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Published: August 11th 2011
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Well, at least half of us made it.Hey all,
First of all, sorry for the delay before my first post. As you all know, the first two days were a bit more eventful than I think any of us wanted (thank you, Lufthansa).
We’ll start from the beginning. August 8th was sacrificed to the travel gods and spent doing the most mind-numbing tasks available. The most common ways the kids killed the time: watching classics such as Thor, Kung Fu Panda 2, and Fast Five; playing games on the myriad iPhones; and -- as we approached hours 7, 8, 9 -- loitering in the aisles (they were like crows to a field: we’d shoo them back to their seats, but then as soon as we’d turn our backs, there they’d be again, lingering in the walkways and hovering over chairs). There was also a group of high school girls on the plane for reasons I don’t know (if you’d like to know, ask Andrew), and they seemed to agree that the best place to pass the time was in the small pocket of space right next to the bathrooms in the back of the plane. So, like free-floating valence electrons, the boys were one by one
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The view from the beach a stone's throw from our hotel. pulled into and released from the small dense huddle of people clogging the entrances to the bathrooms. A few of us played cards, many slept (like Adam, whose body apparently thinks that any position other than standing is perfect for a nap), and those that didn’t sleep with their eyes closed practically did so with their eyes open, staring at the blue felt of the seats in front of them or through the window at the darkness outside, a darkness complete but for the meek white metronomic flashes of the plane’s wing tips.
So passed the first leg of travel. On the whole, with a few exceptions, I think we handled ourselves pretty well for such a long plane flight, but I also think we were all very glad when we touched down in Germany. This, however, was also where it got a little crazy. We all swiftly made our way through security and to the gate. We realized along the way that we were split up into two flights into Munich, but that we’d reconvene there as we were scheduled to be on the same flight to Dubrovnik. The earlier group got on the plane, hopped over to
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The view from my balcony. Yes, I'm on a different balcony. Munich and made our way to the proper Munich gate with very little incident. We all got lunch (Viennese and Bavarian sausage), played some cards, and waited for the second group. And waited. And waited. Finally, 15 minutes before we were scheduled to depart, I asked the worker there for the status of the other flight. He simply said “They won’t make it.” “Umm… what do you mean ‘they won’t make it’?” “Their flight was delayed.” “How long?” “They won’t land for another 30 minutes.” “Well can we wait?” “No, then you will miss this flight; we have a very small window when we can land in Dubrovnik.” “So what should we do?” “Get on the plane please.” Nothing’s ever easy. By now you all know the story and it all worked out in the end. Group 1 got to spend what sounds like a rather opulent night in a hotel in Zagreb (a few of them even have the soft white hotel-monogrammed slippers to prove it) and only missed about an hour of the first training session.
The second two plane flights were exciting only in that each of us individually waged the same private war (stay awake!)
with varying degrees of success. When we arrived in Dubrovnik, there was a man waiting for us with a sign that read “Agoura WP” and a list of everyone he was supposed to pick up. He also spoke absolutely no English. This made explaining the situation – why we only had half the number we were supposed to and that he would need to come back the following day at 8:15 – exceedingly difficult, but eventually, through an imaginative use of hand gestures, pen marks on the list, and even a few attempts at Italian, he understood enough of the situation to hit the road.
About an hour later, we pulled up at the Hotel in Montenegro, where we were greeted by Milos, our contact in Montenegro. Milos is tall, lanky, and organized, with short dark hair and polo shirts straight out of a Nautica Summer catalogue. He keeps everything in a brown leather-bound date-book and speaks disconcertingly good English. (I say disconcerting both because it’s hard to get entirely comfortable in a situation where everything you say is understood but the other person is only understood at his discretion.) Milos has so far been a truly great host,
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The view from the beach a stone's throw from our hotel. organizing three separate airport pick-ups, a “boat excursion” that we will go on tomorrow afternoon, two training sessions a day (at convenient times), gym times, tours, and anything else we have needed.
By this point it was 6:15, so to keep the kids awake, we went down to the beach. Well, “beach” is kind of a misnomer since there is no sand. You can pick between two kinds of beaches: concrete beaches and rock beaches. Concrete beaches are basically triple-wide sidewalks that drop off on one side into the water, and rock beaches are the same as sand beaches except with a much higher foot-pain potential. Since I thought it would be a fitting welcome to Montenegro, I had the kids swim a little bit in the ocean – though since it was pretty much 2.5 feet deep in the entire buoy-designated swimming area, it was really more of a wading set – before we went back up for dinner.
Kevin has managed to aptly summarize every meal out here in five syllables: “bread and salty meat.” Breakfast, you get bread, sausages (one type of which Dylan accurately described as tasting like a Slim Jim, the other type
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A nascent sun shining on a nascent mullet. looks identical to a hot dog), steamed egg squares, and either the most-viscous milk or least-viscous yogurt you’ve ever seen. The bread is thick and delicious, with slightly sweet butter that you won’t feel guilty about slathering all over the bread because, since their pats of butter are twice as thick as American pats, even though your bread might be in danger of collapsing in the middle like a sink hole from the weight of the six layers of butter above it, you look down and the pat is only half gone. Lunch and dinner are very similar, except lunch gives you hamburger and dinner gives you veal. Both meals have a “vegetarian dish,” which can be anything from fried mozzarella balls to spaghetti. The real treats are the desserts. Brownies, ice cream, custard cake… it’s all been rich and delicious. On the whole, though the meals take some getting used to, the kids are certainly getting enough good, filling food to keep them going.
Day 1 in Montenegro opened with a training session. We scrimmaged against Jadran, the local club team whose pool is on the bottom floor of our hotel, which was a nice welcome for us
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20 of us practicing. Just like Agoura, right? as we won handily. After the scrimmage, the coach complimented our team, then said he would bring a few more guys the next day (this apparently was their age group team). Our Zagreb group showed up fresh off the plane about a half hour into the scrimmage, so, despite all their delays and layovers and scenic routes, they really didn’t even miss a training opportunity. After the morning training we had lunch, then we decided to explore the city a little bit. The hotel is in a prime location: it’s right on the water (most if not all of our rooms have views of the sea), and right off of the three main roads in the city. Herceg Novi is situated such that there’s one road that goes inland (this is the road you take to get to Croatia) and is populated by cars, one road that follows just off the coastline that can support cars but is primarily populated by people, and one road that is literally right on the beach and is exclusively populated by people in swimsuits. We opted for the second road (which connects a few times with the third one), deciding to take a nice
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The team, together at last. walk into the “city center” of the coastal region (a walk of only 20-25 minutes), to explore, enjoy the day, and hopefully locate a market where we could buy enough water to support the fall-out shelter for a family of seven. We walked around the area for a little over an hour and eventually came back armed with water bottles the size of torpedo tubes and ready to take a long-awaited nap. That night, we were in the weight room from 6-7 then had a two-hour training session from 7pm-9pm. We had the whole pool to ourselves. Assuming I worked the technology, there should be pictures attached, but I should also take this opportunity to describe the pool. There are two things you notice first: 1) it’s big (33m x 25m); 2) there are stands. And not just any stands. These stands shoot up at an angle so steep it would surely violate US building regulations, but, with the noise of a packed house and the resulting echoes, would create a playing environment unlike any I’ve seen in the US. (Imagine Belmont Plaza, but condense it to one pool and shrink the walls until they hug the pool edges, then
extend the stands higher and in them place fans almost equal in vivacity to European soccer fans.) Since this would be one of our only times with the pool to ourselves, we spent much of the time swimming and conditioning, which undoubtedly made us very popular with the kids. Since our training went too late for the buffet dinner, the restaurant said they would provide pre-made meals. Personally, I was expecting a table with 22 plates wrapped in cellophane. What we got instead was a four-course meal – soup, salad, entrée, and dessert – brought out and presented by a waiter. I really can’t say enough about the hospitality we’ve received while we’ve been here.
Day 2 also opened with a training session against the Jadran team, but this time they brought a few older players. Although it made life harder on our set guys, we still had the stronger team. After a quick lunch, we went back out to the city center, where Milos toured us around the new Jadran facility that will open May 21, 2012 (Montenegro’s Independence Day). This was amazing. Again, hopefully you can see a little in the pictures, but the pool facility has
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The unfinished Jadran pool facility. I'd like to say the monochromaticity was a stylistic choice to reflect the the fact that the pool has yet to be completed, but really I just accidentally changed my camera setting. cascading stands like an ancient Greek ampitheatre, a glass-lined trophy area with cups dating all the way back to 1932, and it was built so it literally juts into the sea, so from the top you have a panoramic view of the harbor. It's connected to a small Cafe, which is also owned by the club and which televises local and international water polo games on two projection screens and a handful of flat-panels, and they are currently working on building a boutique hotel, just large enough to give visiting teams a place to stay free of charge. Needless to say, water polo's a different animal out here; it occupies a very different place both in the eye of society and in the hierarchy of reasons for national pride. After this, we got some gelato and headed back to the hotel. We had another hour in the gym then played a Russian 16U club team. The kids were bigger but the results were pretty much the same: we were clearly the superior team. One of the nice things about the language barrier is that each coach can yell at his players in relative privacy, so what you end up with
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The team in front of Jadran's trophy case. Give us 60 years and 45 championships, and we'll be right with them. is both teams lined up at half, the coaches maybe 10 yards from one another yelling with almost total lack of self-consciousness because nobody on the other half of the pool has any idea what we're saying. Add in the echoing effect of the indoor facility, and when you step back and listen, it all turns into chaos. The two streams of exhortation bounce off the walls and crash together like the horse-led phalanxes of two long-forgotten armies. And just when you're about to try to make sense out of the verbal bloodbath, after their one glorious lap along the walls of the pool stadium, just like those armies in the annals of history, the streams disappear and the coaches take a deep breath. And what you end up with is 14 kids sitting in the water, waiting for the whistle to start the next play.
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Kathy Laidig
non-member comment
fantastic
Thanks Peter. I feel like I'm on the trip with you guys. I can't wait for the next blog.