Hot Topic

It is HOT here. All I can say is I'm glad we came a week and a half early. The heat is so draining, it's tough to get through even one training session at a time. So far we've been getting to the courts at 7 AM to beat the heat, which is draining on its own. By the time we get back home, all we want to do is sleep. Even blog writing seems tedious, but I'll power through it, don't you worry.

The heat is to be expected. I do, after all, play beach volleyball, the hottest sport on earth (Until someone invents volcano ball or something to that effect). It's just a little difficult to adapt when coming from when we're overjoyed about it hitting 20 degrees so that we can finally play outside. But adapt we shall. We've been training the last few days with Pedro and Ricardo, a few younger Brazilian players, and Renato "Geor" Gomes and Jorge "Gia" Terceiro who finished 4th at the last Summer Olympics in Beijing. They're actually Brazilians who play for the country of Georgia in order to give themselves a better shot at qualifying for international tournaments due to the very strong showing by all Brazilian teams. The two other Brazilian teams at the Olympics finished 2nd and 3rd. With such a strong training group helping us along, Jessi and I should be ready to do some damage come the qualifier on Wednesday.

Now lets talk about Brazil itself. Joao Pessoa anyhow. As long as there's shade, its a very neat place to be. Such an interesting culture here. Anywhere you look along the beach, you can find people playing either beach football (soccer), or beach volleyball. Almost everyone there has a beach jersey, and when practicing, there is always at least one person shagging to keep the practice running smoothly. I can only dream of that in Canada. At Ashbridges Bay in Toronto, if a ball rolls, someone needs to go get it, or it's bound to get stolen. It's funny considering Brazil's rate of crime is so much higher than in Canada. If you get thirsty, no problem, there's a coconut stand on every corner. Apparently coconut water has 3x the eloctrolytes of Gatorade, so it's the perfect sports drink and I've made very certain I have learned enough Portuguese to order as many as possible.

It's the people that are the most interesting. Everyone seems to be up with the sun at 5AM, and long past when it gets dark at 5PM. The coconut stands stay open 24hours for all I know. Jessi and I haven't really partaken in the party life, even when Pedro invites us to join him at the Casino. Or tells about his friend being set up with a prostitute. Apparently that's a normal thing for them. Such aspects are pretty shocking, though I'm sure there are parts of any culture that would make me check my ears, blink my eyes, maybe drop my jaw a little. Whatever it is that goes on here, they seem to play good volleyball, so I respect them for it. And I likely won't ever do everything Brazilians do, but some day, hopefully in the near future, I'll be as good as they are at the world's hottest sport.

Cheers,
Ben

Tuesday audible

My apologies for missing yesterday's blog deadline. I thought that since I would be spending over 20 hours in transit I would be able to squeeze one in between flights, but with delays, customs, and security checks, I didn't have quite as much time as I predicted. So this week it will be a Tuesday blog. Though sleep is hard to come by in airplanes for taller gentlemen such as myself, so bear with my tired vocabulary and story telling capabilities.

Just a warning for those of you interested in hearing about how my tournaments end up: I hate to lose. Even if we finish second like we did in Guatemala, I get bitter. If we're good enough to make the final, then we should be good enough to win it, and anything else disappoints me whether it should or not, and I don't like to talk about it. Unless we win a tournament, I likely will not divulge a whole lot of information here. Scores and results will be posted promptly but if you want the details, you'll have to address me personally because I like to keep my blogs a little more on the light-hearted side.

Alright, thats enough of being a big downer for the day. Lets get back to the long voyage to Joao Pessoa, Brazil, shall we? As poor athletes who want to get the most out of every penny, we booked our flights through the Volleyball Canada travel agent. That way we could find the cheapest possible Star Alliance route to save money and collect miles all at the same time. Brilliant, right? Almost, the problem being that the cheapest route isn't always the most traveller friendly. This flight being a prime example.

Had we gotten a flight directly from Guatemala City to Joao Pessoa (if one even exists), I estimate it would have taken about 5 hours, give or take. Instead, we first backtracked north 3.5 hours to Houston, then took a quick nine hour flight to Sao Paulo in the South of Brazil, then finally another 3 hour hop northwest to our final destination of Joao Pessoa. Thats 15.5 hours just in the air. Now add layovers in Houston and Sao Paulo, divide by the square root of four, then add ten (I used to be a math major, just making sure I still got mad algebra skills), and that makes over 20 hours of travel time. Now subtract sleep from that equation (keep in mind planes are not always tall person friendly) and that makes about 35 hours of being awake while travelling. Now you're probably second guessing asking me for help on your next homework assignment. But keep in mind every hour spent traveling feels twice as long, and I was only able to sleep for about 2.5 hours.

When we finally reached our destination, we were picked up by a good friend of Jessi's, and a top 10 FIVB player over the last 4 or 5 years, Pedro Solberg. Within two hours, we were running on the beach, and before the sun went down, we played a quick set against Pedro and Olympic Gold(2004), Silver(2000), and Bronze(2008) medalist, Ricardo Santos. We lost, but not convincingly, and we're set to train with them for a full practice early in the morning.

But Jessi's ready for bed and I'm not opposed to the idea myself. Our room is extremely hot, so hopefully we can get a fan going. But it just now started pouring rain so it might not be so hot after all. I'm just rambling now, so here's as good a time as any to call it a night.

Cheers,

Ben