The Shire aka Home Sweet Home

For those of you know me pretty well, you know that I am a total sci-fi/fantasy nerd. If it has dragons, magic, time travel, and creatures other than humans...? It's for me! So you can imagine my delight on the plane coming into Zurich when everything looks straight out of a Lord of the Rings movie.  Literally looks the The Shire. Which of course is what we have named out 3 bedroom/1bath flat in Dudingen.  It looks like if a rainbow was to pop up somewhere I could literally go find the pot of gold. 

Here are a few pictures of my apartment and view.

The view from our balcony....^

My roooom

Living Area

Kitchen and dinning area

Nothing fancy but it's big and has enough room for us and great storage. The beds are comfy and the windows have these amazing roll down blinds that block out ALL light. It could be 12pm and I would have no idea. Helpful when you have jet lag and are up at all hours of the night.. O_o It is also a walk away from the gym, the grocery store, the train station, our bank,  and the other girls apartment. 

The 4 Americans went out on Sunday to explore.  Everything closes down Saturday around 4pm and does not open again until Sunday so we got to explore without having to worry about talking to people! Here are some more pictures from that adventure! 

Gorgeous Church that may or may not chime every 15 minutes all day everyday.

THE SHIRE!!!!

Al and I being goofy....

CAN YOU IMAGINE THIS WITH SNOW!!!! Sledding here I come.

There are cats everywhere. They hang out in the fields, around the houses plus they are all fat, so you know they belong to someone...but this guy in particular reminded me of grumpy cats grumpier father or something...and I had to share.  

SO pretty....

Cool house

GoPro pics!

more...

okay this was a super cool wall that was hand painted by some kids at the local school. They each got a rectangle and got to paint whatever they wanted. This was a panoramic but I will show you some of my favs in the next few pics.  

My favorite by FAR....  #swag #yolo #unicorn hahahha

Pizzzaaaa

not even sure...#longkittah

minions! Banana!

There is this forest behind the gym that you can walk through that has trails and also a bunch of hiking. Had some really cool stuff to explore and we have not even got through half of it!

Hope you enjoy!! Come visit me!!!

BYEEEEE

Dudingen!! (DOO-ding-en)

Whelp after 12 hours in a plane and 24 hour awake I finally made it to Dudingen, Switzerland!

Wooooow. 

I can not believe I am finally to this point. It seems like it was just yesterday I was signing my contract and saying to myself, “pfff, I have like 4 months until I leave. This is going to be the best summer ever!!”  Well I got one thing right. I had an AH-mazing summer. Even with work I found time to have a blast with all the people I have become so close to over the past 3 years living in Hermosa Beach aka “The Bubble”.  But now, here I am…sitting on my flight to Zurich, with SO many emotions rolled into this event. (one of them being frustration for the lack of wifi on this flight. I mean COME ON!!)

(my face when I found out no wifi for 8 hour flight to Zurich)

On the one hand I have been looking forward to this day for…well months now. And on the other am nervous, emotional, and even scared. Now, some of you may be saying, “why scared? You have done this before, been gone from family and friends for months at a time, played everyday and been all over the world blah blah", but it is very different this time around. Before the last few years I spent in Hermosa, I have not been in the same place for longer than 6 months since I was in college! The life I had in Hermosa was not only amazing (yay beach!) but I made some wonderful friends who became more than that…there were my family.  :) I smile right now thinking about the inside jokes/nicknames, themed parties, ace tournaments, monday night vball teams, netflix marathons and of course Wednesdays….those are my favorite. (you know who you are) 

This summer was no exception. To say I was a social butterfly may be a bit of an understatement.  Denver with Sloves, ace tourney’s with….everyone, Adult Nationals with “Thanks Champagne” (thanks Nikki!), WINNING 6-man (again Nikki!), #splooshhaus with my favorites, and of course my last weekend in the states at my parents in AZ with everyone that came to send me off. I can’t even remember one free weekend for months! (pictures to follow...at least one from each event) We always had something going on. EVERY summer I think the last one can’t be beat, and here I am saying, omg this was the best summer yet. That is a pretty great problem to have. 

I am so excited to be moving on to this next adventure. After my shoulder surgery 3 years ago I did not think I would ever be going back to play. What can I say? “The Itch” got me again.  I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the passion I have toward volleyball. This opportunity came and was something I couldn't pass up without regretting it forever.  I am SO excited to play again, be apart of a team again, and travel as much as possible. Switzerland is a unique opportunity that  allows me to do something I love and still be able to enjoy life outside the volleyball aspect. Days off I am free to travel and roam and see as much as I can (CASTLES!!!). Which I plan on taking FULL advantage off. 

The flights over to Switzerland have been great as well. For traveling half across the world, the travel time has been great. One flight from AZ to Washington DC (4 hours) and then on to Zurich from there (8 hours). Our coaches were waiting to pick up all 5 girls at the airport in a bus that will take us back to Dudingen. (need to find out how to get the two dots over the U when I type it…).  The toughest part so far was getting into Zurich around 8am, waiting for 3 hours for our teammates to get in and then driving 1.5 hours to Dudingen.  By the time I got back to the apartment I had been going on no sleep for 24 hours and was quite cranky. SORRY! We got to take a 2 hour nap (saved my life and possibly others too) and then had a light practice with most of the girls. This volleyball program is very cool as they integrate their younger girls directly into the team so we had a few of the elite girls on our team as young as 16! (holy hell does that make me feel old...which I am. The oldest on the team. -_- )

Of COURSE, our first night we had to go out. Don't ask me how I did it. I think I was delirious and just went with it.  There is a city about 10 minutes down the way by train, Fribourg, that has a fun social scene so we all went out to a local Irish Pub. It was so fun! The girls have a ton of energy and love to dance. Even the younger girls can come because the drinking age for beer and wine is 16. We have no practice this weekend so I didn't feel bad being super tired. We got home around 3am and I slept like the dead until 11:15am. Glorious.

(with a few of the girls, and wine of course. L to R: Des, Sarah, Allison, Me)

There are 5 girls on the team that are foreigners.  My roomies: Deseriee who played at LSU and is a MB, and Allison who played at KU and is an OH. Both girls are very nice and I think we will have fun living together. The other two are Kristin, who played at Iowa State and is our libero, and Lucky (Andrea) who is from Montenegro and our other MB. I am still getting to know more about her so more to come. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming.

 We are a walk away from anything we need, including the gym we play at, and a train ride from many other bigger cities including Berne, the capitol.  Our apartment is big and has everything we need, including wifi that reaches the whole apartment (insert sigh of relief). Our grocery store is on the way home from the gym so that is also very convenient. 

I can't wait to start a normal schedule here on Monday.  We leave very soon for a preseason tourney so I need to get in as much volley as possible. Can't wait to keep you posted on more about the Swiss adventure I am going on.

Next post will have pictures of the area and apartment. <3

BYEEEEE!!

Disclaimer...

DISCLAIMER: 

I had a blog previously while I was playing in Spain.
 I started off the whole thing saying something about myself and how this blog was…simply put..

 ME.

 If you know me, I suck at spelling, (personally I blame smart phones 
and stuff because I mean,who uses a dictionary or actually practices spelling
 anymore….oh I can’t figure out how to spell a word? I type it into a text message.
 Oh I am slaughtering it so bad that even the freaking smart phone can’t figure it out? 
Whelp, I change the sentence). I will curse, (Again, if you know me, you know I am one sassy
 individual who pretty much always speaks my mind, whoops, also everyone
 knows where I get it..haha but seriously) and lastly, I will be trying to tell you all the little details
 about my time over here…I  dunno, but for me its a type of release to write about it and my feelings 
and I also know I love hearing about other peoples adventures while they are doing something 
they love so why not let others live through me?!  Long story long, deal with it.  I am going to make errors, grammatical (sorry Garrett) and spelling wise and may be long winded at times (like now)….
just gunna deal with it or you don’t need to read my blog.

 Sorry not sorry. Okay moving on……...Byeeeee!

Adult Nationals 2014 #thankschampagne

Holy heck that was fun!

I can't say anything else about yet again another amazing Adult Nationals experience. Not only was it so much fun, duh, but it felt great to play competitive 6 on 6 on a women's net for the first time in 3 years. 

And I didnt die. So thats a bonus as well.......

On the other hand....everything hurts. From my fingers to my right shoulder. (I don't even use that...what?!)  To go from not playing to an aggressive amount of volleyball over 4 days? Ouchie. 

The team I played on (Thanks Champagne!) was amazing. Great group of girls that love to have a great time on and off the court.  Here are some pictures from the weekend :)

We don't like to have fun obviously....

Linds doing her Libero thaaaang! 

And me doing mine!

The struggle was real...

Of course we like to have a little fun after we play...

 Jump photo!

Just being goofy!

So glad Kellogg came this weekend! It was a blast. Bringing the Southbay look to PHX.

Fannypack and all....

Leah getting in a power nap...

My favorites <3

Man we look good in neon!

Can't wait for next year...and for anyone that didn't get to go. Be jealous. 

Byeeeee!

We meet again old friend....

Well well well, we meet again....

I am excited to announce that I once again will be packing my bags and 

moving to play the sport I love.

Who: ME!

What: playing volleyball

When: September 2014

Where: Dudingen, Switzerland 

Why: BECAUSE WHY THE HECK NOT!

Before we get into the excitement of me going to play (which hopefully I still know how to do...like riding a bike??) I want to give a recap of what I have been doing since 2011; which was my last year playing.

Menorca, Spain 2010-2011

Two words: Amaze-balls. Is that 2 words? 

I could not have asked for a better experience both as a player and teammate. Not only did we win the Spanish National Championship (BOOM!) but I was named MVP of the league. (Check out that golden volleyball I got - you know you want one)

Here is a link if you want to watch some highlight of on of the matches from the finals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnDxgBdGfKk

It was such an incredible experience. Only downside: I tore a bunch of things in my shoulder and had to get surgery the next fall.  I had made plans to go to Puerto Rico for the 2012 season, but once there it was obvious my shoulder was not healed yet. I stayed for 2 months and trained and strengthened my shoulder, but decided to leave. (aka I got fired...never played in a match so I don't feel too bad about it ;) )

I had a wonderful opportunity to move to Southern California and coach club volleyball, which ended up leading to another opportunity to work at USC as the Director of Operations for Men's Volleyball.  Long story short that is what I have been doing since 2012, mix in a little south bay fun and you have my life in a nut shell.  Here are some of my fav pictures and moments from the past few years.  I have made some incredible friends and memories. I will be so sad to leave but hey, the bubble will always be here. :)

I have no idea how I am going to choose only a few pics but I will try....kinda.

CAUTION: if you do not like fun, please do not proceed with the blog...or being my friend. kthanksbye.

Neon Bar Crawl! One thing you have to know about where we live is: we love themes. For any reason, or none at all, we want to do something fun.  Lindsey Hirzel (bestie) is the ultimate form of fun and in honor of me coming home from Puerto Rico she put together a neon bar crawl with a bunch of friends, new and old. Now it is a yearly thing and I look forward to it so much! Looking back at how many of those people are still in my life makes me happy <3

Fun Fact about me: I LOVE Vegas. I typically go more than a few times every summer.  Here is one trip.

This next Vegas trip was on another level. One of my favorite people of all time was getting hitched so obvi we did her bachelorette party in Vegas. It just felt right. Here are some pictures from the epic adventure.

-we don't really know how to have fun ^^^^

This babe and I at a country concert!

Family is very important to me. We are a crazy group....as you can see it runs in the fam.

Crystal "slove" Matich got married last summer. It was the best trip I have ever been on. Friends, love, free booze, and sunshine. What more could a girl need? 

Beside another jump photo....

5 year marriage anniversary for Mrs. Kimmich was a MUST. Where do you think we went? Yep. Vegas.

NYE with these babes!

And we can't forget about 1/1/14....

Birthday fun! Thursday nights at Junkie and Friday nights line dancing'!!!

This thing called #yattiesandwood. Epic Ace Volleyball Tournament.  We were team orange. Not sure if you could tell or not...

The enemy....(BROTHERRRRR)

Action shot, tutu and all! :)

Random nights....

Neon Bar crawl #3! This is my fav photo from the day....

Whelp this was last weekend so I guess we are all caught up!!! (Guess where I am?)

<3

Alright now back to the fun stuff about my up and coming adventure. 

It all happened so quickly, but I am really looking forward to playing and living in Switzerland for 8 months. I will be living in Dudingen, a small town (about 9000 people) about 15 minutes from Fribourg, Switzerland, which is about 30 minutes south of Bern. (The capitol) Everything is really easy to get to by train. I am only about 2 hours from the Alps as well. I am so excited to explore and of course visit every castle I can. I have a thing for castles. 

I have spoken with the coach via Skype and he speaks English. (thank the laawd) It makes my life so much easier.  The city itself is both German and French speaking which will be very fun. Dudingen is very close to both those borders, also looking forward to traveling to those countries as well.

Here is a map.  I am close to Bern. As you can see I am in the middle of France, Germany, Austria, and Italy. OMG!!!! Insert excited face here.

Last year the club finished 5th in the league.  Before that 6th and before that 7th.  Seems like they are doing the right things and I am hoping that we can continue the tradition and keep moving on up!

This is the blog I will be using while I am over there and I hope you all will follow along and feel free to live vicariously through me! ;)

Feel free to ask me any questions!  I will soon be able to post our schedule (for those of you who want to visit?!) and I think they also have a website that I will find so you can follow the team on that!

Ky