Amsterdam/The Hague

I trained at the Frans Otten Stadion on Tuesday and trained in Hoofdorp as well as Almere until Friday. My aunt picked me up and we took the train to The Hague. When we got there, my cousins Sethe(5), and Felou(almost 3) were already asleep. The next day was Koningsdag! (King's day) Everyone was dressed in orange and we went to the vrijmarkt(a flea market), usually the day after, but Sunday is a rest day. I didn't get anything but my cousins got about 5 pairs of shoes each as well as a princess dress for Felou. We went to the beach later, but the water was too cold so no swimming.. :( The following day we went to the zoo with my grandparents, they met us there, and took some selfies with the rhinos!

Team Tournament

Day 1
We played Italy today and lost 2-1. I won my match 3-0. We had to play England, the number one seed(all their players ended up in the top 4 of the individuals. The number 2 girl played since we knew that we would lose anyway.  I was pretty disappointed that I couldn't play the English girl (ranked one or two u19). I just wanted to see how many points I could get against one of the best players of Europe.  Tomorrow, we play Czech Republic and Sweden.






Day 2
I played first against the Czech number one and lost 3-0. The first game was fairly close, it was 11-9. The coach just told me to keep playing the same way which didn't really make sense to me. She won the next two with ease.  Later, we played Sweden and beat them for our first win! We were already in the 9-16 bracket.  I played horribly but won 3-0, 11-7,11-6,11-5. We'll play Scotland next.

Day 3
I was supposed to play last but we lost the first two so the girl next to me in the picture above played. Her back was aching so she didn't play very well. We played Switzerland a few hours later and against, lost the first two. I played a best of 3(usually it's best of 5) match and won in two really close games, 14-12, 15-13. My friend told me afterwards that she was ranked #3 under 17 in all of Europe! I might not have won if someone had told me that beforehand.



Day 4
We played Italy again for 15th place! We lost the first match, and won the next two! I played a different Italian girl(the other one probably didn't want to play me again :) and beat her 3-0, 11-2, 11-2, 11-2. So we ended up two higher than our seeding.


This was an awesome adventure and I got to play some of my best squash as well as watch some intense matches. It was my first time traveling with a team and it was a great experience! I going over to Hoofdorp and training there for a few days, and then my aunt and uncle will pick me up and I can hangout with cousins for the weekend! Also looking forward to Italy!!!!

Helsinki!

We went to the inner city of Helsinki. There wasn't much to do, so we just walked around the plaza and took some pictures. At least the weather was great! The Belgian team came with us and since a girl from their team won, we went to McDonald's! Athlete's food! (It's actually the official restaurant of the Olympics) It was actually a bet. We had chicken nuggets, fries, and McFlurries(ice cream). I'm not sure if they have those in the US because I had never heard of it before. The architecture was pretty cool.

Individual Tournament Week

I just finished the individual tournament and got 20th of of 40 girls which is great, considering the fact that I can play another 5 times! I played 6 matches, won three and lost three against girls from Germany, Austria, France, Spain, and Switzerland. I had an amazing time and was able to watch some intense matches. Today, we get a rest day, and then the team tournament starts! We're going to the inner city with the train from our hotel with the Belgian team(they speak Flemish, a dialect of Dutch). I'm still getting used to it. Thankfully, I can get away without Finnish; I only know the numbers up till five, vesi(water), and kiitos(thank you). So far this week, the weather hasn't been very good but I was in the squash center or the hotel most of the time so it didn't matter. But today, the sun is shining!!

Arrival

I arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday!! I''m already in Finland though, and today I play my first squash match! Here are pictures I took on the plane of Holland.