Soccer Update......

Well last time many of you have heard from me, I was getting ready to sign with the reserve team here in Bamberg. Well although my performance has be plenty good enough I found out the day I was supposed to sign that I have to obtain my German residency first, the equivilence of a green card in the US. So that was a bit of a downer. In the past week I have gottin everything together, and have a job lined up and pending approval of the German governement I should be eligible to play in a few weeks to a month. Which for me is much to long, I am here to play soccer and I know that I am capable at playing at a high level here. But patience is a virtue right? Well I hope so, cause I am keeping my cool, well trying to, things do get a bit frustrating when dealing with a new government, and I do not speak the native language so that certainly makes things tuff, but I do believe that everything will work out the way the Lord has planned for me, and if that has me playing soccer here, everything will work out smoothly, if not, you all might be seeing me again a bit sooner that you might have expected. Anyway, of course I will keep the updates coming......ciao.

Sandkerwa 2008!!!!!!

Well here it goes this is my first blogging experience, but hopefully I will keep it all interesting enough to keep you all coming back for more.......:)

Anyway, I have been here in Germany for 3 weeks now and the time here has just flown by. I am currently still training with the reserve team/2nd team here in bamberg, (the team name is FC Eintracht Bamberg you can google it if you want to follow the team). I have been doing well with the team in practice and was going to be signing with them last Wednesday but it turns out I need to have my residency here in Germany first. So that means I have to find a job, which was the plan but I did not know not having one yet would prevent me from playing, but now that is my priority. It only has to be part time, maybe one or 2 days a week, so hopefully something will open up soon and I will be playing in a month or so.

Along with that life here has been great. There is so much history, tradition and culture here there is so much to see, do and learn here. And learning a new language has got to be one of the most challenging things a person can do....what a humbling experience it has been so far.... it seems to be coming along alright. I Think in a couple of months I will be doing a lot better. And all the people I have met have been eager to help me learn. Especially the guys on the team who are closer to my age, they really get a kick out of teaching me the slang phrases and the inside jokes they all have most of which I still can not make much sense of but I do my best....for instance they told me if anyone says something to me and I don't understand what they are saying I should just reply......"Ja, dis ist ya dis." Translated that basically means "Yeah, that is it" So I found myself repeating that phrase all night long.....haha. I am sure it is not hard to tell I am a foreigner. 

The soccer atmosphere is absolutely incredible here, I mean even at the 3rd division there is 10,000 plus fans at every game, hopefully I will be there or higher in next year or two. Then every little town has there own team, usually at a much lower division, but still most of the town comes and the level of play is pretty good, and there is always lots of excitement.   

This past weekend there is a festival here in Bamberg that is called "the Sandkerwa". It is the 2nd largest festival in Germany next to Octoberfest of course which is the largest, but if this is any taste of what octoberfest is like I cannot wait. It is in the old city here which is a maze of really narrow streets around very old buildings. There are tents and tables set up all over the place...of course there is beer stands everyone, bands playing all kinds of music. Then off the streets there are numerous bars and clubs to hang out and dance. This all goes until about 1 or 2 then everybody goes to the clubs afterwards, here they are called "discos", and you dance the night away...haha.... I went with some of the players from the team I have been practicing with here, and man do they love to party and they really showed me a good time too, it was a lot of fun. Very exhausting though, we are out until 4 or 5am and we did that 3 nights in a row. I am glad there is one of these only once a year, cause there is no way I would survive....haha!!!! I do have some great pictures.....but I lost my computer cord somewhere along the way coming here so I have to find one that is compatible that should be an interesting experience in itself, but hopefully by the time I post my next blog I will be able to post some pics as well. 

Stay tuned there is certainly much more to come........