Wall-E and Rig-B

This is it...its going to be my chance to become famous.  

Dave Abini, Midlands INTO Lacrosse Officer and my fabulous boss, is filming a segment for TDAS (The Dave Abini Show) which is basically going to follow around me and Wallis, documenting our jobs, and what we are doing for lax. 

Bio on Wallis, my housemate:
She's the SCO (school coaching officer) stationed at Malvern St. James, whereas i'm only here one or two days a week. On top of lacrosse, she has boarding duties and her own form room (homeroom). This is basically the job I did when I cam over in January. She went to UMW and is a center because she runs a lot, although claims she "doesnt like to work out" haha. Originally from the great state of Texas moved to NJ. Its been awesome being able to coach sessions with her so far. We get along great and its nice having another American around so we can gang up on our british roommate and are a force with the girls.

According to the girls Wallis is the "nice one" and im the "scary one" (but in a good way of course one of the girls said...). This makes me laugh...me, scary? Perfect.

Spellman would be proud- we had a fitness session last Saturday morning and I made them do perimeters screaming "YA GOTTA MOVE" followed by sidelines and an intense Plank Sesh. Ugh, dare I say I miss perimeters? Nah...

So follow TDAS on Facebook and i'll be posting more videos to come :)

Wallis and I

Bath Eights, 2011

Best. Weekend. Ever.
I'm sure i'll say that a few more times over the week, but really - it was something special.

supporting our friend Pat on timperley lax!

After the course ended up on Friday, and I had taught Leisel how to drive stick shift, we caught a ride down with Vince who plays for Brooklands. (Ali is the Brooklands Girls LDO) Vince is a great guy and so nice! Ali and I like to harass him for no particular reason.

The 3 hour roadtrip was filled with singing, "dougey-ing", and sleeping. "Woooo we're going to bath!" Getting lucky with the weather, we arrived in Bath refreshed and ready to explore the town. Bath is absolutely gorgeous and I encourage myself to go back and look around some more when I'm not completely consumed by lax.

We went out Friday night with the Brooklands guys LDOs (Fuzz and Andrew - Go Endicott!) and met up with everyone else. Needless to say it was a great night.

Saturday was the actual tournament. Unfortunately the Germans whose name I cant type/pronounce won the tournament. Looking forward to the first girls tournament and the start of the season! I want to start playing again!

Lax Life Shot
Notice the fist pound, thumbs up, giggle, stick stringing etc. etc. 

The following night I tagged along with the Brooklands guys for a team dinner.  We decided to thank Vince for driving us by giving him a proper "ice". The american lax bro tradition of sneaking someone a smirnoff ice without their knowledge. Then they have to take a knee and chug the whole thing. Its disgusting, but foreign lax bros seem to love it even more than american lax bros!

Vince Getting Iced

To Summarize:
It was a great weekend: I saw some long lost friends that I had met years ago at the English Lacrosse Tournament at Eton, met a lot of nice people, and watched a lot of good lax... :)

P.S.
Dan (american) who is the other timperley lacrosse writes a blog for inside lacrosse... check it out!
http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2011/08/29/a-yank-king-arthurs-court-playing-and-teaching-lacrosse-england

P.S.S.

SideNote: Lax Bros are the same in every country :)

First Night Out in Manchvegas!!!

Near the end of the induction, everyone decided to go out into Manchester. On the way to meet everyone out, we thought we would stop for a nice "Welcome back to England dinner." We stopped at this off the beaten path Italian restaurant "Ciao Bella". And Ali having lived in Rome for a semester, and me just returning from the best food experience of my life in Rome+Florence, could vouch for how authentic this italian food was.

Ali at Sale Tram Stop
10 Minutes into Manchester Piccadilly 

At our new dinner spot!
Waiter was great and kept bringing us free food!!!

We met up with other LDOs at this club which I didn't get into at first because I was wearing flip-flops. One of the other LDOS had this same problem. Who could blame me???? I just came back from the Jersey Shore where flip-flops are a way off life. Gibbo ran inside and snuck me out Rebecca's heels (new Durham Uni coach- who will be a rival soon!!) and I was allowed into the club. The bouncer was skeptical and asked where I had come across heels, so I told them I horns-waggled some sucker for 10 quid. It seemed believable, so he let me in.

LDO INDUCTION

The LDO Induction was a week long course where we got an introduction to what exactly we would be doing this year. All of us "graduated" the course with our Level 2 Coaching Certificate.

Pat and I had to be cool with our shades on

Team Building...

So for anyone who is interested in my job...haha
I am going to be doing development in the West Midlands region which means I'll be traveling around teaching and coaching lacrosse to kids that may not have played before, or want to learn more about it. On top of that I am...
- Based at MSJ College where I work with SCO Katie Wallis and help with all of the MSJ Teams (Range from year 7-13)
- Work on developing 3 County Lacrosse Club
- Work with Birmingham Uni + other Uni's while helping to spread "Into Lacrosse"
- Playing with Oxton Wirral Lacrosse (League and now EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS!!!!) Way to go Wirral :)



Looking forward to an amazing year :)

Back TO ENGLAND, Back TO LAX

Arrived in England straight off of the most annoying and overrated Hurricane to hit the east coast. I got to Birmingham airport and had to get to Manchester for the LDO North Induction. I decided to do a slight detour and meet Leisel, aka Ali Gibbons at the airport.

Ali and my relationship being what it is, as my international bff, told me her flight got into manchester "around 2:30pm". Perfect, I figured I'd meet her there and we'd go together!

Upon getting to the airport, and realizing there was in fact more than 1 terminal at Manchester, I looked at all the flights getting in around 2:30. Took a wild guess and waited outside gate 1. After waiting about 30 min, I heard a women behind me on the phone saying "look for the lacrosse stick! Can't wait to meet you!" My ears perked up upon hearing the word LAX! I turned to ask the cute old women who she was waiting for and what she was doing at the airport. She said she was picking up an American Laxer named Ali Gibbons. A smile spread across my face as she walked out of the door on cue!

PUMPED TO BE BACK.

Sheila, her house mom decided to adopt me for the week while the induction course was going on in Manch. Although she had the scariest dog in the entire world, her family was so welcoming, and it was a  nice to get settled back into the swing of things :)

LAGOS

Not going to talk a lot about my summer trips (i.e. All of Spain and to finish off the month meeting my family in Italy) but I think Lagos, Portugal deserves a special shout out. Spence and I had only planned on spending 2 days there, but we got lost in Lagos and spent about 4 days there. 

Gorgeous

It was gorgeous. After getting off the bus and heading to our hostel, we b-lined it for the beach. We saw these wackos jumping of a 40ft clif. 

"Lets go. I'm doing it" - Spence.

So within 5 minutes spence had jumped off a clif and I obvi had to get in on the action. A good looking aussie (hey tim!) came up to chat with us and we decided that we wanted to go. After a little bit of encouragement we jumped off. It was an amazing feeling. 

Spence, Me, Time

The three of us spent the day on the beach, knowing we were in paradise. We made our way back to the Rising Cock Hostel (Cock is the symbol of Portgual) where we were greeted by Mama. Mama likes to take care of the hostel, and its guests by making them crepes for breakfast along with a magical detoxification drink. It was a great touch. 

We went back to our hostel which was invaded by Aussies- who again - are the craziest people you'll ever meet. We met Stephen and Brad, our roommates, who became our other buddies for the trip. 

We won quiznight together (GO DINGLEBERRIES!) and ate ALL of our meals at NAH NAH BAH- which have burgers that rival, yes rival, the cheddar of my beloved Barnacle Bills. 

The Americans Carried the Team
on Rising Cock Quiz Night

GO TO LAGOS. You'll never regret it. And if you do have the pleasure of staying at the Rising Cock Hostel, make sure you give mama a hug :)