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.