JOAO PESSOA - LAST E16 OF ‘23
About 40 days ago we were notified there would be a replacement Elite 16 in Brazil over Thanksgiving weekend with all other details pending. I had just booked my flights and made arrangements to go home and then that email came through. We weren’t even given a host city for the event; we only knew that it would be in the “small” area of Brazil. Then on October 19th we were given a city and decided to book a flight just in case we wanted to go. *a mere 5 weeks before we played our first match in João Pessoa*
That’s how fast our timelines change, so if you can’t keep up with us, don’t feel bad, we can hardly keep up with us. We had a team discussion (Drew, Kristen, and myself at Mangos before training 29 days before the event which is the last day to drop from an event without a fine) to decide on the best move… play or stay. We wanted a break from all the travel and competition over the last 11 months but we also don’t like to miss competitions. We have heard two things about João Pessoa- it’s a beautiful place and it is very windy! After many back-and-forth conversations on playing or resting, we decided that we would have been angrier if we were sitting in Louisiana watching everyone else compete. Everyone who described the location of João Pessoa was accurate!
People often ask about the difference between collegiate and professional beach volleyball, the schedule component is a huge change. The best and worst part about the freedom with our competition schedule is there are no recommendations, no rules, and nothing to follow. You can choose to stay home and rest or you can choose to fly across the world and compete. What’s the right call? We honestly have no idea; we have been winging this entire process and learning as we go! So, on Saturday, November 18 we had a flight booked from New Orleans to Atlanta to São Paulo to João Pessoa for a total of 22 hours in flights or layovers. But before we left for our adventure to South America, we were invited to a volleyball camp thrown by Steve Gleason in the New Orleans area.
If you are not from New Orleans or familiar with the name, Steve Gleason, look him up. This was the first volleyball camp they hosted and the numbers exploded! They had to turn some kids away due to the lack of space! We hate to hear that but love to see that volleyball is such a loved sport!
The camp was very eye-opening and eye-watering for me. I was blown away by the Gleason family’s ability to take an unideal situation and make a positive impact on so many people! Steve’s words of advice to us, “Just go have fun” that’s all! With that, we were off to the house to pack up for our 3 weeks on the road.
Madrid already happened and we had an absolute blast!
Side Note: we will be spending 4 days in Madrid to break up the travel! Plus… it's Madrid and a very long season so we are having some fun while we are there. I am blessed enough to travel the world with my best friend so we might as well take some recovery days in the beautiful city of Madrid! Then off to Doha for the World Tour Finals to end the 2023 season. All 3 locations require a very different set of clothes so packing was a nightmare for this excursion. All in all, we were off with two overweight suitcases and a craving for Brazilian acai bowls.
We flew through the proverbial treacherous Thanksgiving airport craziness and then through our least favorite airport in the world, thus far, São Paulo. We were so confused with our ease of travel through the airports as we typically expect disasters to happen. The one perk of the São Paulo (GRU) airport, the lounge has couches. I didn’t sleep on the flight so I went directly to the couches and laid down next to some strangers. It is very weird thinking about it now, but I was so exhausted I literally didn’t care who I was snuggled up to!
Our last 3-hour flight to João Pessoa landed and we were dropped off in the middle of the tarmac. I was fully expecting a bus to transport us from the tarmac to baggage claim, nope. The flight attendants gestured to walk toward the airport, there were planes, luggage, and vehicles flying around. We were so confused by the lack of safety. Welcome to Brazil! This process would not fly in the US. We gathered our belongings and walked outside for transportation from the tournament, but there was no transportation. It was a nice welcome to Brazil round 2. Dogs were running around outside the airport, little kids were doing wheelies on the street, honking horns, and there was an intense heat even at 8 pm.
A 26-minute Uber later, we arrived at our hotel and we were ready for food, shower, and bed. On the way out of the hotel, we asked for a recommendation for dinner and we were warned to be careful with our personal belongings. Comments like this always add another level of fear to be aware of our surroundings. We were walking to a restaurant and ditched that plan for the local market with a bunch of food vendors. I’m fairly certain every single person in the city was at the market either enjoying the food, and music or chatting in Portuguese. Kristen and I were the only two not speaking Portuguese. However, we brought out our best pointing skills and charades to order some food.
We walked back to our hotel and unfortunately found out that the AC shuts off when you are not in the room. However, the nice man at the front desk was a beach volleyball fan and secretly gave us a second key to keep the air on.
Monday morning rolled around and Kristen woke up before me with a migraine, not a great start. The hotel breakfast signage was all in Portuguese so we played guess and check with the food. Up next, a coffee shop that we thought would be a quick walk. We thought we could run across the highway and not follow Google Maps, WRONG! There was a giant hill that prevented our plan and it would have been a grade 10 hike so we settled for the 20-minute walk up the winding road. We got all the way to the coffee shop, closed. It didn’t open until 3 pm. We found another one, but that one didn’t open until 4 pm. Welcome to Brazil round 3. 45 minutes later, dripping in sweat we found one coffee shop that was open at 9 am. Then the door to the coffee shop was hiding, Google Maps says we arrived, and we were getting hot and angry, truly a test of our partnership and friendship in these moments. Finally, we split up and asked around. Kristen found it! We were blessed with air conditioning and the scent of freshly baked brownies inside! We had some delicious coffee and we were very productive with planning Santa in the Sand.
Kristen’s next request was lunch at the supermarket. She loves to wander up and down every single aisle. After about 30 minutes in the grocery store, we walked back to the hotel and ventured to the beach to check out the sand and renowned João Pessoa wind. The sand was darker than we thought and it left our toes looking like stained Cheeto fingers. *I will let you imagine what our toes looked like on Sunday night* We can confirm, it was beautiful and windy! After a quick pepper session, we returned to the hotel to find out that our second key was taken and we were again melting in our hotel room! Kristen spent the night putting together the best itinerary for Madrid, complete with all the coffee shops, food recs, must-dos, and sights to see!
Tuesday morning, we got busy! Kristen booked tickets for the Real Madrid soccer game and I booked a practice for us with the Germans. This morning was the morning we found our place. On each trip, we find a place, a place that we love because of the atmosphere, food, or consistency in an unknown area. This coffee shop/bakery was our work zone and wifi hot spot, and we made many, many trips in and out of the Farina Cafe. Kristen chose the weak coffee while I chose the strong, strong coffee. They brought the coffee and said “suave”. Kristen used her context clues and memory of Cheetah Girls – scratch that, High School Musical to recognize suave means smooth. She proceeded to sing the songs from the movie and was elated with her translation to differentiate our coffees.
Our first practice of the event was with Latvia. It was windy, not as shallow as we thought, and hot very, very hot. We were told there was a heat wave in Brazil and a Taylor Swift fan died at her concert the day before in Brazil. Post practice, I jumped in the ocean to cool off and Kristen skipped because there was too much seaweed for her liking.
Wednesday morning, we had to force ourselves to wake up early as we were slated for the early 9 am match on Thursday! We had to pack up all of our stuff and move it down the street about 800 feet because the player's hotel was full until that afternoon. Pack and unpack number 1 down. We hit our favorite coffee shop for more Santa’s helper work and then back to the hotel before practice. I was getting ready for practice and I couldn’t find my flip-flops. I thought Kristen was messing with me as she likes to do. Nope, she didn’t have them. I ran out to the street and found them laying on the sidewalk and they must have fallen out on our walk between hotels! I was so thrilled that they weren’t stolen!
Right after we finished practice a man asked us to do an interview, we said yes. He didn’t really speak English so none of the questions made sense. He asked about the spectacle and meant spectators so it’s safe to say that the interview was a complete failure with our confused responses and constant questions of “What?” and “Can you say that again?”. I’m sure our facial expressions were priceless.
Kristen’s Thanksgiving dinner plate
Thanksgiving Day! We wished Mama Nuss a very happy birthday and Kristen woke up dreaming of sweet potato casserole. Instead, she had eggs and bread at the hotel breakfast topped off with a steaming cup of coffee. We had a game at 2 against the home team. Thank you to all of our family/friends who planned their Thanksgiving meals around our game.
Fun fact: if you are playing in Brazil, there will be a ton of beach volleyball fans. If you are playing a Brazilian team, it will be dead silent if you score. If you are playing a Brazilian team, the fans will boo you.
Our Thanksgiving treat :)
We took the first match 2-0 and the best part…Kristen had a breakthrough and said it was the most chill she had been at an international competition. That is huge. That is growth! There is a lot of pressure on competition weeks so to have more comfort with the intense situation is huge! We had some treatment and then an acai bowl for a Brazilian Thanksgiving celebration which then became an everyday ritual. Before bed, we Facetimed some family at home. It was so great to see everyone but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a little bit sad to spend the holidays away for another year.
Our Friday morning started at 3 am. All the air in the room stopped and Kristen and I both woke up sweating in the 80% humidity. In addition to the heat, the sun rose at 4:51 am. Let’s just say our 9 am game didn’t feel early at all because we were already up for 6 hours. We were playing the Germans (Ludwig and Lippman). The sand was already burning hot at 9 am and there was a solid stream of wind. It’s crazy what these balls do in the wind. When we were warming up, we had to laugh at the change of direction or trajectory the ball would take. There were times that I would toss the ball up to serve and it would be so far behind me that I could only get two fingers on it. Shortly after our German game, we were slated to play against the hometown Brazilians. Their cheering section was equipped with blow horns, loud people, and all other annoying tactics. We stopped the blow horns with a two-set victory and we were onto treatment and acai bowls, you know the drill.
We got back to the hotel for a shower and we were so excited about dinner. Dinner was supposed to start at 7 pm. They decided to move it back to an 8 pm start. I will let you use your imagination for the reaction of a bunch of hangry, hot athletes who had to wait an additional hour for food.
Saturday – quarterfinal day and more importantly the day we figured out the AC button on the remote. We were like Goldilocks and the three bears with this machine. The first night we were dripping in sweat, the next night we were shivering to stay warm. There was only one more night to figure it out! Kristen woke up before me again, ravenous. She left me for breakfast for the first time in two years on the tour.
We were making our way to the venue for our match and we were blown away by the support of beach volleyball. The line was outrageous and so long. It had to wrap around the sidewalk and trickle out to the bike lane. There were so many people who wanted to see some great beach volleyball and they were willing to wait a long time for the chance to make it into the stands! Our quarterfinal match was against the fiery French team. So fiery, that the blocker received not only a yellow card but a red card. Many people asked what she said to the ref. I don’t speak French, but I don’t think it was nice!
Immediately after the last ball dropped in the quarterfinal match, Kristen was selected for a random drug test. She always gets very angry because it would surely take the rest of the day or night for her to be able to pee in front of someone. It did take her all night. They made her use the porta potty without a seat, in the dark, and it took her three tries to get 100ml of pee. I went back to the hotel and showered, when she arrived, I had never seen her that angry. Then, I had to drop the news, the dinner at 7 pm was pushed back again. She was livid and stomped upstairs to shower.
Championship Sunday – the Goldilocks method came true and Kristen and I slept much better with the temperature in the room. We had a nice 5:45 am wake-up call for breakfast with our opponents. Then we made our way to center court, there were so many people out and about at 7 am on a Sunday. We were blown away by all the activity on an early Sunday morning, I checked the time on my phone three times on the walk. I thought we were late and missed the game. We were playing more Brazilians – cue the booing and silence. We walk into those games and know that we will be us versus the world and we embrace that! Carol and Barbara from Brazil played better in the end and beat us in 3 sets. To lose is such a deflating feeling. Our bodies were feeling the pain and dehydration. We didn’t play the wind well and we needed to regroup, and fast, for the bronze medal match.
Our Coffee Place and Order for the week.
Ferina’s
We walked to our favorite coffee shop for the 12th time and we simultaneously started listing the things on our bodies that hurt. We should have just tried to list the things that didn’t hurt to save time! There were no tables available when we arrived but the sweet Czech defender shared his with us. We had a great chat with him about the tour, travel, family, and life, and we were given perspective. The best thing after a loss.
The bronze medal match was at 2 pm against China. We had never played China and when we walked onto the court it didn’t matter who we were playing it was no longer beach volleyball, it was a game of windball! We lost, but our takeaways: it was a good experience playing in that much wind, definitely the most wind I had ever played in, and the only way to get better is to jump in the deep end. All in all, this was a tough decision if we wanted to come play, are we happy we did? Of course, it didn’t end as we would have wanted it to but that happens a lot in this sport! We had lost two 3-set battles to end up 4th which is frustrating but what a crazy start to the 18 months of Olympic Qualification. We are 11 tournaments in and although we wanted to win them all we have learned, and now we must go get better…. after a fun trip to Madrid – because we can do normal people things and enjoy life! *A lesson we learned from our 2022 season*
Our flight to Spain didn’t leave until Monday night. We thought we would use the day to get some work done in between tournaments and enjoy Farina once more, and maybe lay out on the beach. Wrong and wrong. Kristen woke up at the crack of dawn again and left for breakfast at Farina only to return to the hotel damp and with the horrible news that it's closed on Monday and she got caught in the rain during the walk. We regrouped and wanted to try another place, we arrived at the coffee shop, electricity was out. Welcome to Brazil round 500! This gave us flashbacks to day one of our Brazil trip where we were just fresh out of luck, sweating, hot, and in need of Wi-Fi, air conditioning, and caffeine! We enjoyed our last few hours in Brazil and then we went back to the hotel to pack up our lives for the next adventure… Spain!
By: Taryn Kloth
