tennis in croatia!

Hey everyone! So, it's been a couple weeks since I last wrote, after which I went to Croatia on a tennis camp! We, 32 people incl 7 kids, left on the Saturday at 5am on a coach and drove through southern Germany, Austria and Slovenia, then into Croatia. It was a long drive, but we had several decent breaks, which helped. But the most annoying thing, was that we had to wait for half an hour wait at the border between Slovenia and Croatia!! It was so frustrating, and there wasn't even any reason for it! Grr!! Anyways, we headed to Poréc, Lanterna and arrived at Hotel Tamaris at quarter to four.

All good......except, that our tennis program for the week started at 4! Everyone had to check-in and then those who were training had to change and find Court 1 ASAP! We were a lil late, but was all ok. :) On the first day, we played a lil tennis and were observed by one of six trainers who then put us all into groups for training. After that we went swimming in the sea!

For the rest of the week, the days consisted of 1 1/2 hours of tennis training in the morning, then oh, lazing around the pool, playing volleyball, tennis, whatever really!!

There was a pretty ragin' storm that started on the Monday evening and lasted through to mid-afternoon on the Tuesday. Lightening and thunder - not great for sleeping....! It also meant that for Tuesday, we had to train in the "hall", on half of a court, for an hour. It was a lil tight, with 4 people in a group, but it also meant that you had to control your shot more. Wasn't too bad :)

The food was....awesome!! Basically, we got 2 meals each day: brekkie from 7-10am, tea was 7-9pm. It was buffet all the way! There was SO much food it wasn't funny! I have never eaten that much for breakfast before! Was so much food that I can't be bothered writing it all! I'll just show you a couple of piccies!! They don't nearly do it justice, but it gives you an idea! Every night there was a dude cutting up some kind of roast meat. Mmm!! One table was just the oils and dressings for salads etc.
The girl here would you whatever and however much icecream you wanted! And this table is just one of 3 or 4 dessert tables! Those lil cakes were delicious!!

On the Wednesday afternoon, a whole group of us went on a Taxi Boat to Novigrad, which was 20mins away. It was really nice weather when we left, but 10 mins before we left to go back, it started to rain! The trip back was terrible! It was freezing cold!! But Novigrad itself was lovely. :)

Out of the six trainers, there was one female and one guy who was hot :P Yep, that's what I said. Hot. Of course the trainer assigned to our group was not the hot young guy...typical. ;) (Don't worry, I already told John that I thought he was hot!) Anyways, Adrian was our trainer. He was, as were all the others, Croatian, making his German difficult for me to understand....a lot of the time he would say something and, not understanding, I would blissfully unaware continue doing what I was doing! It wasn't until Sonja told me what he said that I would know! How was I supposed to know that I should keep the ball in play rather than try and make each one a winner?!? Hehee...was kinda funny...

On the Friday, the last day before we left, they held a couple of tournaments. I played in the Women's Doubles with Marie-Luise, who was in mine and Sonja's group as well as one other lady, Usi. (Not sure how you spell that...) Usi hurt her ankle that morning, and Sonja decided not to play cos she had muscle pain in her arm. Seeing as both of us lost our partners, we played together, and we came third! Nice! I was happy with that. :)

All up it was an awesome week, and I wish I could come back next year! I loved being able to play tennis every day!! I had heaps of fun and got to know the people in the club a lot better. Had some good laughs and saw some more of Europe!

The trip back lasted exactly 10 hours, which they said was quick! :/ Hehee...

Last Sunday I went to a huge youth gathering, where thousands of young people from all over Germany came! It was called "Pfingst jugendtreffen" and it happens every year, in the same place. It was very cool. For 2 reasons in particular: firstly, they sang a heap of english worship songs!; and, secondly, several of the guest speakers were American! Score! It was so good to hear somebody giving a message in English - I could understand EVERY word!! It was great :D

That's all really! I had some more photos to put up, but no matter how many times I tried to load them they didn't show up! I'll try again in a couple of days :) Oh, but there are a lot of photos from the week in Croatia here Bilder Trainingslager Online.

Okies, well I'll post again in a lil while....
Lots of love, Vivien