After Bahrain we have a “week off” so what are we getting up to? Our flight went into Rome giving us a chance to be awed by a couple of famous sights before going back to the airport and flying to Kiel, Germany.

We are now staying with Marko (and Lena, Olli and Lutz) and training with Kirk and Jason from New Zealand and Jason Kruger from Canada. Marko’s place is cool and all his flatmates are awesome so we are having a great time here.

The training is also pretty good; Kiel is really the beach volleyball center in Germany so we came to the right place. It was a bit of a coincidence that the Kiwis and Jason and some Germans were all training here, just a short bus ride away from Marko’s house.

We have also seen a little bit of the town in Kiel, the Rockpalace at the Tucholsky was a bit of fun, full of real hard rockers. Last night we checked out another bar called ‘pumpe’ wth a whole bunch of friends.

The training courts are tucked away on a little beach North of Kiel. When we first came down the quiet path through the trees we didn’t expect to see three a happening beach volleyball training venue, but that’s exactly what we got. Brink/Dieckmann, three young German teams and the internationals I alrady mentioned were all on the sand having a hit.

Kiel is a long way North so the weather was actually quite cold when the sun didn’t shine, even colder than the middle of winter in Brisbane, and our post-training swims were extra refreshing. The sea is so cold that it feels like it just melted off the polar ice caps. 

All in all, a great way to spend a week off with solid training, a nice gym and some fun times hanging out with the locals.

Hands down my favourite thing about the week though was breakfast. Every morning we would go down to the local bakery for fresh bread rolls (brötchen). They are really tasty, and go especially well with vegemite (yes I brought a little bit of home with me).  

Next stop: Roseto degli Abruzzi, Italy

Brad