Hey Everyone! It has been a busy but fun week.
The last week was spent playing U19 and U18 teams from AJAX and ADO Den Haag, both youth teams in the professional clubs of the eredivisie (professional league in holland). They were good competition.
Wednesday evening I went with the SSU team to explore Amsterdam for the night. It was a lot of fun walking around, grabbing some beers and exploring. If you ever have a chance to get to Amsterdam, do it! It is truly an experience.
The SSU boys left Thursday and my roommate Ryan and I got bikes (photos below). They are pretty sweet. In Holland, everyone pretty much has similar looking bikes and the all are similar in style to what we have. What is also cool, is that they have back wheel-locks that dead-bolt the spokes. The deadbolts are unlocked by a key and when you are riding your bike, you keep the key in the lock. We also got large locks to lock the bikes up, but the dead-bolts are convenient if you are just running into a store to grab something while we use the larger locks at night to prevent them from being stolen.
Today, I had my first training with Graaf Willem. They are located about a 15 minute bike ride from my apartment and are about in the middle league of the amateur teams. I will definitely be the best player on the team which was a disappointment at first, seeing as I came here to be challenged, but the guys are very nice and they set me up with a few coaching jobs around the club (more information on this later), so I know I will have a good time. Here is a website to my league standings:
http://www.hollandsevelden.nl/competities/2011-2012/west-2/zo/4c/
and here is the website to my club website:
www.graafwillem.nl
After training, they gave us lunch which was pretty awesome: sandwiches, milk and crokets (deep fried meat/potato-mash in a sandwich roll w/ mustard on top). It was very good. Thursday night I watched the team play a friendly against another local club and afterward had some beers with the guys. The game ended around 9 and we hung out and drank until 1:30 am at the clubhouse. The guys like to have a good time and are very social so I know I will have a lot of fun this year. Jay was also telling me that it is custom to eat a meal at the clubhouse Thursday night either before or after training at the clubhouse with the team and Sunday after our games (which are at 2 pm), have a few beers at the clubhouse and socialize. The atmosphere and customs that surround a soccer club are so different than what I am used to in the US and so far it has been awesome.
Again, miss you all! Check out the photos below.
Clay
Our new bikes parked on our street.
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