The first two weeks

Hello Everyone!

I made it to Holland safe and have been here for about two weeks now. I am living in Den Haag (The Hague) which is roughly 500,000 inhabitants located in western Holland near the beach. It is beautiful here- cobble streets, oldish buildings, lots of friendly people and a great social atmosphere. Oh, and TONS of soccer! The first week I spent exploring the beach, downtown and many streets of Den Haag. This place is a bikers paradise- there are bike paths that line every street and many places around town are reached just as fast if not faster by bicycle. I have been biking and walking a lot around town.

The Sonoma State Men's Soccer team got here last friday for a total of two weeks. I was lucky enough to be invited to train with them and play in their games, as well as travel to Amsterdam, Almelo and Eindhoven Netherlands and Cologne, Germany, which has been awesome. We have played a bunch of first and second amateur teams and will play older youth teams from the professional Ajax and ADO Den Haag soccer clubs. We have also seen multiple professional games including NAC Breda vs. Olympiacos, FC Koln vs. VfL Wolfsburg and The Edwin Van Der Sar send off match hosted by Ajax. Each game was awesome although the Van Der Sar send off game was definitely once in a lifetime: I got to see some of the most famous soccer players ever playing on the same field at the same time including: Van Der Sar, Rooney, Giggs, Edgar Davids, Dennis Bergkamp, Louis Saha and Dirk Kuyt.

On the soccer side, I've been playing with the Sonoma State team at outside back which has been fun although I am excited to get to my club team and play for them. I am pretty sure that I will be playing for Graaf Willem (pronounced har villem) an amateur team in Den Haag. My landlord/friend Jay says that I will most likely be the star of the club but I am just excited to experience dutch football. The amateur clubs over here are insane: they are essentially multiple fields (practice turf fields and grass game fields) with legit locker rooms and a club house with a bar. SICK! Some of them remind me of country clubs where members (who used to play at the club) can come and eat and drink and watch soccer. So awesome!

Although I am having a lot of fun so far, I do miss some things from California/America: burritos, sunny days/dry heat (it's muggy here when it's hot), Santa Cruz, surfing and all of you guys back home, friends and family. I hope to keep this blog updated as much as possible (every couple days to once a week) so please check back often!


Love you guys!

Clay