Windmill Windup

Canal in Amsterdam

It's that time again...another blog post about ultimate frisbee!! But this time it's really really cool because the tournament was in Amsterdam! So not only did I get to go to a tournament outside of Spain, I also got to go to the largest grass tournament in Europe. Pretty baller. The tournament consisted of an Open, Women, and Coed division and teams from all over Europe were there. There were 81 teams and about 1200 people total at the tournament. By far the biggest tournament I have been to in Europe. As well, since the World Games of Ultimate Frisbee are being held in Prague this year a lot of competitive European teams were going as preparation. Since it would be impossible to host that many people in a hotel, we camped at the fields which was really fun because everyone was all together. In the middle of all the fields was an ultimate village with a bunch of tents and a huge inflatable elephant (the hosting team's symbol). We arrived late Thursday night and had time to set up our tent and grab some beers at the welcome party.
On Friday we woke up to play our first game against the Hungarian Co-ed team. Although equally matched, our team made a lot of errors and we lost. We regained our rhythm and won the second game. Our third game we lost to a Belgium team. After grabbing a quick shower, we went into the city center to do a bit of tourism. Although I only got to walk around for about 4 hours I thought Amsterdam was a really pretty city. I would definitely like to go back and spend more time there. On Saturday we also played three games and did a lot better winning 2 and losing 1. Our team ate a delicious lasagna dinner then hurried off to watch the World Cup game between England and the USA. GO AMERICA!! It was really fun to watch the game and we tied woohoo! Then our team headed over to the tournament party where we danced the night away. On Sunday we played only one game because there was an odd number in our pool so we "won" our first game by default. We faced a French team and played well in the first half but then lost in the second which was a bummer. Although we ended up losing the last game, we finished 14th out of 25 teams. I think we did better than expected because of all the good competition due to Worlds and it was our first time there. Probably one of the best weekends I've had and tournaments I've been to. It was so cool to meet teams from all over Europe, who all love ultimate! Windmill Windup 2011? Already there!

Another picture of Los Quijotes! Ole!

The tournament village, complete with inflatable elephant.

Me being a tourist in Amsterdam :)