Less is more

Forgive me for my gap in postings. I would like to say that it is purely due to being so busy all of the time, but that is not necessarily the case. I feel as though I have really started to settle in here and am beginning to enjoy things despite some of the challenges. The weather has been beautiful for the past couple of weeks and I have taken the opportunity to enjoy it. A lot has happened in the last 3 weeks so let me start at the beginning.

We played the St Polten Invaders 2 weeks ago and were able to come away with a win 49-10. It was a good day for the offense as we scored 49 points. The bad news was that we were not as sharp as I would have liked. We did not turn the ball over so that was a positive thing. When we hang onto the football, we are a good football team. One of the more interesting things that happened was that the game was played with only 2 officials. Apparently, the rest of the officiating crew didn't get the memo. What ended up happening was that 2 officials refereed the game and 2 of our injured players were used as side judges. All things considered, the officiating was quite good and everything went off without a hitch. I will just chalk it up as another experience of European football.

The following week was a bye week due to the Easter holiday and it could not have come at a better time. To be perfectly honest, the grind of football all the time was starting to get to me. We had a practice on that Tuesday and we were football free until the following Tuesday. I didn't know where I wanted to go for the Easter holiday, but I was certain that it was going to be A. Somewhere warm B. Somewhere with a beach and C. Somewhere where they don't speak German.

The plan was for myself, 3 of our American players, Brad, Joe, and Zach, along with Joes friend Kirk, who was visiting from the states, to go to the travel agency and find a last minute deal to anyplace with the above criteria. We got up early and went to the travel agency as it opened. There was only one slight problem. There was not a single flight to any destination with those prerequisites. That left us without a plan or a destination.

We then decided that our only option was to head to the train station and see what and where we could go on the train. Someone said that we should go to Cinque Terra Italy and I figured why not. I had no idea where it was or what was there, but I wanted to get out of Austria and I knew either way it would be an adventure. We were going to be heading out of Austria with no real plan and only backpacks on our backs.

We got our tickets to arrive in Genova Italy, which is about 2 hours from Cinque Terra, and jumped on the train. As would become custom, our travel was far from smooth. Our train was late getting to Innsbruck and we missed our connecting train. Therefore we had to wait for the next train out and more importantly we would not be getting to Genova that evening. Instead, we got into Milan at 11:30 with no place to stay or no idea where we could get a place. We walked around for a good half hour to hour before finding reasonable accommodations for the night. On a side note. the Milan train station is very impressive. It is what you would expect a major European train station to look like. Utterly massive with fantastic architecture.

On Thursday morning we got to the train station and jumped on the next train to Genova. We arrived in Genova mid afternoon and made our way to the only hostel in town. It was at the top of the mountain, while the main part of the city was near the harbor. That made for some interesting bus rides going up and down the mountain. Nothing like standing on a bus going up and down switchback roads. We spend the better part of the afternoon and evening walking around Genova. It is a neat harbor city that has some cool architecture along with some interesting museums. It is also the birthplace of explorer Christopher Columbus.

Finally, on friday we boarded a train headed for Cinque Terra. (Wikipedia Cinque Terra so that the rest of what I am going to talk about makes more sense) By that point in time, I had my fill of trains and was ready to just be somewhere and stay. We got off the train in the first city of Monterroso and it was absolutely breath taking. You get off the train, take some stairs, walk out into the city and you see the Mediterranean staring you in the face with mountains to your left and right and a warm breeze against your body. Minnesota may be Gods country, but Cinque Terra is right up there with it.

We spent the next 3 and a half days there and what an amazing experience it was. I can't say enough good things about the place. It is a touristy place, but not commercial touristy. It is very local and authentic. I had some of the best pizza of my life there as well as some great pasta. The region there is known for its pesto and it did not disappoint. I had a pesto lasagna that was worth all 7 Euros that I paid for it and then some.

Every single afternoon was spent at the beach soaking up the rays. Sadly, I didn't get too much color. It was sunny and 75 everyday, but the water was a bit too cold to really swim in. I did jump in for a minute though just to say that I had swam in the Mediterranean. One of the other interesting things was that there were American students everywhere. I can't even count the number of American students that we ran into. They aren't exactly hard to pick out. Americans stick out like sore thumbs there. All of them were studying abroad in Italy and on Easter break like us. The only difference was that we got to say that we were playing/coaching football. In some ways, it was kind of like being on spring break. Although on a much smaller scale.

If I had not needed to get back for football, I may have just stayed there another week. Eventually, it was time to go because we had practice on Tuesday and maybe more importantly, we were out of money. Thus, we embarked on the train trip from hell. I will spare you the details, but it took far too long in my opinion. We left Monday at 1:00 PM and got back to Hohenems at 7:00 AM Tuesday morning.

Once I had gotten back and taken a little nap, it was back to the grind preparing for the Graz Giants, the league favorite and #1 ranked team in Europe. We developed a very good game plan and I felt very confident going into the game. In the end, we lost 23-13. It was a game of missed opportunities and key mistakes. We turned the ball over 4 times and missed some touchdown opportunities.. After watching the film, we left points on the field. that was probably the most disappointing thing. Knowing that we should have won and failing to capitalize on a great opportunity. After the game, there were some fans and people involved with the team who were shall I say surprised that we had played them so close. I made sure that everyone here knew that I don't care what has happened in the past with this team. I didn't come here for moral victories or to keep the score close. I came here to win!

That is all that I have for now. For those that don't have facebook, I have my pictures in a Kodak Gallery and you can view them from there.

Hope all is well back home. Take care

--Josh