Rimini: Friday

Yes, I am aware that I haven't updated for about three weeks, and for that I apologize. Hopefully you are ready for an influx of updates. Last I left off I had probably just left the Thursday night party. We ended up leaving pretty early (for Paga). One reason was because we wanted to get a good nights sleep, the other was because we didn't want to get totally drunk, which meant we just watched other people do that, and that is only fun for so long.

Anyway, we had three games on Friday, and our first was at a great time: 10.30am! The other team was seeded much higher than us, they were the home team, play together normally, and also play on the beach. My team was made up of 17 people (yes, that is a lot, especially for beach). We had 7 women, or maybe 8 (one of our female players came in really late and ended up missing the whole day because she was so exhausted). Needless to say, we got beat pretty badly the first game. The final outcome was 15:2, yikes.

In between games, a few of us headed over to the merchandise tent. I knew that I would only be looking, since coming to the tournament was pretty much breaking the bank. While we were over there, I saw a player with a "Chicago Ultimate" bag, and therefore had to talk to him. He ended up playing for a mixed team that is mostly based out of Chicago called the American Gladiators and we were going to play them our next game. I then met a whole bunch of the other players, and got a little homesick. And on top of that, they were staying at the same hotel as us, on the same floor! So that made for a fun rest of the tournament. It was great playing them the next game as well, and we won! My team had my say the talk at the end of the game, since I could speak to them on their "native tongue." The final score of the game was 10:6.

Our last game of the day was against the paris team. We needed to win this game in order to move into the top bracket. Before the game, I chucked around with Choi, a girl from Singapore who is studying in Austria this year. She is absolutely adorable. It started to rain a little, but I was refusing to believe that the weather could go sour. It did end up holding off (that day), and even though we were psyched up to play, the Paris team came out really strong. We would give up at least four or five points at the beginning of the games, and coming back from that was really hard. I felt like I didn't play very well, except for a totally sweet grab at the end of the game. It was the last point DeLux scored. It was meant for someone else on my team, but floated over him and I was able to grab it before it flew out. Unfortunately, it extended my right arm a little too much, so it was aching for the rest of the day (but was fine the next day after taking some ibuprofen). After the game, they played a few games with us, and then I got picked up by two (attractive) french men. While I was sitting on their shoulders, another girl on the team tied a piece of cloth on my ankle, which is a Brazilian thing. I got three wishes. Two of my wishes came true (they were that no one on my team would get seriously injured, and that we would have a great time). The final score of the game was 9:5.

We had our only full team dinner after that, and I think we ended up being 22 people all around a huge table, and it took probably about 3 hours to get in and get out. I got to sit by the team coach, who has been playing ultimate longer than I have been alive, so it was great just chatting with him and the other people around me. We finally showered after dinner, which was marvelous, because sand ends up everywhere. Most of the other teams had already gone and were desperately looking for food.

The party that night was quite a bit better, mainly because I ended up meeting an open team and chatted with them most of the night. Choi and I had grabbed some water and were heading back into the party tent. While heading, we saw some people playing a game that looked similar to something I had learned at camp. So we started chatting with them. They were both American, and one of them is a grad student at U of I! And then I said I played for Valpo, and he said that they would have played me then. I then said, well , you would have played our open team. But no, he coaches the women's team at U of I. Then I realized that I had seen him, or at least. Most of the women on the Valpo team really don't like him, I had no problem with him. We then walked into the tent with them, and then another player came up to me, and was like, "Lori, do you remember me?" Clearly I didn't, but then he said, "It's Alex!" Click! Alex, met him at Paga in '06 at an ice cream shop, him and teammate, then I got him set up with Wayne and April for World Cup stuff. Anyway, Alex was playing with this team that I had just met, crazy! Anyway, I went on to meet the whole team that night. Choi and I finally rejoined our team for the last 45 minutes we were there and danced the night away. It was lovely!