Beach Volleyball in Perth

Our Volleyball courts beach side all week!

Of course since I went to Perth because I was on the Beach Volleyball game we had to play a little volleyball while we were there and not just party the whole time; So I am going to let you all know how we did with the volleyball aspect. The way the tournament is set-up is that we have pool play for the first three days and then we are ranked to continue with the tournament. So after the Sunday night out at the opening ceremony and the first bar we had to wake up Monday morning at 7am in order to get to the courts in time to play our 9am game. Needless to say we were all dead tired and hungover, but pulled it together to play. Our first game was against UTS (University of Technology of Sydney)...I think they took it pretty serious, and have had a little more practice together than us, but we played great and only lost by a few points each set. However, we all had a blast playing together diving around and laughing about "skills". After that game we had to "duty" which means we had to ref the game. The only think I know about reffing is 'in' and 'out', however, there are many more rules that we didn't follow in our first game. Such as, you play to 18 and every 6 points you switch sides and you can't set a serve, so I was a pretty worthless ref. After our duty we just decided to lay out all day and take a nap until we play again at 2pm. Unfortunately we didn't know they gave out free sunscreen so we were all toasty red when 2pm came along.

The Asian and Awkward Girl.

In our second game we played against AU (Adelaide University) which was NOT our favorite team. We were playing so good and then this Asian out of no where came and served his wicked serve and was on a 7 serve roll. So we lost the first set, and then we pulled it together and won the next set. In the third set we played good again but some how this very NONATHLETIC team walked away with the win, and when I say they weren't athletic I mean they had two girls with bows in their hair, this Asian who looked like he didn't play sports EVER, and another girl who was just awkward. Although, we found out later in the week that they won our pool.

Bond Rugby

 On Tuesday we only had one game and it wasn't until 3pm, so we were able to sleep in and recover from the night before. So on Tuesday we went to show our support for Bond and went to watch the Rugby team and the Soccer team, both walk away with a victory! It was nice to watch soccer again, and also rugby; all the guys on both teams are so nice and we then sat at their fields for awhile to just hang out and talk with the guys. Because of the bus system during the Uni Games we are required to take the "red bus" to the rugby fields and then get on the "yellow bus" which will bring us to the beach, its quite a long process but a nice way to relax each day. So from the rugby games we got on the "yellow bus" and we got to the beach around 1pm and just hung out again until out game at 3pm. In our 3pm game we played against Notre Dame University in Australia, which of course made me think of my cousin Lily!! Who I miss SOOO much! But they were a great team, and it was a close match we lost the first one 19-17 and the next one also 19-17, both great game though! If I remember correctly we all played so good in this game we decided that we all deserved drinks to be bought by the rugby team for the entire night. I don't think the rugby guys liked this too much!!

Action Shot

On Wednesday we played JCU (John Cook University), this was by far my favorite game; not only did we win but we had a blast playing against them! They were such a fun team who also didn't take it too seriously and we playing just to have fun. This was our final game for pool play and we ended being seated 4th out of 5 teams, which of course wasn't ideal but it was fine with us. On Thursday we started the tournament and we decided we needed to enforce rules that would make us try really hard. So this is what we came up with...If we missed a serve it was a drink at the bar, and if we didn't go for a ball and just let it drop it was Jager Bombs for the whole team (which is a $50 penalty).   So we started our first game for the tournament we had a little more hanging over our heads. We played our game at 11am and we played against the 1st ranked team in division A and we actually played a close game with them. We won the 2nd set but unfortunately lost the 3rd. Overall, it was the best game we played yet, and we were all happy with how we were progressing throughout the week. We had another game at 2pm and again lost, I don't really remember anything significant that happened but we were still able to play in the final round on Friday because of our scores during our pool play.

On Friday we played our last game of the tournament and won!! It was a good game and it felt great to walk away with a win! All and all it was a great tournament and I am so happy I decided to go, even though we didn't win many games I loved every part of it! I also realized that even though I may not be the best volleyball player I still really enjoyed playing and I am going to try to stay consistent with it while I am in Australia. I actually recently just joined a social league at Bond University where we play twice a week! It just a great activity to keep me active while I am here! I hope you enjoy reading about my volleyball during my week at Perth, my next post will be about the night life while I was there! 
I can't forget about my training; although, Perth set me back a little with my training for the half-marathon/ maybe triathlon I was able to hit the gym hard this week really focusing on getting my time for my 5K faster and also started biking and swimming laps!
I called my mom yesterday and she told me it was getting cold at home, it's so hard for me to comprehend what cold weather is like. Today it is 85 degrees here and beautiful, I haven't been in weather less than 70 degrees in about 5 months!! I hope everyone is enjoying the fall football weather!!
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