Football Festival Opening Ceremony

Just a quick update to the evening...

The girls attended the Football Festivals Opening Ceremony and although it was not as big as the Gothia Cup, it was warm and welcoming to all the teams around the globe.  I wanted to share a few photos from the evening!

Lauren, Mali and Jane getting ready to represent the Team

The team at the Ceremonies

Our master of ceremonies

Our girls walking in when announcing USA!

The place went wild!

The girls first to go down to dance after the ceremonies

The boys could not resist

Team photo

First Day in Aarhus

It's early evening here in Denmark and we have safely arrived in Aarhus the Football Festival 2012!!  We were welcomed by Anders who is a local here in Aarhus and he was able to get us registered in our dorms and showed us the grounds.  We've already sat down to a delicious dinner and the girls are now getting ready for a fun filled evening of the Football Festival Opening Ceremonies!  Lamorinda is the only USA team in the tournament and have been asked to say a few words at the opening ceremony about what this tournament means to them.  Mali, Jane and Lauren have volunteered to represent Lamorinda and the USA!

Streets of Kolding

Cheese Truck

The queens boat in Kolding

Our girls are famous!

The Dorms

We are staying at a Sports University where Denmark Athletes ages 16 and up, come to study their sport and become more proficient at the game.  I was able to get some photos of Kolding on our last walk around downtown and a couple fun one's of when we arrived.  While on the tour, the girls were interviewed by the local news station and will be part of the introduction to the Football Festival this evening!

here is the link to the Football Festival Activities
http://www.football-festival.com/

Adventures of Kolding

After the adventures of the wonderful family brunch yesterday morning, the girls broke up into groups with their host families and went on wonderful adventures all over the city.  Some of the girls visited what was once the Queen of Denmark's castle while others visited the oldest town in Denmark for a tour of the city and a ghost tour after the dinner festivities!  We heard Regan and Kristen went back with their host family and drove a tractor on the family farm while Emily and Courtney sailed the sea only to embark on an island and roast hot dogs for a fun lunch.  While each family did something different, each was fed a healthy Danish meal and always finished up with ICE, or as we call it in America, ice cream.  The girls insist the ice cream is better here in Denmark.

Today we were off to the West coast to visit a beach.  Although it was windy, some of the girls went for a swim and had a nice picnic lunch packed by their families.  Once we were through playing at the beach, both the Danish Team and Lamorinda packed up for the coastal town and shopped for lots of Danish goodies and more ICE!

We arrived at the sports facility in Kolding at 5pm where our wonderful hosts treated the girls to a friendly game of soccer and a wonderful bbq of ribs and sausage!  The facilities were spectacular!  perfectly groomed fields, game room with ping pong as well as a fully equipt kitchen with candy beer and sodas for all!  They even washed the girls uniforms after the game!

We are all back to our perspective homes heading to bed and wishing our friends and families a good day and good night.

Love to you all! 

We say goodbye to Sweden and Hello to Denmark!

Hi there family and friends,

German boys at the Ferry Terminal

Exploring the Ferry

Goodbye Sweden

Keeping busy on the Ferry, go Carly

Planning our next move on board

Brunch with the Kolding Families

 After enjoying our last day in Gothenberg and a long journey across the sea, we have finally settled into Kolding Denmark!  We boarded the express ferry Sweden thinking it would be much like those that we take across the bay to San Francisco but what we found was a massive ship, much like a cruise ship.  In addition to slot machines, there was a wonderful buffet, a dog lounge, disco, shopping center and a massive game room containing pool, ping pong and giant chess boards.  The girls filled their time easily and the 3 hour ride went by very quickly.

We arrived in Denmark and caught a 3 hour charter bus ride to Kolding, only to arrive at 1:30 am.  The same Kolding families that our Lamorinda families hosted last summer were standing outside waving American flags and holding signs of the girls names so they knew which family they would be staying with.  In bed by 2:30am and up again at 9:30am, the families met up to a wonderful family brunch at Sten and his wife's home (Director of the Kolding Q club).  His home was beautiful and the families are so warm and welcoming.  The girls were thrilled to learn that pastries with butter, cheese and chocolate bars is a local favorite for breakfast in Kolding!

Annie's Post

These past few days in Sweden have been filled with some of the most memorable experiences of my life thus far. I have never been immersed in so much culture! For example, in just our hall at the school, there are young boys from Zambia, Mexico, and Portugal! My favorite experience was when a few of us came back from the harbor and ran into the boys from Zambia in the stairway. We ended up talking with them for well over a half hour. They were all so soft-spoken and polite, it was a pure joy to talk to them. There was one boy in particular that all stood out to me in particular. Shyly, he introduced himself as Happy. He engaged in the conversation quite a bit, being that he knew English more than his teammates. Happy and his friends seemed so genuinely pleased to be talking to us. I'm humbled that I could provide some happiness to these wonderful kids.

Emily's Post

Last day in Sweden! Although it may seem easy to stay in a room with eighteen girls for six days, it's not (we call it the black hole). There was some bickering of course and little fights, nothing that can't be dealt with, but in the end we came together. I could tell this as we departed from our last game. As we cried we were all there to comfort each other and it wasn't about boys or anything else. It was about us. And even though we lost that game, we played with passion and love for the game. We played our heart's out and that is what is most important. Keep with us. We still have many adventures left. Our trip isn't even close to over!

July 19 - Got an early start to the day with the girls walking to the hotel for a buffet breakfast... a big treat after eating in the school cafeteria!  First game at 3:30 today and another win with a score of 4-0. Played again last night and unfortunately lost 2-0 against last years champions. They were a local all-star team comprised of the top players from the top 5 teams. VERY good. Our girls gave a good fight but in the end just couldn't pull it off - a few not so advantageous calls didn't help...

Today a free day to enjoy the city.