Grand Final

Yes everyone I am still alive. I know you were all worried about my well-being but I just haven’t had anything noteworthy to write about for the blog. So I figured, rather than bore everyone with the mundane details of my life as a waiter/ janitor I would wait until I had something more exciting to write about.

This past Monday I attended the end of the season banquet for the Brisbane Premier League with the rest of the Wolves squad. It was a fun night, especially having the entire team and support staff there to celebrate our achievements thus far. In addition to receiving the Premiership trophy for keeps ,the league passed out individual honors and named the team of the season. Steffen Vroom took home the Golden Boot award for scoring the most goals in the league this year, he was also named to the Select XI team of the season along with myself, Drew Jeskey, and Trent Clulow, and our head coach Sam Saif was honored as the coach of the year. I just missed out on being named the player’s player of the year by one vote, the reason being I didn’t play in the final game due to suspension, guess that’s what I get for being a rebel.

After attending the banquet most of the team decided to extend our night a bit further, and where else to go on a Monday night at 11 than the Treasury Casino, which was conveniently located across the street from the hotel our banquet was at. Now, this is my first visit to a casino ever so I was quite happy when I walked out up $5 including drinks, some high roller I am. I was able to make my money playing roulette on these monitors that they have at the casino, that way you don’t have to bet in front of everyone, and it gives you all the information on the 15 previous rolls so you can make a more informed bet, or at least makes you think that you are. Either way it was a good way for me to get my feet wet and learn the game.

Other than this night out with the boys, these last few weeks have been focused on ending the season on as good a note as possible. We have finally been able to get back on to a regular training routine leading up to the Grand Final this Sunday evening. We also know that our opponents will be Rochedale, who will have played 3 games in 8 days, including a double OT Cup final Wednesday night, while we have been regaining our legs and sharpening our play in anticipation for the final. Needless to say I can’t wait to play Sunday night, and I know the entire team is looking forward to capping the season the proper way.

So look out for the result of the Grand Final. Hope all is well back home!

Last weeks of the season

Having lived in Australia for over 6 months now everything about the culture seems like second nature to me. I may notice a few dissimilarities when I really think about how things are back in the states, but with being so well acclimated to Australian culture I no longer find things odd, so I figured that while my parents were down here I would see what they noticed about Australia throughout their short time in Brisbane.

I remember writing in one of my first blogs that driving on the left side of the road isn’t really that big of a deal so long as there are other cars on the road. It’s the little things about driving that are completely screwed up, like using your indicator, checking your blind spot over your right shoulder, and getting in the proper door when you are going to drive, my father noticed the exact same things. Other than consistently turning on his wipers when he was trying to indicate a turn my father did quite well. The only scary moments were when we drove up into the mountains on a single lane road, his first impulse was always to swerve to the right when a car suddenly appeared around a blind corner, which would have resulted in 3 or 4 accidents if he hadn’t then corrected his mistake.

In Brisbane, the streets aren’t laid out in any recognizable pattern, with roads that routinely change names 2 or 3 times within the course of a few blocks. I was frequently giving my dad directions like “Stay rightish at this next intersection” when I was trying to navigate him to the right spot. Ultimately, the only way to navigate around Brisbane is to follow the traffic, there are “main” roads that meander towards some unknown destination and you really have no choice but to follow these routes even if it isn’t the most direct route to your destination.

Frequently, during my parents visit, they observed that Australia has more of a European feel than American. Retail stores and shopping centers close at around 5:30, the only exception to this being grocery stores which stay open until the late hour of 8 pm. Almost everyone that you encounter is genuinely nice and courteous. The pace of life here is much more relaxed than life in the U.S. On the roads, walking around, and when just hanging around Australians are rarely in a hurry. I really enjoy this part of life, until I need to get somewhere in a hurry, it then becomes difficult to walk around people when everyone is going the same pace or pass cars on the motorway when every single person is driving 100 km.

On the soccer front, we lost our first game of consequence this past week to Rochedale. We fell 3-1 in the semi-final of the Canale Cup. It stinks because we can no longer win a treble (League, Cup, and Playoffs) but it isn’t a huge loss. Hopefully, all the loss will do is make us hungrier as we play Rochedale in a bigger game next Wednesday in the first round of the playoffs. We played in our penultimate game of the league yesterday, winning 5-2. The fourth goal of the game helped us eclipse the century mark for the season, the first team in the history of the league to do so. The win also helped us accumulate the most points in league history, 67, surpassing Rochedale’s 65 from last year. We’ll receive the trophy this weekend after our game against Rochedale, although most players for both teams will be rested in anticipation for the playoffs matchup next Wednesday. Only 3 games to go in the season so its time to buckle down and grind out results to win the championship.

Hope all is well back home!

My parents visit

My parents should have arrived back in Chicago by now so I hope they had a good trip home. It was a fun visit but I’m glad they left. Not because I didn’t enjoy seeing them, but because we didn’t even win a game while they were here! 3 whole games without tasting victory! But don’t worry we won our game last night immediately following my parents departure. However, that is the last I will speak of soccer in this post. I will dedicate this entire blog to talking about my parent’s visit and the things that we did.

The first 2 days of my parents visit weren’t too exciting, especially compared to the adventures that we had the rest of the week, but they got to sightsee around Brisbane quite a bit. I took them over to the Lighthouse, where I work, for a cup of coffee early on their first morning and they were amazed by the views that I have from work. I’m not sure if I ever explained that my restaurant looks right out over the ocean to an island just off the coast, which we visited later in the week, and because the water is protected by this island the area is almost always filled with sailboats and other recreational fishing vessels (almost all of my sunset pictures are taken from right next to the restaurant.). After hanging around for a bit I took them to the hotel they were staying in for the first 2 nights. I had them staying right in the heart of Brisbane so they could walk around and experience some of the unique sights the city has to offer.

On Sunday morning I picked my parents up from their hotel and we drove up to the Brisbane botanic gardens on Mt. Coot-Tha and the scenic lookout located there so they could get a great view of the river city and surrounding area. From that vantage you really get a sense of how important the river is to Brisbane, with the way it meanders through the region, the city is defined by it’s interaction with the river and landscapes it has carved out.

Monday is where things started to get interesting, as we made our way up to O’Reilly’s mountain resort in the Gold Coast Hinterland. I had made a visit to this area once before for a hike and knew it would be a good spot to showcase the hiking that is available around Brisbane. We arrived late in the afternoon, due to my poor navigational skills, but it turned out to be perfect timing, we were able to complete a short hike and then watch the sunset over the hinterland from our balcony. I think that view helped them appreciate why my days are so often scheduled around sunset, especially when we were feeding parrots out of our hands as the sun dipped behind the mountains. After the sunset we went for a quiet dinner followed by a relaxing hot tub session under a starlit southern sky.

The next morning we went on a hike into a deep gorge carved by a river cutting its way through dense rainforest. The views that you get of the surrounding area are spectacular but impossible to photograph. The hike was great until the snake charmer, Beth Hopkins, decided to make her first appearance. Our path was blocked by a couple of red-bellied black snakes sun bathing on our trail. Unfortunately, my mom had already passed the snakes when she caught sight of them. So she was stuck on one side, while my father and myself were stuck further down the trail. This standoff persisted for 45 minutes until a boisterous family scared off the venomous snakes and we were able to resume our trek back up the mountain.

On Wednesday I sent my parents up to the Steve Irwin Zoo so I could prepare for my game that evening against the Brisbane Roar. Having been to the zoo I know that they loved every second of the experience. It is well worth the price of admission, especially when you get to see the crocodile feedings.

The highlight of my parents visit was our trek up to the Great Barrier Reef. We could only spend one day at the reef, but even that short amount of time is enough to understand the beauty that the reef has to offer. We visited Lady Elliot Island, which is a miniscule oasis in the southernmost reaches of the reef, but it was a spectacular showcase for what the Great Barrier Reef represents. We arrived on the island and had 40 minutes to walk around before we embarked on our glass bottom boat/guided snorkeling tour. Unfortunately, because the day was overcast the colors of the reef didn’t really pop out as we would have liked but it was still breathtaking, and that is just from above the waterline.

Once in the water, you enter another world, teeming with life and color. It was absolutely amazing to experience from such a close distance. We saw every single fish from “Finding Nemo,” including sea turtles, and if you dove down about 10 feet you could even hear faint whale calls echoing in the water. The only thing I didn’t like about snorkeling was when I found myself in really shallow water, hovering only 2 feet above the reef. That experience was unnerving for three reasons; First, I didn’t want anything to come out of the reef and bite me, second I didn’t want to break off any part of the reef by kicking it, and third the reef is really sharp, all 3 of us have scratches from coming in contact with the reef as we were snorkeling. All in all the trip north was breathtaking, especially when you include the views of the coastal islands we had from the plane ride to LEI.

In the last two days of my parents visit I took them to North Stradbroke Island and Byron Bay. On Straddie, which was a short 30-minute ferry ride from where I work we got to do some whale watching and enjoy spectacular views of the rocky coastline on one of the locals favorite weekend destinations. From our short time on the island we understood why the locals have such great affection for Straddie, it boasts secluded beaches, great surfing, and spectacular landscape. On our ferry ride back from the island we got to witness another breathtaking sunset over the ocean before making our way to The Lighthouse for a more than satisfying dinner.

The following day we made our way south into New South Wales for a scenic flight over the coastline at Byron Bay. Once again the vistas were spectacular because Byron Bay boasts jagged coastline mixed with pristine beaches, and is also a popular area to whale watch. Being able to experience all of the sights from the air made the trip even more spectacular than it already would have been.

In my parents short time Australia they got to experience everything that this country has to offer; a beautiful city, spectacular coastline, stunning mountainous regions, and unique wildlife. I know that they enjoyed their time visiting me and I definitely enjoyed having them around.

I hope I was able to paint a good picture of all our many activities. I have posted heaps of pictures on facebook already so hopefully everyone can find a way to view those.

Quick update

Unfortunately due to the restrictions on my time I haven’t been able to update my blog as often as I would like. However, over the next few weeks I hope to remedy that and provide plenty of stories for everyone to read up on.

I had hoped to provide my parents with a cheat sheet of Australian culture so that they would know what to expect when they arrived, but I missed that chance. So, instead, I have asked them to take note of the most significant differences between our cultures and I can tell everyone about them, because I have been in Australia so long I no longer take notice of any weird customs, other than their accents.

I will also be sure to write about the many adventures that I will have while my parents are visiting. As I’m sure anyone who knows my mom at all would expect she has scheduled nearly every hour of the trip with some type of sightseeing trip. We have already begun our travels and everything is going great, other than encountering a couple of venomous snakes sun-bathing on our hiking trail this morning, but welcome to Australia mom and dad!

In regards to soccer, we lost our game this Sunday to Olympic, 3-1, so now we are only 11 points clear at the top of the table. We match up against the Brisbane Roar tonight and then have another tough game this weekend in the league so we are going to have to bounce back from our most recent loss very quickly.

I promise to post a few more blogs in the coming weeks to catch everyone up on what has been going on down here in Australia.

Until then…

First Loss and The Steve Irwin Zoo

Long time no update…

In the past 3 weeks a lot has happened. We have played in 4 games, losing our first match of the season to Capalaba, and we have won 2 more league games, bouncing back from the loss with an 8-1 victory over Souths, and we progressed to the

quarterfinals of the Canale Cup with a 4-0 win Tuesday night over a second division side. We are still creating an unbelievable amount of scoring chances in every game, we just haven’t been putting away an early goal, which usually gives us the confidence to go and score for fun.

In our loss to Capalaba we still dominated the game but were unable to come up with the plays that we needed to win the game. I give Capalaba credit because they only had 4 shots (compared to our 20) and scored 3 goals, although 2 of them came from fortuitous bounces.

Other than the games, I had been on trial last week with Gold Coast United, one of the A-league sides, and did fairly well. It was nice to train again every day with good competition. However, I wasn’t able to make enough of an impression on the head coach. At the end of the trial he told me that I was good enough to play in the A-league but not good enough to take up an international roster spot. He had a few critiques for my game, all of which were weaknesses that I am well aware of and know that within a professional environment I can improve upon those weaknesses. But if I didn’t think that I could become an impact player for a first division club what business do I have pursuing a professional career? The good news is that, Patrick McMahon and Trent Clulow, my roommate and good friend/teammate were invited to come back and train with Gold Coast after our season has concluded, so they will get another opportunity to impress the coaching staff and possibly earn a contract.

Outside of soccer I took a trip up the coast to the Steve Irwin zoo, which was totally awesome. We got to see all of the native Australian animals like koalas, kangaroos, dingoes, wombats, salt water crocodiles , and we watched one of their famous croc feedings in the “Crocoseum.” The show was really cool and we learned about the crocodiles eating habits and got to watch them in action, when they are in the water and make a move for food they are unbelievably fast. I’m glad I made a trip up there and I’ll need to go back to that area sometime soon because the mountain range that is close to the zoo, the Glasshouse Mountains, are quite a sight and made for good scenery on the drive.

Recognition

Because my life in Australia has been uneventful over the past two weeks, I would like to recognize one of my very good friends for his outstanding achievements.

A new ESPN website launched this week, Grantland.com, which will feature one of my oldest friends, Robert Mays, as a writer. This is an incredible opportunity for Robert to display his unique writing talents and insights, and I would encourage everyone to visit Grantland.com when they have the time, just be sure to visit his columns frequently so that he can get a pay raise soon.

Robert chose to pursue his dreams of being a sports columnist because he idolized Bill Simmons, a popular ESPN columnist, who is now his boss. I know that Robert has worked incredibly hard to achieve his dreams, although being paid to attend sporting events hardly seems like difficult work. His strength of will and exceptional talent as a writer helped him to accomplish his goals much quicker than I think even he would have though possible. Because of his successes I am reminded of the rewards you receive for putting in the extra work that is necessary to accomplish your goals, his successes give me hope that I will soon be achieving my dreams in becoming a professional soccer player in a top division.

I would also like to say happy birthday/ happy father’s day to my dad. His presence in my life is another constant reminder that hard work and dedication are important traits if you hope to be successful and happy with your life. Now, if only you would teach me how to grow a half decent moustache! I love you Dad!

Moving on to soccer, we have played in two matches since my last blog, winning both games. We won our big match against Rochedale 3-0, I hope everyone caught the highlights on the washingline.com.au, and we won our game last Saturday against Easts 2-0. I am very happy with keeping two straight clean sheets and looking forward to having our squad back to full strength this weekend as we match up against Easts again. I’m also itching to end my 2 match scoreless streak! This game will be taped so highlights should be available on thewashingline.com.au a day after the match.

In other soccer news, 5 guys from our team should be getting called in for trials with Gold Coast United in a fortnight, so hopefully that is the start of more opportunities for myself and a few of the other deserved players on Wolves.

Fastest Team to 50 goals

As the title suggests, Wolves recently became the quickest team in Brisbane Premier League history to score 50 goals! Now if only we could keep that elusive clean sheet. Since my last post we have played 3 matches, winning our 2 league fixtures against North Pine and Mt. Gravatt 3-1 and 9-1 respectively. We also had a Canale Cup match against Capalaba and won that game 5-2. As you can see we certainly don’t struggle to find goals but we haven’t been keeping other teams out of the back of the net like we need to. Some of the goals have been unlucky, but we are at times letting our opponents dictate the flow of the game for 10 or 15 minute spells, something that we need to remedy to reclaim our dominant form. Obviously, considering the results we have had I’m nitpicking, but as a defender I really want to keep a clean sheet, regardless of how many goals we score.

I bring up our “poor” defensive form because our next match is against Rochedale. If you have been an avid reader of my blog from the beginning you will recognize Rochedale as the traditional power of the league, so this is the biggest game of the year. This is also a huge rivalry game, both teams hate each other, so I can’t wait to step on the field and feel the atmosphere, knowing that everybody in the stadium wants us to lose (it's an away game). I know that our entire team feels the same way and we are going to have a good week of training leading up to the match to make sure that we are sharp for the kickoff. The game will be recorded so highlights will be available by Sunday morning back in the states on Thewashingline.com.au

Outside of soccer I recently found myself a job as a waiter at an upscale seafood restaurant, of all things. Now, when I think about your typical waiter, I’m imagining an outgoing and talkative person who converses easily with others. Obviously, if you were asked to describe me I doubt that any of those traits would be at the tip of your tongue. But, hey, it will put me out of my comfort zone and force me to work on those things. So maybe the next time you all see me I’ll be super outgoing, doubtful ha.

Either way it will allow me to make some money so I can start knocking off more items on my bucket list.

Although I have already fulfilled my quota of waterfalls I took a trip down the coast to Springbrook National Park early last week to see probably the most stunning waterfall I have witnessed yet. The 4k trail led you down a rainforest covered mountain to the base of the waterfall, where you are then taken under the falls before continuing out the other side back up the side of the mountain and finally ended with a great view over the falls looking west. However, there is a spur in the trail before you go under the falls that leads you down further into the valley, following a small river that eventually pools about 1k from the falls. The boulder strewn river bed offers a great opportunity to engage in some extracurricular off-trail hiking and both Pat and I were happy to take that opportunity to explore some more of the rainforest before returning back to the main trail to complete the hike. Both Pat and I are hoping to return to this hike soon so that we can take in a sunset over the falls that I’m sure will be spectacular.

Anyways, that’s all for now, hopefully the Bulls can pull things together in this next game, play within themselves, and stop turning the ball over at critical points of the game. I think they will! Lets Go Bulls!

Oh, I forgot to mention that I’m second in the league in goals. I now have 9 from 10 games. This is getting absurd but I hope it continues at least one more week. Go Wolves!

Late Night Soccer Games

I’m sitting here watching the Manchester United vs. Chelsea game at 2 am after the completion of my usual janitorial duties at Moreton Bay Sports Club, and decided it would be a good idea to update my blog now that we have started games up again.

However, I’d like to start out by saying happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers that are reading. I wouldn’t have been able to pursue a career as a professional soccer player without the love and encouragement that my mother has always given me. Also, happy 6-month anniversary to my sister Katie and her husband Eddie.

But on to more important matters, the resumption of league fixtures after a 2-week break.Things have gotten pretty bad down here in Australia in the last two weeks, the weather has deteriorated so much that we had rain for 5 straight days and the temperature is only reaching the mid 70’s! I’m really concerned that I might get the flu or something from the cold weather, actually, the only unfortunate occurrence (other than it no longer being pineapple season) was the public distribution of this ridiculous picture of my roommate, Pat McMahon and myself that was taken for an article written about us in the local paper.

The other interesting development is my changing diet over the past few weeks. I already mentioned my love affair with iced coffee, but I have begun to notice that vegetables are making a startlingly frequent appearance in all of my meals recently, not to mention I have started to cook myself stir-fry. That’s right me, taking the time to cook a meal for myself that is much more vegetable than protein. I apologize to anyone who has wagered on me eventually reaching the 400-pound club.

We played 4^th place Redlands last night, which are having a pretty good season so far and have a very talented side. Since it had been 3 weeks to the day since our last game I was expecting us to come out sluggish, but we came out firing and dominated the opening 25 minutes, although we had nothing to show for it, hitting 2 posts and having 2 headers cleared off the line. We ended up finding the back of the net twice before halftime but then conceded a late goal, going into the break 2-1 up. We were confident talking things over at half and knew that if we put the next goal away we could easily rattle off three or four more. We ended up doing just that winning the game handily 6-1. I netted the 4^th goal, making my goal tally 6 from 8 games. I have no idea what’s going on but somehow I’m just finding myself in good spots and the ball is coming to me, so I hope it continues because scoring this many goals is a lot of fun.

I hope everyone has/ had a good mother’s day and I’ll be sure to update everyone again soon.

I Love you mom!

Easter Break

Well it’s been over 2 weeks since I last posted, sorry about the delay but for a few days I was actually busy and didn’t have time to write anything for the blog.

We had our big game against Olympic a week and half ago and played Peninsula Power last Saturday and were able to come away with victories in both games.

In our game against Olympic, the second place team, we won 7-3. It was a great game against a very good side. We went up 2-0 early, I scored the first, and then we missed a penalty kick around the 30^th minute that probably would have put the game away for good. However, the miss gave Olympic a glimmer of hope and they stole a goal before the half and continued pushing for the equalizer after the break, which they got early in the second half. Unfortunately for them we came roaring back, scoring 60 seconds later and securing 4 unanswered goals (I doubled my tally with the 6^th) before Olympic got a consolation 3^rd goal and Steffen completed his hat trick.

In the past round of games against Peninsula we weren’t at full strength, missing our starting goalie and one of our central midfielders. We started out playing well but after we bagged our first goal were unable to pull away like usual. The absence of our full strength side was beginning to show, even though their replacements both played admirably, and the rest of the team looked sluggish going into the break. After halftime we were still unable to find our form but kept Peninsula from finding the back of the net, which was enough to secure the 3 points. In the locker room after the game it felt more like a loss than a victory, and we all expect a better performance even though we were able to grind out 3 points away from home against a talented side. Highlights from the game can be found here.

Outside of soccer we made a trip down the coast to Lamington National Park to do some hiking. The park is south and west of Brisbane and driving there is a bit of an adventure because as you travel inland the roadways aren’t very well developed. There was only one road going up the mountain, but that road was one and a half lanes with numerous switchbacks and blind corners, so it is slow going once off the motorway. The hike we chose to go on was 10.5 kilometers and took us through very thick rain forest, down into a gorge between two mountains and along a river that had 6 or 7 waterfalls varying in height from 8 or 9 meters tall to 25 meters tall (Bucket list: Waterfalls, complete). I tried taking pictures but most didn’t turn out because it started pouring rain about 30 minutes into our 3 hour hike! At the conclusion of the hike we came across a wallaby, which while not a kangaroo or koala bear was still pretty cool.

We won’t have another game until May 7 so I’m hoping to do a little more traveling next week when everybody goes back to work after the Easter/ Anzac day holidays. I’ll be sure to have some good pictures to share then!

Hope all is well back home!

The Fruit Barn and a Goal Extravaganza

Although I have been in Australia 2 months, I am just beginning to discover some of the benefits of living in a tropical climate. In the past two weeks my roommates and I have been enjoying the overwhelming selection of fresh, in season fruit that we can find at local produce stores. Fresh watermelons (49 cents a kg), pineapples (2 for $5), pears, and any number of other fruits have become a staple of every meal, as well as a source of pride amongst the roommates for who can produce the best looking selection. I have been mowing down 2 pineapples a week, and the only problem with the fruit selection down here has been the insane price of bananas ($12 a kg) because the crop got wiped out in the floods. I love having such a great selection of fresh fruit readily available from fruit stands close by.

Although my love of food is well documented what I have been enjoying the turn of the seasons from summer to fall even more, (although there is hardly a difference) the weather has been absolutely perfect. The high everyday hovers in the low 80’s, making everyday activities much more enjoyable. The mornings and evenings are cool, a long sleeve t-shirt is enough to take in the sunrise or enjoy the great view we have of the southern stars from our back yard. I have been enjoying both of these frequently, especially a good jog at sunrise. It is a quick 10 minute drive out to the ocean to watch the sunrise, and because of the low tide there is a sand bar that runs from the shore out to a small island about 1 km out into the ocean (pictured above), what is really cool about this is the sand bar cuts a perfect trail through the water right out to the island. It was hard to motivate myself to get up early enough to take in the sunrise but the discovery of this run is making it so much easier. That, and I have recently been enjoying the benefits of iced coffee, the world seems so much brighter with a little coffee in my system.

However, everything else that takes up my time is made better by Wolves continued run of good form in the early stages of the league. We won our last two games against University of Queensland and Taringa 2-0 and 11-1 respectively. University gave us a very good game making it difficult for us to play by competing with us better than any team has so far. The Taringa game was different altogether, they actually scored the first goal, against the run of play, and they were ecstatic after scoring but we quickly responded and put the game out of reach, we really could have ended up scoring 20. Needless to say that result, combined with our other 4 victories, is turning a lot of heads. Our upcoming game against Olympic, one of the traditional powers in our league, is an absolutely massive fixture for us. We are looking forward to having a good week of training to take us into the game ready to go and continue our fine form.

Highlights from our last two games can be found at http://vimeo.com/21865245 (Taringa) and http://vimeo.com/21575932 (University), and I think that the game this weekend will be taped again so highlights should be available, and I’ll be checking in to see if the game can be found streamed live as well.

Hope all is well back home!

My First Goal...

I want to start off by wishing my sister Mo a happy birthday! Gosh you are so old now! I’m just kidding you definitely are not and I hope you have an awesome day!

Since my last update we have had 2 games, winning both. We won our games against South’s and Brisbane City 2-0 and 5-0 respectively.

I think I need to give some of the history of Wolves so people can understand what our games have been like to play in so far. Until 3 years ago Wolves had never won a single trophy usually finishing near the middle of the table in the league. However, since our current coach came to the club 3 years ago we have finished 4^th, 3^rd, and 2^nd in the league and won back-to-back Grand Finals (which is like winning the playoffs). So this year we have seen ourselves go from the hunters to the hunted, meaning we are now getting every team’s best game.

Getting back to our recent games, we were considerably better than both teams, although South’s certainly played very well against us, and all we need is to find that first goal and usually we will end up scoring a bunch. That’s what happened in our game against Brisbane City. I hope that these teams can continue to give us their best effort because it will make us that much better when we play against one of the other top teams in the league.

I am glad that we have been able to score so many goals (11 in 3 games) but what I am most excited about is that we have only conceded 1 goal so far this year. Our defense has been playing very well, and we hope that as we grow more familiar with each other we will be even harder to break down. I was also able to record my first goal of the season, scoring the first, or more importantly the winner, in our game against City. I say finally because I have had 2 headers cleared off the line and gone close with a couple of other headers so far in the season. Although the goal I scored wasn’t a header, it was a shot from the top of the 18 (maybe that will convince my coaches to put me back at forward where I belong, Ha).

Other than my soccer responsibilities I have only had time to go on one adventure in the past two weeks. Steffen, Pat, and I took a ferry to a small island just off the coast and engaged in some sea kayaking. We were able to rent the kayaks rather cheaply and took a trip around the island, which has a lot of beaches, mangroves, and a little bit of coral reef. The kayaking was awesome until the last half hour when we had to fight a stiff breeze to complete our trip around the island, we couldn’t move our arms for days after that adventure.

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to nail down a part time job soon so that I have more disposable cash to spend on trips. Until that happens though I am just sticking to soccer and making sure that we continue our hot start to the campaign.

Until next time…

Start of the Season

Hello all,

It has been a little over a week since my last update and a lot has happened since then.

The most important event being the start of the Wolves 2011 campaign, and what a start it was. We beat Capalaba, who are supposed to be one of the top 5 teams in our league, 4-1. The win was significant for a couple of reasons, other than just getting off to a winning start. As a club over the past 3 years Wolves have struggled in the start of the season, usually finding themselves in the bottom 3 or 4 of the league after 5 games. However, we are determined to avoid that this year, and a 4-1 win is a very good beginning (although I am pretty upset we didn’t keep the shutout). W were able to do this while missing 3 impact starters, although Steffen Vroom did come in after 60 minutes and ended up scoring. The guys who did step in and play for our suspended players did very well so we are expecting to have strength in our depth this year, although we are pretty excited to play with our entire first choice squad. You can watch highlights of the game on Thewashingline.com.au just search for Wolves vs. Capalaba in the recent updates.

As for how I played, my distribution was garbage but my defending was pretty good. I need to play significantly better in our next game.

The other exciting thing is that I now have 2 roommates, Steffen Vroom (who played with me at DePaul for four years) and Pat McMahon, who played at UIC and trained with me for the past year and a half. It is really nice having them down here so that we can train together in our spare time, do a little exploring, and just have some guys to hang out with. In fact yesterday we did go on an adventure, traveling down the coast a little ways to Mt. Tamborine…

This trip helped me make some headway on my bucket list! We did a few things while we were up there. The first was a hike that took us through the rainforest and past a pretty cool waterfall (2/3 waterfalls complete). Hiking through the rainforest is a pretty cool experience, because of all the shade it stays cool on the forest floor and only a few shafts of light find their way through the canopy. This yielded some awesome pictures. After completing the hike we walked around a little tourist town with a bunch of gift shops and vineyards/wineries. We then drove around the mountain a little bit stopping at a few lookouts that had great views of Gold Coast and the surrounding countryside. We ended our trip with a stop at the rainforest skywalk (on my bucket list) to do some recon for our next stop on the mountain.

That’s all I have time to write about for now. We have another game this Saturday, so we are preparing to continue the good start to our season.

Hope everyone is well back home!

Bucket List: Australia

I figure that since I have the opportunity of living in Australia for 8 months, I need to make the most of my stay and experience as much of the country as possible. My first priority for being here is soccer but our schedule leaves us some flexibility to experience other things as well. I hope to take advantage of this and decided it would be a good idea to make a bucket list for my time in Australia to make sure that I am making the most of the opportunity. In the list that follows there is a mix of adventures I would like to go on also includes goals that I have for the team and myself in our upcoming season.

1. Snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef

2. Skydive (on the sunshine coast, landing on a beach)

3. Travel to Sydney

4. Watch 1 sunrise and 1 sunset per week

5. See a Koala bear and Kangaroo in the wild, not just a zoo

6. Surf

7. Win the Brisbane Premier League

8. See at least 3 different waterfalls (1/3 done)

9. Do the Tamborine Rainforest Skywalk

10. Hike on Mt. Nebo

11. Win the Grand Finale

12. Have at least 1 A-league tryout

13. See the Brisbane Botanic Gardens (complete)

14. Work on a winery

15. Take a water taxi down the Brisbane river

I hope to complete all of these in my time down here. (although the trip to Sydney may prove difficult)

Moving on from what I hope to accomplish to what I have done in the past week….

I went on a day trip up to Mt. Coot-tha, which is 4 km west of Brisbane and visited the Brisbane Botanic Gardens and viewed the city from a few of the lookouts on the mountain. I took a bunch of pictures during this trip so I’ll shoot them out to my parents for them to distribute for those of you who can’t see them on my Facebook. The gardens were very cool. They were split up into the different types of climates they have in Australia so you could see all of the vegetation that can be found in Australia. The rainforest section was my favorite because I have never seen rainforest in person. After walking around in the gardens for a few hours I made my way up to the top of the mountain and took in the city from the lookout. It was a great view and the pictures I took can’t do it justice. Although I enjoyed that trip I was a little bit disappointed by the hiking on some of the trails I tried. It wasn’t what I was looking for, but I am planning on taking a trip out to Mt. Nebo (12 km Northwest of the city) on Sunday, which is supposed to provide better hiking and should yield even more great pictures.

The other adventure I went on this week was a trip south down the coast to the Gold Coast. Drew’s girlfriend organized a group of about 10 people who work at the cinema to make a trip to a national park there and see some glow-worms in a cave. This was a very unique experience. Getting to the cave was an adventure in itself. I don’t feel like explaining all of the details but setting out on this journey without an exact address and having the leader only vaguely remember what the parking lot looks like from her childhood is not the best way to find a cave on a mountain at 10 PM. However, it turned out really well because by the time we got there all of the other tourists were leaving and we had the place to ourselves. I had no idea what to expect once we arrived and I couldn’t take any pictures during the hike but I’ll try to explain the scene.

You start the short hike from the parking lot with nothing but torches to help you find your way through the pitch-black rainforest. I wish they were real torches but in Australia that’s what they call a flashlight. So you start making the hike down the path and you can hear a waterfall thundering in the darkness but you can’t see it until a few more minutes down the trail. After finally catching a glimpse of the waterfall you make your way down the side to a cave that is under the waterfall. After you get into the cave, and you turn off the flashlights you can see all these blue specks on the walls and ceiling of the cave. (Imagine those little glow in the dark stars you can put on your ceiling in your room, except blue not yellow). I was completely awestruck by the setting, being in the cave under a waterfall with the glow-worms all around. Not something we get to do in Chicago very often.

I’m glad I was able to make both of these trips and hope to have many more of them soon.

We have our last exhibition game on Saturday, I’m planning to make a trek to Mt. Nebo Sunday, I’ll have a room mate Monday morning (another American who I train with, Pat McMahon), and we start the season up next Saturday! Can’t even explain how excited I am to get the season started and pull the squad together, with our last few pieces arriving (Pat and Steffen Vroom) and a few other starters coming back from injury. We have high expectations for the season after beating Rochedale in the Silver Boot final when we were missing about 5 key players and they had their full squad available to them.

The new site for our league is up and you can catch all the news and highlights right all from here.

http://thewashingline.footballbrisbane.com.au/

Left Minded

After spending a few days living in my coach’s house I have moved into what will be my permanent residence in a close suburb of Brisbane. Moving into the house by myself has required me confront a fear of mine quicker than I had anticipated. Driving in the LEFT lane.

Without so much as a crash course to prepare myself I had to drive from my coach’s house into Brisbane to stay with my buddy Drew, who then brought me out to my house in Capalaba after spending a night with him. I swore that driving in the left lane would be difficult to get used to, and I’m not saying that it isn’t weird, but it is much more difficult to drive into oncoming traffic than one might think.

Really it isn’t so much the actual act of driving in the left lane that is difficult. The trick is using your turn signal, operating your windshield wipers, and shifting into gear all with the opposite hand that is hard to grasp at first. Thank god my car is automatic so I didn’t have to learn to shift with my left hand as opposed to my right. After a few days of driving I think that I have finally gotten used to driving in the wrong lane. However, walking on their sidewalks is a completely different story. It took me almost the entire week I have been here before I realized that their malls and sidewalks are no busier than Chicago, but I was completely ignorant that Australians also walk on the left. They stay to the left in everything they do; driving, walking, biking. Even their escalators are on the left side. It was mind boggling when I first realized it.

Anyways, I’ll move away from my mundane observations about the nuances of their culture and move onto some football. We played in the Silver Boot final on Sunday against one of our rivals Rochedale. To give some background on our games, they are one of the traditional powers and ran away with our league last year, but over the past three years Wolves has not lost to them in 12 games, beating them in 10. Needless to say they don’t like us very much. We won the game 3-2, scoring with 4 minutes left in the second overtime period. There were also 3 (2 for them 1 for us) red cards in the game and 2 pk’s (1 each). (This is a pre season match let me remind you, so very feisty) I was fortunate enough to be baptized into this rivalry by falling victim to their final red card offense. If you go to Paulytv.com.au the game highlights should be the first video available. Just ignore the amount of times I try to hand Rochedale a goal.

I am trying to work on getting some good pictures to show everyone but I'm running into 2 problems. First, I can't upload any of the pictures I have taken for the blog because the internet I am using is too slow. Second, it has been too cloudy to take really good pictures, even though I went out to the ocean this morning for sunrise the pictures didn't turn out. I'll keep trying and hopefully have both of these problems fixed soon.

First Days Down Under

G’day mates!

Been down in Brisbane for a few days now so I thought I would let everybody know how the first few days are going.

My flight got in on Monday morning at about 7 AM Brisbane time after a full 24 hours of traveling. The flights weren’t too bad, except on the flight from LA to Brisbane only one side of my earphones would work while watching movies. That was annoying! My coach picked me up from the airport and we went back the house he rents on an island just off mainland Australia. The island and his house are gorgeous, it’s like being on spring break, but for 8 months and with a little bit of soccer thrown in. The first day here all I did was sit outside and read and was able to get a little jog and swim in their pool. I was surprised at how good I felt while jogging, other than sweating after about 2 minutes from the heat.

However, that all changed on my second day... I woke up and was feeling a little bit woozy but didn’t think much of it. I got up and ate breakfast but I kept feeling dizzy so I decided to try to go back to sleep and see if it went away with some more rest. No luck. I couldn’t fall asleep and my stomach was starting to bother me. I ended up reading for a couple of hours, although I couldn’t roll onto my left side because my vision would go out of focus and I would get dizzy. I took some airborne, but that only made me throw up. (To put in perspective how awful I felt, I haven’t thrown up in over 10 years. Serious) So I ended up spending the entire day in bed, on my right side, and finished one of my books by reading about 600 pages of it that day. What made this even more frustrating was that we had a preseason game and my coach wanted to give me some playing time to get my lungs opened up. Nothing like being called a pathetic Yank on your second day!

I woke up Wednesday morning and felt 100% better. I was really happy about that because we had another preseason game that night. I spent the morning reading outside and sitting in the pool. In the afternoon I went and hung out with one of my buddies that plays on the team here, Drew Jeskey. We hung out by his apartment close to the city of Brisbane. He lives by their biggest mall called Chermside so we went and checked that out and met up with his girlfriend at the movie theatre she works at. They are trying to get me a job over there because it is an easy job and all the people who work there are around our age and cool people. After hanging out for a while we headed to our preseason game. The game didn’t end up kicking off until about 9:30 which was frustrating because I was so excited to play. I ended up going the full 90 minutes and felt pretty good until about the 80^th minute when my legs started to fade. I played well and fit in with all of the lads, who were all really laid back. We won our game 2-1 and advanced to the final of the tournament where we will play Rochedale, one of our rivals and the team that won the league last year.

The weather has been great. Around 75 all 3 days and slightly overcast, a break from the 90 degree weather they had been having before I got here. Australia looks just like Florida. But,I can’t wait to be able to get out and see all their unique things Australia has to offer. However, now that the Bulls game I have been watching is finishing up I need to get out to the pool and spend some time working on my tan!

First Day in Australia

Welcome to my blog!

I decided to publish this blog after numerous requests from people as an easy way to keep track of my adventures while I am Down Under. So I hope that I will be able to keep everyone up to date with what is going on with my soccer career and my experiences in Australia. I intend to post a new blog at least every other week depending on how busy I am or how exciting my travels are.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for those who have helped me along my way as a soccer player and person. My parents and sisters have always been supportive of my dream to play professional soccer and I know that I am fortunate to have a family like mine. In my soccer career I have had the opportunity to compete with and against many great athletes and I know that each and every one of them has a hand in where I am today, and my coaches have pushed me to become a better soccer player every training session. So to everyone, my family, friends, teammates, coaches, and everyone else, Thank you! Every person has left their mark on me and helped bring me to where I am today.

And on to Australia....

As most everyone knew February 2nd was to be the day that I began my never ending journey to Brisbane. However, mother nature decided that day was also a good time for a blizzard in Chicago and a cyclone just north of Brisbane. Touche Big Guy! So my travels have been delayed until February 5th (which is definitely a good thing considering I had about 1,800 errands to run on the 2nd to be ready to leave for 8 months). I was completely devastated that I wasn't going to be leaving on the 2nd as planned and in my frustration I wanted the earliest possible flight out, not realizing I had an easy excuse to stay home for the Super Bowl and not travel until the 7th. Idiot! But what's done is done, I was able to run all of my errands and get a few extra training sessions in the last couple days. With any luck I'll be watching the super bowl online out by my coaches pool in 85 degree weather! I really hope that happens.

From this experience I have learned a few things about myself:

1) I am an eternal procrastinator and leave everything for the last minute, because thats when I'm at my best, or so I think.

2) I shouldn't make decisions when I'm frustrated. But most importantly.....

3) Never ever, under any circumstances, travel to any place remotely tropical with me and expect good weather or to get there as planned. This trip is exhibit A and my spring break trip to Hawaii in 2006 is exhibit B. A tornado in Hawaii, really "Clouds" come on.

Anyways, I have put the Wolves team website at the bottom of the page and another blog that will probably have quicker information on the league that I play in. Robert Mays, if you even consider calling out my grammatical errors on this thing we won't be friends.