Other than Stonehenge, the scenery was beautiful, especially with the Autumn leaves finally turning! It was tough to get a good picture going so fast and having to take it from a window out the bus, but I think the following picture gives you an idea. There were rolling hills, quaint little farm houses, and beautiful green pastures (The grass here is green, almost like in springtime at home, but I suppose it does rain quiet a lot.)
The first leg of our journey consisted of supporting the men's volleyball team at a tournament they had at the University of Bath. I didn't get to see any of bath during the few hours we were there (which was disappointing), but what I did see made me excited to come back!
The following picture is one I took of the men's team during a match. Southampton is the team with the red jerseys on the opposite side of the net. They are really quite good, much better than the women's team, I must say. And from what I've experienced, volleyball is a much bigger men's sport in the UK than it is in the US, where it's generally a women's sport. I was surprised to watch them play with such incredible enthusiasm! Their team had more cheers than the women's team. One of the cheers I found particularly entertaining: If the opposing team served or spiked the ball over and it was out of bounds, the men's team huddled up and then chanted: "That ball was out! How far out? This far out! (And then extended their arms widely.)" They would do this even if the ball was just a centimeter out of bounds.
After watching the men's team, we headed off to Leeds where our tournament was held the following day. The van ride was around 5 hours long, and it was a tiring day. Our tournament, which was on Sunday, was a particularly disappointing and frustrating day for me. Southampton decided to bring two teams to the tournament. They called us Team 1 and Team 2, but it was fairly obvious that we were the A team and B team. I was placed on the B team, after a week of the coach not putting me on a team and telling me that he "hadn't decided which to put me on yet." Which was a little disappointing, but I figured I would have fun traveling around England with the team and getting practice.
After we arrived in Leeds, I learned that the tournament was divided into two pools, a highly competitive pool and a less competitive pool. To my surprise, my coach had signed up the B team for the competitive pool and the A team for the less competitive pool, "in order to insure that the A team would have a better chance of winning." Last time I checked, that was unsportsman-like and also border line cheating, so needless to say I was a little bit frustrated by this. On top of that, since there were two teams and only one coach and our games were necessarily going on at the same time, we didn't even get a coach for our games. The entire B team felt like the reject team, and we lost every game, completely demoralized. Needless to say, I was a little bit happy when I learned that the A team got second place and likely didn't qualify. To me, that was a perfect example of karma.
I'm trying to not be upset by the whole situation, because I did have a good time getting closer with my friends from Norway and Cyprus, but it is still a bit discouraging to know that that is the way my team and university apparently operates. There is another game this coming weekend in Wales, but I think I might opt to not go and travel somewhere else on my own so that I can actually see the city, culture, and arts there rather than sit on a bench and on a bus for a weekend.
I apologize that this post isn't as light hearted as others, it was a tough weekend for me! Hopefully much happier posts are in store for the future! :)
