college buddies (for being a small southern school, Pfeiffer sure had a lot of kids from New Jersey). It was so cold, but a pretty day nonetheless. It is the only time I have ever outfished my dad! We fished for about four hours without a hit. Then I pulled in a little sucker fish-- it's not a trout, so doesn't usually count, but we were just happy to have gotten a fish. On my next cast, I brought in a 14 inch rainbow. A few minutes later, my dad caught a rainbow. Not long after, it was getting chillier and we hadn't gotten any more strikes, so we headed back to the car. That little suckerfish turned out to be the tie breaker! Dad usually out catches me 2:1 (or worse), so I need to celebrate the little victory!

The tie-breaking fish!

Sunday we joined one of dad's cousins and her husband's family to make grave blankets out of evergreens and holly to place on relatives' gravestones. Apparently, someone will probably steal these pretty soon, but I really like the new-to-me heard lots of good stories about my family and those of the others who went with us.

North Carolina, USA

Shortly after I accepted the position in Switzerland, I flew home to the US. I wanted to experience an American autumn (and all of its holidays) and didn't want to spend my savings living in Stockholm's gloomy winter. This means three months with my parents. Because I went to boarding school for part of high school and spent my summers in college interning abroad, I haven't been at home for that long in about ten years.

Mom with some trick-or-treaters (a witch, frog, and functional transformer!)

My dad retired almost a year ago, so we have been doing lots of retired-man things: going to the grocery store multiple times a day, home improvement/DIY projects, home brewing, and fishing two days a week at my parents' house in Asheville. I'm loving it!

We tiled the mailbox!

This blue heron nabbed our fishing spot. 

Also spending some quality time with mom when she isn't at work!

At the Southern Christmas Show!

Cleaning mom's stitches after her skin cancer removal.
(She's fine! Wear Sunscreen!)

It couldn't all be fishing and beer, after a few weeks, I started working part-time for our neighbour who has a home civil engineering office. She designs parking lots and stormwater management strategies for them. I prepare environmental reports and look up regulations for cities and towns. I also draw schematics of sewer lines!

After two weeks on the job, I had to take a 2 week vacation for Thanksgiving. My dad and I drove to New Jersey for Thanksgiving with his side of the family and the wedding of a cousin that happened on Black Friday (my mom and sister had to work, so they flew in Thursday - Saturday). On the way, we went to my Grandmother's (mom's mom) 80th Birthday Ice Cream Party! Most of the fam was able to make it and it was so nice to be able to see so many folks who have been part of Gma's life.

I also got to see my college friend/flatmate/classmate, Alyssa, while I was in Winston!

Heidelberg and München, Germany

06-07/09 USM: Uppsala, Sweden (coaching)
14-15/09 SM Dam (Women's nationals): Linköping, Sweden
21-23/09 Burla Beach Cup: Viareggio, Italy
26-29/09 eXtended European Ultimate Championship Finals: Bordeaux, France (watching/volunteering)
04-06/10 Oktoberfest Hat: München, Germany

I needed to stop in Heidelberg on my way to Munich because a potential future boss was travelling from Frankfurt to Zurich and thought it would be nice to have a coffee. We met on Tuesday, which left me with Monday for hiking. I've been to Heidelberg before for a conference, so had already done a walking tour and gone up to the castle. So I spend the day on the Philosopher's Way and some other trails nearby that take you around Celtic ruins of a chapel and a monastery. There is also a Nazi amphitheatre on the path.

It's just so darn pretty!

It was a beautiful day reflecting on all of the great times I have had in that corner of the world. The 3 week language camp I attended at the start of my gap year was nearby. My impromptu trip to Amsterdam followed a fantastic weekend in Heidelberg with RISErs. I had a great time hiking in near by Baden-Baden last Spring. I don't think Baden-Württemberg and I are through!

The coffee went okay and I caught a mitfahrgelegenheit (a German carpooling website) to Munich where I met up with Izzy, who played for my team in Stockholm, but not at the same time as me. She took me to get some awesome ice cream (I got two scoops: traditional Bavarian cake and a Doppelbock) before meeting up with other tournament goers and heading to Oktoberfest.

Inside the tent it is all about standing on benches and singing along to the music, which ranges from "Sweet Caroline" to Die Ärzte to Robbie Williams to Traditional German Folk music. This photo and all of the following ones come from Frida.

The next morning, the tournament started and I recognised lots of folks from Burla, which was pretty cool. I was a little preoccupied all morning because I was waiting for a call about a position for which I had applied. The Professor was kind enough to wait until noon to call me because he "knew that I was auf der Wiesn" the previous night... (I'd been awake since 7:30). My team didn't win any games, but they were great people to lose with! Everyone was fun and chill. (At a hat tournament everyone is assigned to a team. They try to have people rate themselves, so the teams are even.) The tournament had one indoor pitch and one outdoor. I greatly preferred the indoor one, because the sand was really cold outside and it was raining a bit.

On Saturday, all of the girls did each other's hair in the locker room. Then I met up with Max, a friend I met through Ultimate in Madrid who recently moved back to his native Munich. He was kind enough to go dress shopping with me before we went to Oktoberfest (he hadn't signed up for the tournament, but we were able to sneak him in). Once in the tent we ran into another Madrid Ultimate person who was also at the tournament, the "other Max", who was there at the same time as me, but played for another team, so we had never met. All of this frisbee nostalgia convinced Max to talk to the organisers and come play on Sunday.

Frida and I getting photobombed by Max and Jens, a German former Stockholm Syndrome who studied at Uni with Max - The ultimate world is pretty small. 

My team did really well on Sunday, winning all of our games! We had an advantage because not all of our players were at the festival the previous night. Of course, Max got added to the team that won the finals.

On the indoor beach ultimate pitch.

I stayed in Munich on Monday to figure out some transportation options because I need to go to Zurich on Tuesday to check out my new office! Starting in January, I will be employed as a PhD student at eawag where I will study the business aspects of their projects in low income countries. The position will require a bit of travel - to field sites for case studies and workshops, to conferences, and back to Sweden where the university that will award my degree is actually located; however, I am really excited about the move and the prospect of living in one place for more than a year. In the meantime, I am heading back to the states... just in time because I just retroactively put up my post from my summer trip there. I hope that Burla and Oktoberfest fit into my travel schedule next year!

Marseille and Bordeaux, France

06-07/09 USM: Uppsala, Sweden (coaching)
14-15/09 SM Dam (Women's nationals): Linköping, Sweden
21-23/09 Burla Beach Cup: Viareggio, Italy
26-29/09 eXtended European Ultimate Championship Finals: Bordeaux, France (watching/volunteering)
04-06/10 Oktoberfest Hat: München, Germany

I left Italy in a car with two other ultimate players who were headed to France. We did some sightseeing in Marseille and continued on (minus the guy who owned a car) to Bordeaux with a covoiturage (a carpooling website in France).

 This should give you a view of Marseille from the cathedral from all angles.

I decided to make a bridge between Viareggio and Munich with xEUCF because I don't have that much going on in Stockholm and it would have been a lot of trips to the airport, so I thought I'd just go watch some higher level club ultimate in France. As a volunteer, I kept time and the score of games, recording the assists and scores of each player. I was able to trade games so I could watch some matches of Sweden's VIF - I have several friends who play for this club, but most of them decided (for reasons of varying legitimacy) not to came to France - and Russia's Cosmic Girls with whom two of my Swedish Fish teammates were playing. The men tied for 5th and the ladies got 4th; both were disappointed in their performance.

An entire Swiss team going to the bathroom together before a match. Unity!
(the only photo I took at the fields...)

I spent the first two nights in a vacant VIF hotel room (some of the players could only come for the weekend) and moved to the free volunteer campsite for the rest of the tourney. I'm pretty sure there were fewer mosquitos at the camping than in the hotel!

After the tournament, I met up with some folks from the Frankfurt team for some sightseeing and crepes, before taking a morning train to Germany.  This was random and incredibly lucky. I was just going to find a hostel near the train station, but the wifi at the camping and hotel were really bad, so I was walking around the city center looking for internet (or a hostel) and ran into someone I knew on the team from Frankfurt, who lives and plays in Stockholm now, and their team took me in for the night!

Overall, volunteering was an okay experience. I met some cool people, but I watched so much ultimate it all just blended together. Someone asked me afterwards what the best game I watched was and it took me quite awhile to come up with an answer.

Viareggio, Italy

06-07/09 USM: Uppsala, Sweden (coaching)
14-15/09 SM Dam (Women's nationals): Linköping, Sweden
21-23/09 Burla Beach Cup: Viareggio, Italy
26-29/09 eXtended European Ultimate Championship Finals: Bordeaux, France (watching/volunteering)
04-06/10 Oktoberfest Hat: München, Germany

I was in Italy for the Burla Beach Cup, where I picked up with a London-based league team called PAF, which is short of Pyramus and Frisbee. After every match we acted out the play with members of the other team. For this tournament they made the team name Pafacino, since we were in Italy.

This is a sand tournament on a beautiful beach with a sweet view of crazy mountains.

The beach, pine forest and mountains. It was the end of the season, so most of the chairs were put away and there war room for 8 pitches. Photo from here.

The first day of playing was a bit rough, as we lost our first two games 15-0 and 15-1. We closed out the day losing by a much smaller margin, plus I scored the least exciting Callahan ever. A Callahan is when a player catches a disc that is thrown by the other team to score a goal. These are fairly rare and usually require athletic moves. I didn't have to jump or layout. Just took a step and caught the disc right above my head with two hands. That evening my team played a lot of monopoly draw (a card version of monopoly).

The second day went marginally better: losing 15-0 and 15-3 in the first two games. The party that night was pretty cool. The theme was Big Circus and my whole team went in animal onesies.  There were aerial silk performers, sweet jams, and weird foam to dance in.

Big cats and misfits (penguin, owl, non-onsie zebra, and a cow) at the party. Photo from Mic.

The third and last day of playing was really nice. We lost to a team from Kopenhagen, but it was the best we played all tournament. They were really nice opponents- it was definitely one of the best spirited matches of the weekend We lied to one of our teammates about what time the game was, so he'd show up on time (only he and I were there when time started running... I'll have to lie to the whole team next time). After losing all of the matches, we faced off against another London team for the game for not-last place, which we won! I got my toe broken, but we won! (It didn't hurt that badly... I didn't notice until I was swimming in the ocean before finals and saw that it was crazy-purple).

The team then sat together to watch the finals, eating and sharing a massive watermelon that we had gotten for free from a local shop keeper. We just asked about it after we had checked out and he motioned for us to take it. Bonus points for the language barrier! A teammate carved it up arranged the slices on a disc and passed it around to other teams. Perfect in the sun! There are photos of this somewhere on the internet, but I decided to go ahead and publish the posts, instead of waiting for them to come out.

Teammates enjoying watermelon! Photo from Mic.

I spent the day after the tournament reading on the beach before carpooling with other ultimate players to Bordeaux. 

Linköping, Sverige

Five consecutive weekends of ultimate doesn't leave much time for blogging (especially when you have to wait for other people to post photos), so I've decided to have an individual post for Swedish nationals and lump the other three weeks into a massive post.

06-07/09 USM: Uppsala, Sweden (coaching)
14-15/09 SM Dam (Women's nationals): Linköping, Sweden
21-22/09 Burla Beach Cup (picking up with british people I don't really know): Viareggio, Italy
26-29/09 eXtended European Ultimate Championship Finals: Bordeaux, France (watching/volunteering)
04-06/10 Oktoberfest Hat: München, Germany

*all of the photos in this post are stolen from Ultimate Sweden's Instagram*

My team Swedish Fish won silver at the swedish national club championships this weekend! It's not gold, but I am really proud of how we played and considering our two match-ups against the champs were 15-7 and 17-5 in pool play and the finals, respectively, they deserved it. There were only a four teams and it is not uncommon for the tournament to get canceled for a lack of teams (last year there were only 3) and all of the four teams were really combinations of multiple teams. We joined forces with some young superstars from a suburb north of Stockholm.

There were only 2 games each day (3 pool games, then placement matches) We started the tournament down 0-4 to Akka, but went on an 8 point streak to take half! This was really good. I mean Akka is a good team, but our team really needed a positive first game. Emilia, one of my swedish besties recently moved to Lund for school and now plays with Akka. After a little bit of good-natured trash talking, she got to eat some of the pumpkin muffins that I had baked for the Fish.

Then we fell to E6 in our second match of the day. It wasn't really close, but we figured out some ways to elevate out game.

We had sushi for dinner (followed by hamburgers for those of us with appetites) and met up with another team at a pub to hang out for a bit. There are very few ultimate tournaments in Sweden, so it was nice to catch up with players I'd met throughout the year.

We started Sunday with a match against Örebro. They have a lot of girls from the U23 national team and their girls often play open youth tournaments and they also beat Akka and lost to E6, so we didn't really know what to expect. The wind picked up during warm-ups, so we played zone the whole game. We took the match 15-1, with time to spare, so we had extra time to rest before finals.

Looking super serious after winning 15-1.

We lost substantially in the finals, which was not unexpected. E6's attitude towards the whole tournament was really irksome. They essentially felt entitled to the gold (and the one world's bid sweden is guaranteed) and wanted to do as little work for it as possible. They only wanted to play round robin (no semis or finals). We had agreed on a match to 17 for the placement games, but they tried to get the rules changed right before the match to play to less. I mean, it's great that you are awesome, but the rules say you have to score 17 points to so to worlds, so stop complaining and just play!

If you want to brush up on your swedish or see a photo with me in it in the local paper, you can check out this article about how there are no referees in ultimate.

Stockholm & Godegård, Sweden + London & Manchester, GB

This past Spring my dad came to visit me in Sweden. The true purpose of the visit was to watch Premier League games in the UK, but he flew in and out of Stockholm, so we also got to take in a Swedish league game, sight see in Stockholm and visit the town that our ancestors emigrated from in the nineteenth century. A lot of planning and research went in to figuring out this trip: we tried to find a weekend where there were games on Saturday, Sunday and a weekday for which we could get tickets.

Stockholm
Dad was with me in Sthlm for a day before we went to England for our soccer-vacation. It was rainy, but I tried to squeeze some Swedish things in: a bus ride around Gammla stan and Södermalm, a tour of Systembolaget, a tour of KTH (well the library and quad... no hiking up to my office in the M building). The sun came out and we walked around Stureplan/Nybroplan on our way to Stadion, the 1912 Olympic stadium to watch Djurgården IF play. The stadium is brick and beautiful, but the team is moving to a stadium in the outskirts because the field doesn't comply with FIFA regulations.

Fika. Swedish afternoon coffee break.

One of the quads at KTH.

GB

Peter Crouch: awkward looking in real life, too.

We flew to London the next morning where we were graciously hosted by Kathryn (our families go way back) and her husband, Richie, a wine writer. We "went for a curry" for dinner then turned in. The following day, Dad and I walked around South Bank (and got some Krispy Kreme... they are fancy in England) before heading to Loftis Road to watch QPR play against Stoke. This wasn't an ideal game, but tickets were available and there were two Americans on Stoke's roster at the time (Shea and Cameron - I'm pretty sure I was the only person in the stadium who cheered when Cameron was subbed in late in the game).

"Enjoying" a pint at the local...
my super smokey microbrew was a bad choice. 

Hanging out with the (replica) dinos at the Natural History museum... well worth the visit just for the architecture
 + PROTIP: they have eduroam wifi.

We spent the next day in London, we couldn't get tickets to the Tottenham game that I was targeting (I'll have to go to an MLS game, if I want to see Dempsey play), but we watched it in a pub. Dad loves talking to strangers about soccer. I don't remember the chronology, but we also went to the Natural History Museum to check out the dinos and the British Museum to look at the stolen artifacts. Richie roasted chicken and vegetables and picked out a with a nice dessert wine, which he needed to taste for a certification he is doing, to pair with the strawberry trifle dad and I picked up at the grocery store (that seemed so casual in comparison).

I went into the ManU supporters only Trafford Pub,
but now they are making me accessorize!

We then headed north to Manchester to see Man U play Aston Villa. We had to join the supporters' club in order to get tickets. One of my dad's teammates and a lifetime ManU fan was also at the match, so we met up with him and his girlfriend before the match to talk soccer. We are not really Man U fans: in England, I like certain players and tend to follow them as they move around Europe (especially the few Americans who make it over there) and don't like the big money clubs and I'm not sure, but I think dad just likes football. Nevertheless, dad bought a scarf and I did not appreciate getting draped with it. Van Persie had a beautiful hat trick (including the "EPL goal of the year" according to my dad) against (american) keeper Brad Guzan. Man U clenched the League title by winning the match, so the crowd was really happy. They sang and chanted all game long. It was a crazy fan experience - very different than that at QPR! We caught a flight back to Sweden the next morning.

The view from our seats.

Godegård

After our UK soccer extravaganza, we returned to Sweden for 36 hours before dad flew home. We watched Bayern trounce Barcelona in my local pub, then work up early the next morning to road trip 3 hours to Godegård, the town where my dad's great-grandparents emigrated from. Armed with some cursory genealogy research (thanks LDS church), we hit up the cute old church and cemetery. We knew the names' of parents of the relatives who settled in Pennsylvania, but could not find their headstones. There were lots of Karlssons and Perssons, but we were looking for Larssons and Jonssons. We found a few potential relatives, but no one whose names we had. It was really fun searching for our roots; it felt so detective-y.

The town had several informational placards posted (all but one were in Swedish), so we were able to gather a little bit of history of the town. It was big in iron/steel and the smelter shut down about the time that the family came to the US, so we think they may have left because there were no jobs, especially since they settled in a metal smelting area of PA. We also saw the old festival place (now a field) and missed the annual festival by a week (it was May 1).

The sole restaurant/gas station/store.

Cute little church. We couldn't go inside, because as far as I could tell,
the guy with the keys would be there tomorrow. 

Some history in English, so I could confirm what
 I "understood" in Swedish

The manor house.

Uppsala, Sweden

Last weekend kicked off the first of what could be five consecutive weekends of Ultimate!

06-07/09 USM: Uppsala, Sweden (coaching)
14-15/09 SM Dam (Women's nationals): Linköping, Sweden
21-22/09 Burla Beach Cup (picking up with british people I don't really know): Viareggio, Italy
26-29/09 eXtended European Ultimate Championship Finals: Bordeaux, France (watching/volunteering, maybe)
04-06/10 Oktoberfest Hat: München, Germany

After Oktoberfest, I do not know what I am doing or where I will be. I am not 100% sold on going to XEUCF. I have some friends who will be there playing and it seemed silly to fly back north for such a short amount of time, but I think it is also a little weird to go to a tournament to not play. (feedback appreciated in the comments or other channels) I may also have a job interview that could screw all this up...

Three days before I was scheduled to come back to Sweden in Mid-August and was really questioning my decision to do so (more on that in another post... maybe), I got an email from a guy in the Swedish ultimate federation who does a bunch of youth stuff in Stockholm asking if I wanted to get school team ready for the Ungdom Sverige Mästerskap, USM (youth national championship). I had helped at some school demonstrations where we take over a few gym classes at a school and teach throwing and do some drills and had kept score and reminded kids of the rules at the Stockholm school tournament in May (basically like instructional observing), but I had never had a group on my own before. I decided to try it out - It sounded like fun and I would get paid in "Ultimate Money" (to get around wage taxes, the money gets donated to my sports club, which them applies it to my costs such as tournament fees and jerseys), plus it sort of gave me a purpose for being wherever I was during my job search (and make interviewing in Europe much easier)... I mean it was lovely hanging out with family, but I didn't have very much going on in NC.

The team I worked with had some Ultimate experience: it had been taught in their gym classes for the past two years, they actually won the school tournament in May, and they had played in an indoor tournament somewhere at some point, but most of the schools in that competition had only recently picked up the sport (in one case we did an instruction on Tuesday and they brought 3 teams to the tournament on Thursday). They had some notion of the rules, but the rules used at the previous tournaments were not standard WFDF rules (in indoor you count to 8 and can drop the pull and at the school tournament you could have a meter of "disc space," since they were new throwers), so I really had to fight against these old rules. They also had basic throwing skills, but we worked a lot on taking your time and throwing flatter. We didn't make much progress on making a stack or executing set plays.

A practice. In cuts! (all at once and too close, but still cuts!)

The school is located in Husby, which you may have heard about as the site of the riots in Sweden a few months back. The gym coach their likes Ultimate because of spirit and self-refereeing and is even trying to incorporate some of the themes of Ultimate into other subjects at the school. One of the keys for the week was being a good ambassador (the others were holding the force, running up and down instead of side to side, and at one point "stay friends"). There were teams from all over Sweden (okay, not really the north) and the kids needed to show them that they weren't the type of people who set cars on fire. We had some attitude issues at the beginning, but by the last game things were going really well.

An unflattering photo of me with the squad. Screen shot used for attributing the source and for the amusement of gained by reading all the hashtags, which the ultimate Sweden account manager loves. My favorite: Sport with Swag!

We practiced an hour a day four days a week for two weeks, but that was not quite enough time to catch up to the level of play of teams that are part of established Frisbee Klubs in Sweden. We almost won a game (for bronze), but blew a 6-4 lead, losing 6-7 to Sigtuna, which is located just north of Stockholm (my club sometimes holds joint practices and combines with them when we are low on numbers for tournaments). The comeback is partially a result of them going straight up on our flick hucker (basically our default action) and us running out of gas. I'm so proud of the kids for making it that far - most of the team had never played on a sports team before. Their attitude was so much better in that game, maybe it was because they were able to get some more points on the board (we only scored 6 total in 3 games on Saturday), but they cheered, "peppa upp"-ed each other, and didn't get hung up on their (or their teammates') mistakes. The last game really made the whole experience worth it. AND it continues the Stockholm-Sigtuna rivalry!

I tried to speak some Swedish with the kids (they didn't laugh like my friends do), but was largely unsuccessful. I would start a sentence in Swedish then toss in some English for the words that I didn't know and I think that was just more confusing.

Will update with more photos, when/if they get emailed to me.

USA

Over the summer, I was back stateside for 6 weeks, the longest span I had been home for since leaving in May of 2011. I traveled across the country (going through 13 states) and had a blast!

Seattle

My ultimate team in Sweden, the Stockholm Syndromes, has been tossing the idea of going to Potlatch around for a few years - one of the key organizers is from Seattle and a few exchange students have hailed from the west coast. Potlatch is a massive co-ed tournament where you camp around the fields. It is one of the "fun" north american tournaments, games are played after each ultimate match, but it is also serious - the Canadian team training for the world games was there.  While chatting last Fall, it became clear that several members of the team were going to be in North America anyway this summer, so a bid was submitted and members of the traveling team were recruited from current Stockholm residents, Syndromes alums, and friends of the team. We ended up being quite a mix of players: Syndromes/Fish (our women's team), two estonians, a few guys from the University of Washington's team - fresh off their trip to Nationals, some ex-syndromes who had moved back to the US, some of their teammates, and a guy who knew a guy who had met us at a tournament in the Netherlands a few years ago.

Photo from Dani. Check out her work at http://dcosmephotography.com/

Colorado

My mom, dad and sister got together at a family friend's place near Aspen for the 4th of July (I wasn't invited). The ladies hiked and my dad fished. A good time was had by all (allegedly - I wasn't there). (Granted, I was defending my thesis in France and in Seattle during this gathering) Then I met up with my dad, one of his college buddies, and my uncle at another friend's duplex outside of Breckenridge for week of fishing (and eating massive breakfasts). My dad is recently retired, so he has a lot of time for fishing (and driving across the country) these days. I didn't have much luck, but did land a few.

The Drive

Dad's time in Colorado was right after the national soccer tournament in California. Because rental cars are expensive in CO, it made sense (to him) to drive to colorado, leave the car at the airport, fly to california, play, fly back to CO and drive to the houses and fishing holes. That meant dad and I had a 28 hour drive from Colorado back to NC! 

Kansas lures you into their Welcome Center with the promise of free coffee. Dad took a bunch brochures that the lady offered while he was getting our joe, but refused to stop at any of the quality attractions across the state. No Castle Rock or World's Largest Hand Dug Well for us! We did get to see the oil and gas wells and the 250 MW Smoky Hills wind farm from the interstate.

I drove us through St. Louis in rainy darkness (they need to get their detours together!) and we slept in Illinois. The next day we passed through Kentucky (no stopping for bourbon), Tennessee (no stopping for music), and finally made it to North Carolina (no stopping in Western NC to look at the mountain house they just bought). The landscape was generally more interesting than Kansas', but dad's favorite Sirius channels repeated the same music!

North Carolina

 Finally home! So nice and comfortable! Before I went home I was totally set on staying in Europe, now I think working in the US could be fine. Some highlights include:

• Being in the same city as two of my favorite people at the same time
• Crazy popsicle flavors (cucumber lime - okay, but not recommended).
• Went fishin' with Pa in Cherokee!
• Helped get my parents' new house in Asheville settled.
• Being in Alyssa & JP's wedding!