K(USA)DASI - WOWZA
As I sit here on our first of three flights back home, I cannot wrap my head around what has happened over the past two weekends. From winning an AVP in Austin to winning this challenger event in Turkey… just wow. That’s still about the only word I have. I can remember a couple years ago watching the AVP tour as I was sitting on my couch just picturing myself in their shoes. Wanting to be out there and then wondering if I could even compete with them. And then to also think back to about a month ago when Taryn and I were sitting on the couch watching the challenger event in Tlaxcala, MX take place and both of us again wanting to be there. For me, that same thought popped into my head… can I/we even compete with them? I have definitely gotten my answer and know this is just the beginning of an incredible journey for us.
This trip’s travel started off a little different for us. We were not flying out of New Orleans. Instead, our first flight was out of Louisville where we had a clinic/pro night which was actually a lot of fun. Shout out to King Louie’s in Louisville for putting on a fantastic event (we’ll be back for redemption). Not being in our normal home base kind of made things a little more tricky for international travel. Of course, you have to find a covid test and long story short it is EXTREMELY difficult to find a rapid PCR test in Louisville – they just don’t exist and especially on a Sunday. So, our plan turned into this: 1) PCR test at a Walgreens about a mile away from our hotel Saturday morning at 11am (we had to be at our clinic/pro night event at around 11:30) which we would get results in 48-72hrs (would find out results while in the air). 2) Rapid antigen test at a ULL Urgent Care about a mile away from our hotel on Sunday morning before flying out.
So how did this all play out?
Saturday morning we wake up, enjoy a nice breakfast at First Watch (Taryn’s favorite breakfast/brunch spot – which was conveniently an 8 min walk from our hotel), and then start our 15ish minute walk to Walgreens. On the website, it says that if you are getting a test to call before if you will not be driving. I call and what do they say – you CAN’T do a test if you are not in a car. You can’t even walk into the store to perform the test. Do not really get that because we could have walked into the store and bought some M&M’s but nooo you must have a car for a covid test. I get on the phone with Mike McCaskill. Mike is the guy that oversaw the clinic/pro night. Great guy but at the time we had never met him, and we had to call him up and ask if he could drive us through the Walgreens drive through for our covid tests. What a great way to meet someone. He picks us up from a Starbucks across the street (must get that caffeine) and pull up to the drive through window. As we wait for the two cars in front of us, we chat about volleyball, and he lays out what the day is going to look like. Finally, we’re up; however, they can only do one test at a time. So, Taryn does her test and then we have to drive around the Walgreens and get back in the drive-thru line for me to do my test. At this point we are just cracking up at the whole situation. It was a great bonding experience for all of us.
Covid tests completed, clinic/pro night a success, and we make it to Washington. Now for a little hiccup. Our flight from Washington was supposed to leave at 5:20pm and then land in Munich, Germany where we would have about a 7-hour layover. The plan was to connect with one of our best friends that we haven’t seen in months and just so happens to be staying in Munich. It was going to be perfect. Weather had other plans… we boarded our plane around 4:30 and did not take off until 8:42. We sat on the plane for over 4 hours. Let me repeat that… we sat on the plane for an extra 4+ hours before flying 8 hours… let that sink in. When we landed in Munich, everyone erupted into loud applause, think everyone was ready to get off that plane?? Sadly, we no longer had time to see our friend; however, we did not miss our next flight so that was a small win.
My nap spot in the Munich Airport
I struggle to sleep on flights, so by the time we got to Munich I was exhausted. We stopped at a little shop to get some food which also turned into a nice place for me to get a little power nap. I 100% passed the heck out on that bench.
Tip if you are traveling internationally… the boarding time on the boarding pass is WRONG. Always wrong. We were sitting at a nearby gate and I look at Taryn and say, “why do I feel like we are going to miss our flight?” Thank goodness my Spidey sense tingled because we walk to our gate and we are one of the last people in line. Boarding time said 1:50. The bus to the plane left at 1:49.
The picture we took in the taxi when we were a little scared.
We made it to Turkey!! Actually, Izmir airport which is the closest to Kusadasi (about an hour and 15 min drive). Cido Omurlu, the most helpful person ever and without her would not have survived this trip (she is from Turkey, so she gave us all the do’s and don’ts), connected us with a taxi driver who I had messaged about a pick up. When we walk out there is a guy holding up a sign with Taryn’s name on it; however, the guy does not look like the guy’s picture that I had been messaging with. My guard was up but we just went along with it – he was his friend, pheww. The drive to Kusadasi was absolutely beautiful. We were weaving up and down a mountain which was a little scary at times.
Made it to our all-inclusive resort and immediately went to dinner which was a giant buffet. Love and hate buffets – you get to try so many things, but you also don’t really know how much you’ve actually consumed. After dinner, we went to our room which consisted of two twin beds pushed together. Guess that’s a queen or king bed in Turkey? Regardless, we passed out and woke up ready for breakfast. The dining hall was set up in three different stations. We walk up to the first side (we did not know there was another side at first) and open about 10 trays of different breads. Needless to say, we were very confused, but then we found the good stuff… eggs, hard boiled eggs, and pancakes and crepes with Nutella (they love their Nutella).
It was practice day so after we got some lunch, we made the 20ish minute walk to the courts. We were scheduled to practice with the Netherland team of Piersma/van Driel but of course there was some court confusion, so we ended up having a three team practice and team Canada of Wilkerson/Bukovec joined us. Got the body moving and got some quality touches on the ball. That’s just about all we look for in a practice two days before the tournament. We got after it a little bit so we figured we would take Wednesday off (we typically don’t practice the day before a tournament) and do some exploring.
First step of exploration day, get a taxi. We asked the front desk to call one and we had to wait in the lobby for about 30ish minutes for it to arrive. Our destination was downtown Kusadasi. We figured we could walk a little bit but then also just chill and eat lunch somewhere to get off our legs. Our taxi (aka taksi) driver, Ergun was wild! He did not speak much English, but he would talk into google translate and it would turn it into English. He was very much a flirt. Constantly calling us tall (yes, he even said I was tall), beautiful women. After some questionable driving (a direct quote from Ergun, “if you follow the rules, you will get in a wreck”) we made it to the port of Kusadasi. Starbucks was the first thing we saw. It was something familiar as we were missing our caffeine, so we walked in. We hadn’t tried Turkish coffee yet, so Taryn ordered some… sadly we were not fans; however it came with Turkish delight which was actually very good. We did not have much cash so after Starbucks finding an ATM was priority. We are not experienced ATM users and could not get our credit cards to work. Luckily, Taryn had her personal debit card; however, she did not know how to change it to English so she just started clicking buttons and 2 $100 bills came out… that was not going to be helpful for us. We waited in the bank and thankfully the teller had a wad of American money at her desk and was able to provide us with some smaller bills. You really learn some life lessons when traveling internationally… like how to use an ATM. We had money, and we were ready to explore. We walked around all the different shops which either sold food, shoes, carpets, knick-knacks, jewelry, or handbags. We were good and only purchased a key chain which we are collecting from everywhere we go. We made our way to Güvercinada Island where there is a beautiful castle and just all-around beautiful scenery. The pictures do not do it justice… you just must go. After enjoying a nice coke zero at a little restaurant by the castle, we headed to lunch at The Bear Gastro Pub. We ordered avocado toast and had to try an authentic Turkish breakfast. Both were very interesting. First, the avocado toast was in no way shape or form toast. It was closer to a hamburger bun than toast. It also just had a different seasoning to it than what we are used to at home; however, it was pretty good. Now the Turkish breakfast was just outright interesting. No other word to describe it… so many different spreads that included: butter, some sort of cinnamon/something syrup, Nutella, honey & cheese, some red substance, strawberry jam, and some sort of cheese spread. Additionally, there were scrambled eggs, fries, cucumbers & tomatoes, “sausage”, a beignet/donut like bread, different cheese – mozzarella, Swiss, & something else, and lastly a basket of bread. Not sure if I would get it again but glad we did. Our taxi ride home was with the same driver, Ergun. We were about 5 minutes into the 20min drive back and he just pulls over on the side of the busy highway. We are like what the heck is going on. He says, “two minutes.” He walks across the busy highway to a gas station across the street, grabs money that he says his friend left him, and then proceeds to drive us back to our hotel…normal. Exploration day complete!
Gameday. We didn’t come all the way to Turkey and not qualify. The previous two days the weather had been gorgeous, but qualifier day it was not ideal. We were the first match at 9am and it was pretty chilly and also very breezy. The first game against the Canadian team of Wuttunee/Dunn was a game of try and just get the ball up in serve receive. Does not matter where it goes – just need to get it up or as Drew might say “get your platform under the ball before it hits the ground” – genius. Our second match gameplan against the Ukraine team of Makhno/Makhno was very similar to the first – get the ball up. If you did not watch the match, you should go back and watch Taryn jump serve. You can determine how windy it was by that. We were qualified but the work was not even close to being done.
At dinner that night we sat with the Swiss team of Böbner/Vergé-Dépré and got to chat about the differences between federations, what their set up looks like, and just how beautiful Switzerland is. It was really cool to learn the differences and just get to chat with them.
Day 1 - main draw. First opponent - Germany team of Borger/Sude. Another windy game. They are a very experienced team and I’m sure have played in a ton of wind but again we just went into it with the mindset of… it doesn’t have to be perfect. We just have to get the ball up and we will figure it out from there. The game plan worked, and we won the very important first match in the main draw. Winning the first one is so crucial because it automatically puts you into the round of 16. The second match of the day is just for seeding so it really does not mean a whole lot. Not saying we went into that second match being okay with losing but if there was a match to lose it would be that one and indeed, we did. We just made too many errors and the German team of Ittlinger/Schneider didn’t. Simple. Rest, recover, regroup, and reload for the next day.
Taryn stretching while I watch some volleyball
What do we do all evening in our hotel room you might ask? Stretch a little bit, lay with our feet up on the headboard for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour while we either scroll through social media, FaceTime family/friends, or watch volleyball. We’ll sometimes just chill in silence but most times one of us will just play some music in the background. We’ll sometimes play card games - Taryn actually taught me a new one this trip… Kings corner. I guess it’s the fact that it’s always freezing in South Dakota so no one can go outside but y’all, Taryn knows every freaking card game in the book. All I bring to the table is like go fish and you can only play that so many times. Anyway, this particular Friday night we watched one of our fav genre movies - cheesy romance - on Netflix called A Perfect Pairing. DEFINITELY cheesy but would watch again.
Saturday - win 2 and you’re into the semis. The #1 seeded Brazilians were up first (found out after the match that they were the #1 seed). A 2pm start time is interesting because you just have to wait around all day and all you want to do is go play. You get a little anxious to say the least. The Brazilian team must have had some couped up energy because their warmups looked like a game of who could hit the ball the hardest. It was pretty impressive honestly. We were able to play our game and pull out the dub. Bring on the quarters and another German team Tillmann/Müller. Back on center court and we were ready to redeem ourselves on that court . We also really wanted to make it to Sunday. On Sundays we wear purple with gold glasses (geaux tigers). Gives us some extra motivation - like we gotta get to Sunday so we can wear purple & gold. We got to wear purple and gold this weekend!!!
So, we (especially me) have had a pretty cool experience with butterflies as of late and here’s some more context behind that. My grandparents were always BIG supporters of my athletic career; unfortunately, they both passed away a couple years ago. I wear a necklace 24/7 with one of my grandma’s diamonds from a ring that she had. Additionally, my uncle Danny was a big supporter of TKN. Always watching our games and sending a text of support after a win or loss. He passed away recently with some of his last thoughts thinking he was going to miss one of our games. How does this all relate to butterflies? When we were in Brazil a couple weeks ago, right before our first match in the qualifier, I grabbed my necklace and just talked to my grandparents and uncle as a nice little calm before the storm. No later than 5 minutes, an orange butterfly came flying in and landed right next to my foot – not a doubt in my mind it was them. You may think I am crazy, but it gets better… Before every single match in Brazil an orange butterfly would come flying around us. Additionally, on our walk back to our hotel after the round of 16 loss what do you know, an orange butterfly came flying around us. We get back from Brazil and head back out to Mango’s for two practices before heading out to the Austin AVP… an orange butterfly would not leave the ball cart both days. It just kept flying around it and landing on the balls. You would think that I am making this up but of course just like in Brazil, a butterfly somehow comes and finds us in Austin before or after each game. A couple more instances where I knew my people were watching over us all the way in Turkey. At the beginning of the tournament, we did not see any orange butterflies, but you would not believe how many people at our resort or at the venue we saw wearing butterfly shirts. I have never even seen this many butterfly shirts in my life. For one last final butterfly sighting story – we are sitting at our bench in a timeout during the semifinals match and what do you know an orange butterfly comes flying around us and lands on our couch. We just look at each other and smile. I know they will always be supporting and watching no matter where on the Earth we’re playing.
Quick side bar… On Friday we had to schedule our covid tests for Sunday and the only available time was 1pm. The semifinal match was at 2. We tried to go early but the nurse in the office, who did not speak any English, told us that it would have to be at 1. We were like okay, we’ll be fine - we don’t warmup very long - we’ll have time. At 1:10, when the doctor was still not there, we were a little alarmed. We started doing our band warmup in the lobby of the resort. The nurse had to hate us because we kept going in an asking her how much longer. She replied 3 times to us, “2 minutes.” More like 15 minutes… the doctor finally showed up around 1:15. We do the paperwork and then swab time. So I have had a bunch of covid tests done but y’all, I have never had someone put the stick that far up my nose. My eyes started to pour out tears and I could not stop rubbing my nose. So bad! (I thought the one in Brazil was bad… this one - wayyy worse) After finishing the test, we have to get a taxi. Pretty much the entire week there was at least one taxi that was outside - not on this day of course. Think we ended up leaving the resort around 1:25ish which gave us a little under 30 minutes for warmup. I feel like most teams would panic in that scenario but we just kind of rolled with it… I mean you don’t really have another option.
Semifinals were a very familiar opponent – Sponcil/Cannon. We had just lost to them the weekend before at the Austin AVP. We stuck with our gameplan and executed well, and we booked our ticket to the gold medal match. We were going home with some hardware.
We knew our travel day which started very early Monday morning was going to be brutal but if we won the gold, it would make it a little more tolerable. I know I kept thinking about that in my head… win this match so tomorrow is not just completely miserable. Obviously, there were some other thoughts going through my head, but I have to say I think that was the most calm I have ever been for a championship match in my life. I can’t even describe the vibe I was in. I just had a weird sense that no matter how many points we got down we were still going to figure out a way to win. I mean it was 13-11 in the 3rd set and again, I knew… we were going home with gold. I can’t say that the last point went exactly how we would have liked it to end. The controversial touch or no touch off Taryn’s block… I will say this – Taryn is a terrible liar, like so terrible and in all of the videos she comes down from that block and is immediately saying “no touch, no touch.”
We finished the gold medal match, and we were so exhausted, hungry, excited, blown away, and elated all at the same time. We didn’t even know what to do with ourselves. We were getting swarmed by the Turkish beach volleyball fans that had just cheered their way through our intense three set match. Each and every one of them wanted our jersey, sadly we had to say no to so many little girls with so little jerseys that we are given. We were taking “photo” after “photo” and selfies, cigarette smoke was filling the air. Finally, we could take a second to realize what the heck just happened. We gathered our stuff and headed back to the hotel for dinner at 9:10 pm. We had to be back for the awards ceremony that followed the men’s medal matches. However, we had to stay in our uniforms, all sandy and smelly for this ceremony. After more pictures we left the venue for the last time, it was 11:45 and we had to leave our hotel at 4 am for the airport. Needless to say, it was impossible to sleep. We were tossing and turning and finally just decided to rewatch the match and find ways to get better in each of them. With our alarm set for 3:30, we finished our film session at 3:21. Just enough time for a 9 minute cat nap (aka no time to actually fall asleep) and head out for our 22 hour travel day!
Going into the tournament we had a very small chance of getting into World Championships in Rome, Italy which takes place in the middle of June. The only way we even had a chance of making Worlds a thought was winning the tournament… you could say that provided some additional motivation. The fact that getting into Worlds is even a possibility is not at all something that we thought would be a conversation this year. So incredibly wild how fast everything has happened. **As it stands right now, we did not make it into World Championships. We are the #3 team on the reserve list.**
We are so happy to be headed back home. Not sure what the first meal will be but very excited for our food. Nothing against the food at our resort, but you just can’t beat what you are comfortable with. Also, when you stay at a resort for almost a week, you get pretty sick of the same food. Never thought I would go to Turkey in my life, but I have to say I am incredibly grateful. So beautiful. If you are debating going or not… GO!
Big thanks to Adrenaline Volleyball out of Sioux Falls, SD and to Cido Omurlu for sponsoring this tournament for us. Could not do this without people like you! SO SO SO thankful!
By: Kristen Nuss
