Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

Well Amanda has been here since last wednesday night and so far it has been great having her here. Practice on thursday was one of our harder ones, we were very tired afterwards and planned on coming home and showering and then just hanging out. I came up to my room to shower and checked my dutch cell phone here and I had some texts inviting me and Amanda out that night to go into Rotterdam so we showered quick and got ready even faster. We only had an hour to get ready from when we found out about it so we were rushing around trying to get ready fast, we were pretty proud of ourselves for managing to do it. Wouter met us (by bike) at the house then we met another guy, Bas, at the Orioles and then met up with a couple others in Rotterdam. We went to this bar/club that was having 1euro beer night so that was legit for sure. We were there for a very long time and it took us almost 2 hours just to ride back because of the difficulties on the way. Amanda cant really ride a bike sober so when shes been drinking its even tougher! but very funny. Here are some pics from that night..

Friday we just hugout at the house, we were pretty hungover and the weather wasnt that nice so it was a good day to just do nothing! We stayed in and went to bed fairly early. We were both in our room on our computers and I thought I saw something out of my peripheral so I looked and it was a HUGE spider next to my bed on the wall. I freaked out and jumped out of bed, almost throwing my computer and also scaring Amanda at the same time. I turned on the light and we saw the spider and freaked out so I ran downstairs to where Niels, Elmo and Rodderick were and told them that there was a spider as big as my face in my room and I needed them to kill it. So Niels came upstairs, walks in my room where Amanda shows him where the spider is and he immediately turns to me and goes, "really? as big as your face?" haha it was hilarious. I might have exaggerated a LITTLE but it was a big spider. Way bigger then the size of a quarter. After he killed it and left we both had energy because of the adrenaline running through us so it took longer to fall asleep.

Saturday afternoon we went to the club and watched the boys baseball game and then hungout talking for a while after. We werent planning on going out since we had games the next day and we were still not too excited about drinking after thursday. We watched tv downstairs for a while and then Wouter and Henk invited us out and we werent going to go until Wouter made the point that I didnt have much time left here, so we decided we would go with them and this time we had 15 minutes to be ready to go. Once again, we managed..thankfully we were pretty much ready to begin with because we had gotten ready for the game earlier that day. We ended up going to a city called Breda, and we had to bike a short distance to the tram stop, then take the tram to Rotterdam Centraal Station and take a train to Breda. It was about a 45 minute trip. It was so much fun though, the two of us loved it! There were just huge groups of young people coming off the trains there and going out and it was almost like a college town atmosphere. There were tons of clubs and bars along the alleys and me and Amanda found this bar that played oldies music that we loved and it was super chill and not sweaty and loud so we hungout there for a while and then met the guys at their sweaty, loud club down the alley! Here are some pics from Saturday night..

Sunday we had 2 home games against the Blue Stars. Last time we played them was at their place right after our break and I pitched the first game and had to go in and close the 2nd game in the last inning with bases loaded and one out. This past sunday was slightly similar. When we woke up around 8:30 it had just started to rain and we were worried we wouldnt get our games in but miraculously we did. The weather was ok during our warm up and then right when we started it began to rain and eventually got so hard we had to wait in our dugouts for about 5 or 10 mins before resuming the last half of the 1st inning. I pitched the first game. I made 16 of the possible 18 outs that game. I had 15 strikeouts and then I caught an easy line drive in front of me for the 16th out of the game. I threw another PERFECT game :] my 2nd one here, it was a lot of work but it felt really good afterwards and everyone on my team was very happy for me and hugging me. We won that game 4-0. The second game was a little different. For some reason we just didnt really hit the pitcher that well and kept popping up even though she was the same girl from the 1st game. It was 0-0 until the 4th inning I believe when we had runners on 3rd and 2nd and Amanda hit a 2 run double to left field. My coaches told me that I would be going in to close the game in the 6th inning so I got myself ready and then Anja asked if she could try and close it herself so Gyselle told her if anyone got on base I was going in. Well the first batter up bunted the ball and our 3rd baseman didnt get there in time so I immediately was put into the game. The girl stole 2nd base and eventually 3rd base..but I struck out the next 3 batters so she never got past 3rd and didn't really matter. We won that game 2-0. I ended the day with 18 strikeouts. Even though the weather sucked, it was a great day for me on the field!!  When we play the Red Lions in 2 weeks and beat them we are secured in 2nd place and for sure move up, and then we are having a celebration party so I cant wait for that!!

Not much planned this week. Weather is still sucking off and on. I've got practice tuesday/thursday, lessons on wednesday and we play at Wassenaar on saturday afternoon. If anything exciting comes up before then I'll be sure to update! Here are some pics from the games sunday.

Doei

xoxo Olivia