Our intense athletic games

We had volleyball games every day. Mostly against our motivation and excitement. Our game schedule looked something like
Monday: 9 am and 2 pm
Tuesday: Noon
Wednesday: 2:30 pm
Thursday: 10 am and 1 pm
Friday: Noon
As you can see we had VERY intense volleyball matches especially since most games lasted around 30 minutes with a maximum of a 45 minutes match.

In between matches we had an even more intense schedule full of practices and training. not. We laid out, went to the surf shops, and ate at the local fish and chips and kebabs places. This was seriously a holiday with a few volleyball games in between.

The way our competition went was that we had pool play for the first three days, and then a tournament to decide places on Thursday and Friday. We won one game during the pool play. That placed us 4th out of 5 in our pool. The one team we beat had never played beach volleyball before in their lives. The problem with us playing was 1. we had never played all together before. 2. The wind was absolutely crazy sometimes and took the ball everywhere 3. We could play REALLY REALLY WELL during the really hard teams, and then play absolutely horrific against teams we could have really easily beaten.

The tournament went about the same way. We played really well against the 1st place team in the other pool, but when it came to teams that were still drunk or really bad, we would lose it and fall apart. I guess it is what to be expected for a team that was there more to party than to actually play volleyball. We finished 7th out of 11 but we claim we came in 1st and they just forgot to get us medals. Or we never received our medals which was weird for a tournament.

The best part of the games was the ridiculous-ness that we encountered while playing. For incentives to play well during the games we had drinking rules. If we didn't get a serve in, it was a shot/drink for yourself. If you let a ball drop to the ground without at least ATTEMPTING to get a hit on it equaled a round of jager bombs for the entire team. With 4 jager bombs costing around $48 dollars, it was everyone's incentive to not let a ball drop and at least try. The best example of these rules in effect was when Sarah and I quite literally collide and smashed into each other in order for us not to pay for a round. The rules stated that if it was an equal distance away from two people... BOTH parties bought a round for everyone. As long as we didn't have to buy rounds for everyone, then we were happy.

We progressively got better as the week went on. If we would have had more training together I honestly think we could have won our division easily. A lot of the time we were messing around so much we forgot our form and how to play the game. Libby was nicknamed "Liability Libby" because we never knew how she was going to play that game, or even from serve to serve. I am sure she got sick of Ben telling her this all the time but it was all in good fun and team bonding.

Our rides to and from the hotel included a 45 minute bus ride to the beach and back everyday. Luckily, Ben was from Perth originally so he ran home and grabbed his car. His car was named El Rodeo because it was a a tank. It was a shift truck and when it rained it we slid all over the place, especially when Ben tried to burn it out. It was these truck rides where we figured out what happened the night before, what we were going to wear that night, and all other funny things that have happened during the day. It was these car rides we got close as a team and created all too many inside jokes