Friday, October 29, 2004

Europeans:  Day Two Things didn't go all that well for us today, either on or off the court. On the court, Zain suffered his second defeat at the hands of the top player from Kaiserslautern.  It was a match that both Zain and I felt he should have won, but on the day, Greg from K-town was just a little too tough.  After struggling with his serve through the first two-thirds of a very close match, Greg found his stroke and hammered his serves at Zain, and that proved to be the difference. So after that, we found ourselves simply spectators the rest of the way.  The match of the day was between the number ones from Bitberg and Ankara.  They started a little after 9 a.m. and didn't finish until past 11:30 a.m., with the boy from Turkey finally taking the win.  It was one of those matches where neither deserved to lose, with both giving it all they had.  That included giving the crowd a lesson in Turkish cursing, courtesy of the very vocal Ankara lad. The Ankara number one's reward was the chance to face Euope's number one ranked player, Jun Koide, from the International School of Brussels (that's him serving in the pic on the left).  He's the defending champ, and it doesn't take you long to see why.  He seems able to put the ball anywhere on the court he chooses either with devestating power or delicate finesse.  Jun's a small guy, but he's huge on the court.  He took apart the Ankara player in two relatively quick sets.  Once that was over, we took a quick group photo, and then loaded up in the van for the eventful ride home.  Even though we don't have anything else to play for, we are headed back tomorrow to see the finals.  Jun from ISB will face Devin Hayes from Hanau in a match-up you could have predicted from the beginning of the season (in fact Stars and Stripes did make that prediction).  Should be great. Now our off-the-court troubles: we found out our driver is a lunatic. On the ride home from Wiesbaden, our Westrich Reisen van came up on a much slower car about ten minutes outside of Baumholder.  Our driver kept trying to pass, but on a one-lane winding road, it proved impossible.  After a few minutes of this, our driver honked, flashed his lights, and shot the finger with a few choice German phrases.  The driver of the car in front waved his hands angrily back. Eventually we passed the car, with our driver cursing at the other driver in German and making fists at him.  Once we were in front of the other car, our driver hit the brakes and slowed to a crawl trying to get the other car to stop.  The car zipped around us, and our driver slammed on the gas to catch up. This led to the bizarre scene of us leap-frogging this other car and hitting the brakes.  I can't speak German, but I tried my best to indicate to our driver that this wasn't cool and to just get us back to school (which was about another five minutes away).  I'm not sure if he got my message, but he soon zoomed off and got us into Baumholder.  So I'm thinking it's over.  Nope.  When we got to the intersection at the Baumholder post office and the main gate, our driver stopped at the red light, got out of the van, and jogged over to the other car which was four vehicles behind us.  We all turned to watch him scream and gesture for the other driver to get out of his car, who decided to just stay put.  When the light turned green, our driver finally thought it best to get our van moving as we were now blocking everyone else. Yep, our driver is a lunatic.  He did get us back to the school a couple of minutes later, and tried to laugh off the whole incident, but he saw I wasn't smiling and probably knew I was going to let his boss know about the whole thing.  Which I did, and now I'm hoping that this particular nutjob driver isn't the one picking us up tomorrow to take us back to Wiesbaden. Either that or I hope he remembers to take his medication tomorrow morning. 6:57:23 PM     |

© Copyright 2005 Alex L. Mauldin.