Varsities!

What a weekend! Feels good to play in a volleyball tournament again, especially in another country. The whole weekend was not all sunshine and rainbows though… but that is life.

Varsities is a volleyball tournament that occurs in Dublin each year and only includes colleges students, so some of our players could not join us for the weekend. Nine of us, including our coach, left Wednesday evening so we could be ready for the tournament the next morning. Surprisingly, coach made me the captain… must be because of my loud personality haha. The ride down was pretty quiet and most of us slept. The B&B we stayed in was beautiful and thank god the uni paid for it because it was not cheap. There were three levels with four bedrooms, each having its own bathroom, two nice family areas, and the kitchen which was probably the best part and where we spent most of our time as a team. The first day was pretty good except the first match we played was the team who ended up winning the tournament… so that was a rude awakening that we were not ready for. However, we won the two matches after that and enjoyed that rest of the evening with the team. I had to finish a paper but procrastinated by playing some cards and spoons with the team haha. It all worked out because I finished it in time the next day between a HUGE break we had… we played the first game and the last, losing the first but winning the second. We were beginning to think we just had bad luck with early matches. A terrible thing happened in the second match though. One of our players landed wrong and sprained her knee, pulling a muscle a short time before that. She was taken out of the game, we won it for her, and then she was off to the hospital. She came back later on and the rest of the night was spent eating pizza and drinking at the student hub and playing some more spoons. There was only two matches the next day and we won one and lost one but played well and were able to keep up with all the teams there. We supported our fellow Northern Ireland team, Queens, as well throughout the weekend and hung out with them while watching the finals between the women’s and men’s teams for first and second.

In the end, our team got seventh out of twelve teams, even though we beat the team who got second, so it was close all around. We received a chocolate trophy, which did not last long, and enjoyed a long ride back home. The weekend was also very hard because my boyfriend of three years and I had broke it off but I am not going to get into that on here. We still love each other but are just going separate ways in life. I am not letting it get me down though and I plan on living life to the fullest over here in Northern Ireland, in my studies, my travels, and my relationships 🙂