I like volleyball. I mean I LIKE volleyball. A LOT! Many of you already know this. It is by far my favorite sport and I’ve been playing for the past 10 years. I’ve been playing on the sandy Barcelona beaches ever since I arrived here almost three years ago but I haven’t really played indoors like I used to do back when I was in school. I tried out for a team here two years ago, but they already had a full roster of players. They invited me to train with them, but I couldn’t play in any of the games. So last year I tied out again… and the same thing happened. But soon after, my boss asked me to start working more hours so I had to give up on indoor volleyball all together last year. Well, needless to say, I tried out again this year and, proving the theory that the third time’s a charm, I made the team! Now, this isn’t just a bunch of crazy Catalans getting together every Friday night for a little exercise and a few beers. This is a serious team and I’m playing in the league just three levels below the national level. I don’t realistically ever see myself rising to any levels higher than where I am now, but that’s ok because I’m more than happy to be where I am now. We train every Monday and Thursday night and we have games every weekend. Home games are always fun because a few friends always show up to support us (very few, actually), but traveling is really where it’s at. We’ve played in a small town called Tortosa, about three hours south of here on the Catalonia / Valencia border. We’ve traveled all the way north to Andorra for a match. We have even played in the quaint little sea town of Vilasar de Dalt. And so far we’re doing well. We only lost two matches in the first half of the season and we were confident we could beat the two teams we lost to if we meet them again in the playoffs. Yes, the team’s doing just fine. It a shame I wasn’t able to play with them for six weeks when I brutally sprained a muscle in the side of my left foot about eight months ago while practicing. I knew it was too good to be true. I just landed on someone else’s foot and my ankle twisted, ripping the muscle on the outside of my foot to smithereens. To shreds! In a matter of two minutes, my foot proceeded to blow up to approximately three times its normal size. I had never seen a foot that large before. It looked like there was a baseball inside and it wanted to get out. I had never suffered any sort of sports related injury that kept me from playing before so I didn’t know how serious it was. A couple guys from the team, after carrying me off the court, told me I could expect to be out for “two to three weeks at least”. It was the “at least” that scared me most. Well, besides the size of my foot that is. Oh yeah, and the excruciating pain. Anyway, those six weeks passed ever so slowly while I sat on the sidelines with my poor old bandaged foot and watched my team play. I eventually felt confident and strong enough to return to the court. When I returned we went undefeated! Well, until the semi-finals of the playoffs when… in the first few points of the match… I was up at the net on defense… I jumped up for a block… and landed on the foot of one of the opposing players who had crossed the centerline… and I dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. It happened again! The same exact way to the same exact foot! Only this time it was worse. I ended up with a fat old cast on my foot and was forced to sit in my bedroom for two whole weeks with nothing to do but mess around on my computer. I guess it could have been worse. Anyway, I’m back on my feet now just in time to have missed my team win the championships. Oh well, there’s always next year. Note to self: buy ankle braces.