Camerasutra

Jess and I had an amazing hike in the Indian Peaks Wilderness on Saturday.  I had been up there and hiked Lake Isabelle so many times and had always ignored the trail next to it up to Mitchell Lake and Blue Lake.  I am glad I finally chose to do this hike as it is now another of my favorites.  I can’t wait to bring a fly rod back up there.  The hike was only 3 miles each way, but it was steep and rocky.  On the way down I could barely lift my legs over the rocks.  It proved for some very good sleep though Saturday night, but might not have been the best prep for my 2 outdoor soccer games on Sunday.

I woke up this morning feeling even worse than last night.  My entire body was one giant aching, throbbing vessel for what appears to be the flu.  Chances are pretty good that this is of the bird or pig variety.   Thanks Europe!

Unfortunately I was not able to play in the two games we had today.  It was all I could do to get out of bed and make my way to the venue to watch.  I really wanted to play though as it was the playoff for 5th place.  We played Slovenia this morning at 10am.  It was a great game, we played well, but in the end we were not victorious.  I am once again amazed at the skill level both in skating and soccer that these European teams possess.  Its a real joy to watch.

The most anticipated match of the day was of course the finals between two of the French teams.  The game was very well played by both sides, but Marseilles proved too skilled to be beaten this tournament.  Other teams are really going to have to raise their game if they want to be them.  I know I’ll be training as much as I can between now and next summer’s tournament. Here is a brief clip from the final game.

The awards ceremony was very France-centric. The fact that there were only French teams in the top three places made the singing of the national anthems fairly brief. Afterwards all of the teams came out and performed a rousing chant to the tune of the base line from Seven Nation Army. From there on it was all hugs, goodbyes and congratulations amongst all of the teams. After 8 years of international Rollersoccer tournaments, it really is a very tight-knit community. The teams definitely prepare to win and come hungry for victory. But once the games have concluded and the trophies have been handed out, everyone is just happy to be involved with such a unique subculture of Rollersoccer players.

After we left the Rollersoccer venue for the final time this tournament, we took the subway to one final tourist attraction that we had not seen….the Atomium.  Seeing as how my Rollersoccer name is “Atom Bomb”, I could not miss this attraction.  The Atomium is a 355ft high sculpture of an atom that was created for the 1958 Brussels World Fair.  They were going to create an upside down Eiffel Tower, but chose this instead.  I’ve got to say, its pretty cool.  Its shiny, its totally weird, its enormous…its an atom.  Its not far from the subway, so definitely see it if  you’re in Brussels.  If you don’t get a chance though, really, don’t sweat it.  Just look at these pictures.

Also, if you’re ever in a subway station and you see some subway graphiti that could do a better job of advertising Rollesoccer, do like we did and enhance it…

One thing I learned on my last night of my first Rollersoccer tournament is that Zach unwinds like an hypertense spring the night after the tournament.  As the founder of Rollersoccer, I think he gets really stressed out about each tournament.  Once its over though, the beer and wine flows and he becomes a totally different person.  Tonight his goal was to get Mussels, Waffles, Frites and lots of beer.  We accomplished all but the waffles.  By the time we had accomplished all of the other quests, all waffle shops had shut down for the night…and they don’t exactly close early.  I was definitely suffering and ready to get my flu-ridden body back to the hostel, but it was great to see Zack in his element.  It must be completely unreal to see your vision turned into a reality of 8 consecutive international tournaments.  I know that Rollersoccer has definitely been a huge part of my life….so thank Zack!

While my first trip to Europe was brief, I don’t think I would have wanted to do it any other way. Being able to come over here and participate in this event with the European teams on their home turf has been so much fun. Next year the tournament is likely to be in either Marseilles, France or Milan, Italy. Either way, I’m going to do all I can to get back for next year’s tournament. Thanks so much to the Belgians for being such gracious hosts. Thank you to Zack and June for fostering such a wonderfully unique sport. And thank you to my teammates for welcoming me onto the team even though I hadn’t played in a solid 8 years. It has been such a joy to reconnect with you all.

Now onto the work of starting Rollersoccer in Boulder…

After watching Marseilles play so many amazing games of Rollersoccer I was very excited and very nervous to play against them. We were slated against them as the worst third place team against the best team so far in the tournament. Our strategy was to hold strong in the defense and hope for a lucky break on offense. In the end, we lost 2 – 0, but that was the closest anyone had held Marseilles so far in the tournament. We were all very proud of how we played against what is arguably the best Rollersoccer team on this giant planet we call Earth. Of course the US did beat them last year to win the entire World Cup…but that is neither here nor there. I definitely think if we can get our best players together for next year’s tournament and have a couple of opportunities to practice together, we can beat Marseilles. Time will tell on this one.

This is a very strange area of Brussels. Everywhere you look there are Muslim people, Muslim restaurants and Muslim shops, but at the beginning of the main strip, there is a Merry Christmas sign that is up year round. In Kebab shop that we’ve been getting lunch everyday, there are two Santas mixed amongst fake flowers and some sort of volcano backdrop. I definitely can’t complain about the food though. I could eat one of these Kabab wraps for every meal. I will stay away from the Ass Hamburger and Ass Doner Kabab though….

After lunch we walked over to see the town’s Cathedral. I’m sure this Cathedral is not even on the map of cathedrals, which makes it even more impressive. Walking into one of these churches is really beyond words. They are the perfect expression of praise to something much, much bigger than each of us. Behind the cathedral was the cemetery. The graves and crypts were so incredibly ornate and so incredibly old.  So many of them were in horrible states of disrepair, while others had been very well maintained.  Perhaps the strangest thing for me was how they remember the dead with either statues of that person on the crypt or actual photos of the person in the grave.

This trip is definitely taking a toll on me. I can feel my body getting sick for sure. As we walked around the cemetery, I began to feel really, really bad.  I stopped at the market on the way back and bought anything I could find with the words Vitamin C on it.  After the games today I returned to the hostel but was not able to make it out for dinner with the team.  In fact, I fell asleep at 8pm and there I lay until morning…aching, shaking, sweating and generally just feeling miserable.

You can’t come to Belgium and not eat the waffles.  So, this morning we did just that.  I gotta tell you, they are all they are cracked up to be.  I think I could definitely stay here for a while.  Waffles, french fries and beer….yes please!

Sandra, Lauren and waffles

Kwame getting ready to chow

Waffles, bananas and chocolate

Waffles, strawberry and chocolate

Insanely good coffee

After breakfast we spent the entire day at the Rollersoccer venue again watching incredible Rollersoccer players play Rollersoccer (try saying that 10 times fast).  Today we had our third group stage match against Italy.  It was a must win in order to advance to the quarterfinals.  Well, we did what we must and we advanced.  So, tomorrow we face the number one team…Marseilles.  They have a coach, a team van, uniforms, sweats, and they are really, really good at Rollersoccer.  It should be interesting.

Here is a video of us playing against Italy that I found on YouTube.  I am #24, Atom Bomb.  This is not the most exciting example of me playing RollerSoccer, but so far its all I’ve got:

In towns where skating is big, they generally have a Friday Night Skate through the city.  In Europe, skating is still huge, so most of the European cities have a Friday Night Skate…Brussels is no exception.  The Brussels Friday Night Skate is actually pretty small with only about 1,000 people.  They skates in Paris have had as many as 30,000 people on a Friday night.  We were a bit late getting to the starting point and ended up having to chase down the parade.   As we would round a  corner, we would see the last few skaters, but they were still plenty far away and we’d hit about every red light.  We finally caught them when they had an extended stop for water.  The skate parade was fantastic.  It follows a pickup truck with a giant speaker blasting techno music.  The parade would stop at major streets and they would somehow clear out the road and block it off so that we could fly down the empty roads without worrying about cars.  You still had to contend with 1,000 other skaters though.  Now I know why they parade is followed closely by a medical van.  I would not want to be a newbie flying down these hills.  If you know how to skate though, there is really no better place to be.

Kwame strikes a pose on Friday Night Skate

Someone jump in the circle

Still waiting for a dancer to emerge from the crowd

Finally someone break dances for the crowd

Will and Kwame in front of the parade

Thousand or so skaters moving through Brussels

With our big quarterfinal game against Marseilles in the morning, we had planned to only skate for an hour or so.  After about an hour the parade dropped into an enormous tunnel and then pushed its way back up the hill and rested on the other side.  We figured this was a good place to bail out and began asking about Subway stations nearby.  We were assured that the we only had another third to go before we’d skate in front of the hostel and that it was mostly flat or downhill.  Well, this turned out to be a big fat lie.  Two hours later we were still pumping our tired legs up and down the hills of Brussels.  Will was having a very difficult time masking his frustration.  Ten minutes had turned into two hours, it was nearly midnight and we had not even eaten dinner.  We finally asked our hosts if they would direct us to the nearest subway station.  A bit after midnight, we finally arrived at The Sultans of Kebap for dinner….completely exhausted.  I chugged two cans of fruit punch in the span of about 20 seconds before devouring a kebap wrap.  Upon returning to the hostel, we each grabbed showers, chugged some water and fell back hard into the sheets for what would prove to be another quick night of sleep.

We finally get dinner at midnight

Hindsight is 20/20 and this morning my BAC was probably about the same. If I had it to do all over again, I probably would have drank less last night and gone to bed a bit earlier. To my credit though, last night was my first night ever in a European bar. The people are friendly, the beer is incredibly delicious, and the jet lag had me thinking it was much earlier than it was.

With all of this said, we still had our first match at 10am. Our first match today was against Holland. No surprise that they were in orange. At halftime we were up 2 to 0. I even managed to put one in between the posts. When the final whistle blew, we were down 4 to 2. Oh well….I still had a blast.

We didn’t have another match until late in the afternoon, so most of the rest of the day was spent watching the best rollersoccer players in the world go at it…and doing lots and lots of sweating. The venue was literally like a sauna. It must have been 100 degrees and humid. I don’t believe I’ve sweat that much ever in my life. It really was a treat though to have the opportunity to watch this many amazing Rollersoccer players. For a sport that I’ve spent so much time explaining to skeptics, it was great to just be able to sit back and watch it be played the way it was meant to be played.

Later that afternoon we had our second tournament match against France. They were very, very good. I was so happy to be playing really competitive Rollersoccer, but would have been very happy to have won one of our matches today. We definitely should have beaten Holland, but I think the French team earned their victory well against us.

I bent my frame today in the first match. I have recreational skates, whereas most other players have hockey or aggressive skates. It didn’t take much of a kick from Holland to bend the frame and stop my wheels from turning. I managed to bend it back enough to get my wheels rolling, but figured it might be a good time for better Rollersoccer skates. I contacted the local skate dealer called Rollerman. He agreed to meet us at our hostel that night with a pair of SEBA skates in my size. The SEBAs are named after Sebastion Laffargue, a professional slalom skater from Paris. Sure enough, he is on the French team. Below is some video of him doing his slalom thing. The skates that Rollerman brought me were great, but the bearings were a ton faster that what I’m used to. I completely bit it in the lobby of the hostel while testing them out. In the end, I skated down to the ATM, got Rollerman his money and took my new skates.

Here is a video of Sebastien doing his slalom thing:

We had a team dinner at a Thai restaurant near the hostel. The food was fantastic, but I could barely even look at alcohol tonight. I think it might be a while before I can drink again. After dinner, it was an early night for bed. Thanks goodness I’m so exhausted though because there is stinky laundry hanging everywhere in the room. It is not a very pleasant place to be for those who don’t love the smell of sweaty socks and jerseys.

It was another gorgeous day in Brussels this morning.  I guess we brought the good weather because its been raining cats and dogs up until this week.  No complaints here.  I guess Brussels in not really a morning town because we had to walk all the way down to the Grand Palace before we found a breakfast place.  The Panos Cafe seems similar to a Panera Bread in the US.  I had a really soft, warm sandwich.  Everyone else had giant, crusty Paninis served cold.  My chewing could not contain my smile.  You are so delicious little warm sandwich.

After walking a bit more through downtown Brussels we had to make our way to the Omnisport where the tournament was being held to help set up.  The Belgians are so incredibly nice, but they were not really as prepared as they should have been the day before the tournament.  They had purchased some old hockey boards from a rink that had closed down, but there was not really a plan for how to transform them back into a wall.  Fortunately there was a groove in the floor that fit the boards perfectly.  So, we set about building a wall solid enough to hold RollerSoccer players throwing each other into it.  The wall seemed pretty solid, but when I performed the “kick the ball into the wall” stress test, several screws popped out….time for more screws.  As we were furiously trying to get the wall finished the French team showed up.  Rather than stepping up and helping out, they took to playing soccer and basketball.  Speaking personally, it was not a great moment for international relations.  In the end, the wall got built…it was strong and beautiful.

At 6:30pm we got kicked out of the Omnisport so they could host basketball.  We headed back to the hostel for a bit of team strategy talk.  Our opponents were represented by the flip flops and we were the cell phones.  The cell phones won in every example.  It was exhilarating.

With two big games tomorrow, the plan was to head out, grab a bite to eat, bond as a team over a beer or two and hit the sack early(ish).  They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Everything was going according to plan at first.  We ate at what would become our local Kabap shop called The Sultans of Kabap.  Afterwards we returned to Mort Subite for some giant beers.  They were super delicious.  Lauren freaked us all out with her house of coasters double beer glass stacking act.  At midnight they kicked us out of Mort Subite.  This would have been the time to head to bed, but instead we pressed on towards Delirium.  All was going well.  We were mixing with the locals, handing out postcards for the tournament and telling people about the sport of RollerSoccer.  Then I met Christoph.  He was from the town where Orval was made.  In confused broken English, we managed to hang out and drink for several hours.  At 3:30am he was handing me pilsners for chugging.  It was incredible fun, but a terrible strategy for game preparation.  At 4am we finally made it out of Delirium and stumbled our way back to the hostel for a very quick night of sleep.

I had just enough time back in Boulder to pack and leave again.  This time I’m heading to Brussles, Belgium for the 7th International RollerSoccer World Cup.  When I started playing RollerSoccer during a knee injury recovery almost a decade ago, I never imagined that I’d be heading to Belgium to compete against 8 other countries in a world championship tournament.  The article below was published exactly 9 years ago to the day.  It features a very young Peter Fitch and I chasing furiously after the ball.

When I was in San Fransisco in March, I played for the first time in 8 years and Zack mentioned that I should join them for the tournament.  With a bit of encouragement from Jess, I booked my ticket a few months ago and began recruiting the kids from the neighborhood to help me train.  So, while the French teams have been performing structured drills designed by their team coaches, I’ve been trying to maneauver my way around around 5 to 7 year old kids.

Having done all I could to prepare, I boarded the plane for Brussels on Monday morning.  A few of us were fortunate enough to book the same flight from the US to Belgium.  Zack, Peter and Sandra arrived at the Philadelphia about an hour after I did.  We spent the next 5 hours eating and playing Scrabble before we boarded the flight where we spent the next 9 hours eating and playing Scrabble.

Kwame and June were waiting for us at the airport when we arrived.  June, who is Zack’s wife and the President of the RollerSoccer Federation, had arrived a week earlier to help the Belgian team with the final preparations for the tournament.  She already knew the train system and was able to lead us to the hostel where we’d be staying for the next week.

The hostel is so much nicer than I thought it’d be.  Jess’s stories of hostels had me expecting the worst, so I was surprised to find a newly refurbished building with modern furnishings, computers, plasma TV, beer-filled vending machine and down comforters.  I guess I’ll have to come back to Europe to get the true hostel experience.

We spent the afternoon touring around downtown Brussels.  Zack wanted us to all watch the video of last year’s finals where the US beat France.  After grabbing some Panini sandwiches across from the hostel, we walked downtown to find the Delirium Pub.  Peter and I had seen this Pub featured on the show Three Sheets.  This ridiculous show follows comedian Zane Lamprey around the world as he samples the local drinking culture across the globe.  Definitely check this show out if you haven’t seen it.

The Delirium Pub holds the current world record for the most beer commercially available at 2004 beers.  We only had time to sample a few.  I went with one of the beers featured in Three Sheets, while others were a bit more adventurous with chocolate beer…it literally tasted like a chocolate bar.  With beers in hand, we watched the US beat France from last year’s tournament.  Unfortunately, this would be the only chance to see the US beat the French during our time in Belgium.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around and sightseeing in downtown Brussels.  We saw the famous peeing boy fountain known as Manneken Pis.  We walked by lots of shops selling everything from hats, to chocolates, to Manneken Pis wine openers.  We saw city workers dressed like Oompa Loompas and a gay bar named Homo Erectus.

After several hours of walking we were ready for another beer.  We headed over to another bar that we had seen on Three Sheets called Mort Subite.  We had to have had the pissiest waiter I’ve ever had.  Everything we did or said seemed to annoy him.  He was very particular too about the coasters.  The tables looked like they had survived both World Wars, but he would be damned if there would be another glass mark left on his watch.

We got back to the hostel around 8:30pm and there was still plenty of daylight.  I suggested we take a skate around the city and everyone followed suit.  Aside from the cobblestones this is a great place to skate.  It felt really good to be skating around a city again.  It had been since I moved from San Francisco that I’d done this.  We happened upon some kids playing soccer in a futsol court and asked them if they wanted to play against us.  They did not speak English, but it was clear they didn’t want to play against the freaks on skates.  They did let us kick their ball though and within minutes they had joined our game.  One kid on the side was yelling for several minutes before we realized he needed to take his ball home.  So, with no ball we headed on down the cobblestone.

Next we found ourselves skating through the middle of the town carnival.  There were thousands of people and lots of neon lights and carnival games.  If you think its difficult to walk through giant hords of people at a carnival, try skating through them as a group.

On the way back to the hostel we stopped for our first taste of Frites.  In America we know them as fries.  Here they literally eat them with mayoinaisse and cute little frite forks.  It was the perfect snack after a night of skating.  Finally though after being awake for way too many hours, we made our way back to hostel and hit the sack.

Lake Burton is a very difficult place not to fall in love with…mornings like this one make it even more difficult.

My brother Scott was able to join us for the weekend.  He is most well known by his passion and skills for catching the fish.  Tyler also loves angling so there was quite a bit of symbiosis in the arrangement.  Scott often describes himself as an unpaid fishing guide, so we took full advantage of his services today.  He took us up the Tallulah River for a bit of river trout fishing.  This area is gorgeous and is only scary if you’ve seen the movie Deliverance and are aware that this is where it was filmed.

The men were outfished by the ladies today.  Jess caught the first fish of the day, Kristin pulled in the second…there were no more caught.  Tyler struck out, Scott spent most of the time guiding and I was too busy taking photos…at least that is the excuse I’m using.

Tyler did learn about southern rock snot the hard way.  This discovery led to the photo below.

The rest of the day was set aside for the first ever rib showdown at Pretty Place.  In one corner was Kristen with her Gluten Free Beer Boiled Country Ribs.  In the other corner was Scott with his Super Secret Spicy Dry Rubbed Baby Back Ribs.  And off to one side and not really competing was Jess with her Smores cookies and sliced watermelon.

The rib showdown was very exciting.  There was a boil over on the stove.  Well….that was about it for the excitement.  Unless you get excited by Scott flipping ribs over on the grill and me taking thousands of pictures of him doing it.  While the ribs were smoking and boiling, Scott tied up some flies, Tyler and Kristin fished off the dock and Jess and I did a bit more swimming.  Again….it was very exciting.

By the time the ribs were served, we had forgotten about the competition and were purely focused on eating the fruits (or, really meats) of their labor.  I have learned my lesson before about ingesting this much food in one sitting, but its a lesson I was prepared to learn again.  In the end there was just the carcass of too many eaten ribs and the BBQ sauce smattered smiles on the faces of the “judges”.  And the winner is…the judges.

In an attempt to catch the sun setting over the water, we shunned dish duty and jumped in the boat.  I think we hung around the table one rib too long because we just missed nature’s finale.  So, we returned home, cleaned up the kitchen and settled down for some serious Yahtzee action.