Leipzig, Germany

My hotel is in the picture above. The Westin is the taller square building to the right of the photo.


Part two of the European adventure includes a world cup in Leipzig, Germany. The Germans drove Hanna, Emily, and me to the Westin (pronounced Vestin) Leipzig before heading off to their hotel down the street.

It was a short ride into East Germany and to a bigger and more active city. My teammate Emily, who is also half-asian, commented how much more comfortable she felt here because the community was more diverse. The only asians in Tauber were the two that ran the one Chinese restaurant. The more interesting part is you don't know you are uncomfortable until you are surrounded by a more diverse crowd.

Nat has joined this leg of the trip, which is awesome! :) It's nice to have your coach there to watch and help out. Any extra advantage goes a long way. I am so glad she is here.

The competition is on Saturday and Sunday. The journey continues with world cup number two.

Soccer may be in the water but fencing brings me joy

I have a lot of thoughts to blog about today since I have had a lot of time to think.

Let's start at the beginning.

8am breakfast of rolls, jam, ham, cheese, eggs, and coffee.

9am soccer with the Germans

I think that it would be a lie to say that Em and I were able to keep up with them. But they were extremely gracious and made the space smaller and made sure to pass the ball to us. The problem was my teammates kept screaming, "Come on Iris, kick it!" and that would sort of scare me and I would kick at the air. Although, I did have one or two assists when I did manage to get my foot near the ball. And for the record, my team scored more goals, despite me being a member of the team.

Honestly, I think that Europeans just have soccer in the blood. I saw a three year old kid today at the gym, kicking around a soccer ball with his father. That's the difference between life in Germany and life in the U.S.

10-12pm Em and I fenced with a few girls on the team. It was fun to just play around and try some new actions.

12pm Lunch with a Carnivale theme.

Carnivale is a holiday here in Germany where the younger generations dress up like we do for Halloween in the states, and go on a drinking binge for two days. For others, it's just a celebration where you eat herring and eggs. So for lunch there was fish, potato salad, and cake. My father would be in Heaven (for people who don't know, my Dad is from Berlin).

1-4pm we had a small break where I took a restless nap. Mostly because I'm just sore.

5-7:30pm practice with the Germans.

Oh man. I have a lot to say about that. First of all, I was tired. I am not usually tired but I also haven't fenced with such intensity since I broke my finger a few weeks back.

But the biggest comment I have about all this was that I seemed to be the only one out there enjoying myself. For the Germans, fencing is truly a job and this place is a factory.

I had a chance to speak with one of the German fencers after the practice, she is a good friend of mine actually. And she wanted to know about how things were in the states. The Germans can't understand our process and how we don't train full time and how we don't have anything paid for. They wanted to know how it would be possible for us to concentrate on training? My answer, we do what we can because we love the sport.

And that's just it. We love the sport and that's the only way we could ever get along with this whole task of making the Olympic team.

The flipside for us is that we may not go as far because the Europeans always have the upper hand with training and traveling. They are the cream of the crop, they have the traditions, they know how to fence the game, the know how to prepare, while the Americans are doing everything for the first time. Everything for us is trial and error.

On their flipside, this is a job. Each result means a lot more than it does to us. There are a lot of girls gunning for the team and they are being watched at each tournament and each practice. Not to say that we aren't watched but there isn't the same depth of talent. The Americans have more of a luxury that way.

The question is-what is better? To have everything provided, with a ton of expectations, and eventually losing the taste for the sport? Wouldn't you get tired of the monotony? Or would you rather struggle through the process, try and put things together yourself (like practices at Penn State), and find the joy in the sport? You may be a bit behind the eight ball sometimes but everything you get is earned through and through.

The truth is that I have to think the way I think. I have to feel like I am getting a lot of personal joy from this because it is frustrating to think I don't have everything I need at my disposal. It's just harder for us-the travel alone puts us behind the rest of the Europeans.

The bottomline is that I always have faith. I have faith in my process and I have faith that I can surpass the barriers anyways because I am stronger than that.

I am glad that I am the only one at the practice gym in Tauber that is laughing and having a good time. I think my joking around and enjoying myself sort of threw off some of the other fencers. Acknowledging nicely made touches was also something of a foreign concept for them but nevertheless that is who I am.

Ultimately though, I think that everything needs to be kept in perspective, even if this is your job. I am just glad that not every little thing rests on every touch and every match. I am thankful that when I fence, I laugh, I play, and compete with all of my heart.

Tauberbischofsheim

Try saying that three times fast.

Tauber is like the mecca of German fencing. This place is a true Olympic training center. You couldn't ask for anything more-there is a lot of space to fence, a school here, a place for visitors to stay (we are staying in the training center), a cafeteria, an internet plug, physical therapy, and anything you could ask for. Except for a social life and a big city.

This place is truly a small town at it's finest. There is a supermarket, a chinese restaurant (?), post office, and a couple thousand residents. At least they have a T-mobile where I bought an emergency phone I can use during my travels through Europe and Asia. It's nice to feel as though I could text someone in case I wander off into the mountains and get lost.

For the rest of the week, Hanna, Emily, and I are training twice a day with the Germans. Should be fun-the Germans do not mess around. We are starting at 9am with some soccer (breakfast is being served at the training center promptly at 8am!). I think we will fence a couple of hours in the morning and a few hours at night followed by a dinner of bread, cheese, ham, and yogurt. No wonder these Euros are so fit! They don't eat but I guess I could handle losing some weight.

I am actually excited to have this type of training schedule since it reflects a lot of what I think the American team SHOULD be doing. In my opinion it's harder to get the US fencers to commit to a rigorous schedule since we aren't adequately compensated for the work we do. On the flip side, the Germans have a lot more pressure to perform whereas my motivation is much more philosophically driven. It would be nice to have more money to fence but at the same time I don't have constant pressure to make results.

Unfortunately I have a cold and had a slight fever all day today, so I may not be joining in on the soccer and making myself into joke fodder for the German team. I guess they could use a good laugh.

As for updates about Salzburg, I did really well for the first tournament. I took 26th overall and really felt like I was on the right track with my training. I am slowly moving back up the international rankings one step at a time. I truly feel a bit like Andre Agassi when he started his comeback.

It's nice to be back online and blogging!