The Junior World teams reaches Germany
USA Ultimate
Posted: August 2, 2010 11:53 AM
This August, 44 of the best youth Ultimate players in America will be traveling to Germany to participate in the 2010 World Junior Ultimate Championships. But first, the Open and Girl’s teams will meet at Amherst College next week for a weeklong training camp hosted by USA Ultimate.
Five members of Team USA have agreed to blog about thier experiences for usaultimate.org - Bethany Kaylor, Sally Landefeld, Maddy Roorbach, Nick Stuart and Matt Barnes. Follow their progress here as they train, travel and compete throughout the next few weeks.
Our eighth entry comes from Maddy as the team gets settled in Germany.
    
The clock on Meredith’s computer says that it’s a little after 6 a.m.—which isn’t right. In fact, it’s a little after 1 p.m. It’s so strange to think that when I’ve been up half a day, my family back home on the east coast is just getting ready to start the day.
Our journey across the Atlantic began when we left Amherst at one Friday afternoon. We arrived at the Boston airport with plenty of time to spare—our flight didn’t take off until around 10, and we flew through the night and into the morning arriving in Frankfurt on Saturday at eleven local time—five EST. We all stumbled off the plane and through the passport check-point, before retrieving our massive amount of bags from the conveyor belt. After walking through customs, we met our driver and boarded the double-decker red tour bus that took us from Frankfurt to Heilbronn. We’re staying at a school in Heilbronn with the vast majority of the Worlds teams, all in classrooms on blow-up mattresses. After dropping our stuff off, we went to a nearby train station for lunch, and then walked to the carnival. I did not ride any of the rides, but I did hold lots of water bottles and purses (and one teddy bear won moments earlier) while most everyone rode the twirly, sky-high ride. We weren’t allowed to nap, much to my chagrin, because we needed to adjust to German time, so after dinner at a nearby outdoor food court, we crashed.
Sunday morning we got up around seven, walked to the train station for breakfast (it’s our favorite food spot right now…) and then headed towards the fields for our second-to-last practice. The food court was our next stop, before the all-important nap time. I was woken up by John right before our scavenger hunt with the Australian team, Israeli team, and the Irish boys (who jumped in spontaneously) around Heilbronn. I was on a team with two Israeli girls, five Australian girls, and three other girls representing USA. In the beginning of the scavenger hunt—in which we had to take pictures of sights around Heilbronn and of "German" things—my team was really excited and energetic, but halfway through we started to slow way down. The two Israeli girls peeled off to go to practice, and the rest of us ended up sitting on a bank by the river that runs through town. We sang Billy Joel and Cat Stevens on the way back to the school, and several other songs in rounds. Several of the parent chaperones arrived after the scavenger hunt to relieve our coaches and take us to dinner, while the coaches went to dinner by themselves (no fun!). On the way back to the school we stopped and waited in line for ice cream, which we’d heard was the best in Heilbronn (I can’t make a call, but it was pretty good…).
This morning (Monday), we got up at 7:30, and walked downstairs for breakfast, the first meal provided for us. On the way out to the fields, Nick Stuart came running towards us—the fields were closed. We dragged ourselves back upstairs just long enough for the coaches to find out that we could use the turf fields. We didn’t run too much at practice (turf fields with sneakers when it’s wet is dangerous), but we did manage to throw quite a bit. We’re having lunch/break time right now, and we’re off to play team trivia in a few minutes. Opening ceremonies start at four this afternoon—we’re about to begin! Finland is our first competitor tomorrow afternoon. Wish us luck!
-Maddy