Windmill Windup
This weekend, I played at the largest grass tournament for Ultimate Frisbee in Europe. This is my team, PUF:
The team is a collection of high-level players from teams in three towns in the Netherlands. When I went to my first Leiden practice, Gosse (fourth from the right in the top row in the picture), said to me — “Well, it seems that you want to play a lot of Frisbee. Would you like to go to a tournament in Amsterdam next week?” How could I say no?
And so, from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon, I played with this amazing team. Everyone was so welcoming and genuine, and because the level of play was so high, I learned a lot in the process.
The tournament was home to over 1200 Ultimate players from all over Europe, and many people camped right there on the fields (myself included). That’s a great thing about tournaments — even though we’re all on different teams, it’s still a great collection of people all playing, eating meals, and hanging out together. And, I’ve never heard so many different languages, let alone so many different words related specifically to ultimate. We got lucky with the weather as well, with only 2 games in the rain. Apparently pretty good for Dutch standards.
All in all, an amazing weekend. As always at the end of tournaments, my body is tired, but I feel happy and strong and glad to have made so many new friends! I’ll go to one other tournament in my time here — Hargen, a beach tournament, in 2 weeks. And, Ruben Land from Haverford will be joining me! Can’t wait.