Everyone was dressed up. I went as Michelangelo the Ninja Turtle with my teammate Solange as another turtle Rafael. We made our costumes, which took a while since neither of us are sewing experts. There were a few late nights spent pinning and figuring out how to work the sewing machine, but in the end we looked awesome. My teammates ranged in costumes from Pocahontas to the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland to Wilma Flintstone. I spent the night dancing and talking to anyone and everyone. Unfortunately, I will not recognize those people I was talking to since they had masks, face paint or a wig on, but it was fun nonetheless. My favorite part of the night was when people started swapping wigs with one another. There are a lot of pictures with people wearing wigs that don’t match their outfit at all. For example, I was wearing a Beetlejuice wig, then a long blonde wig, then a Viking helmet. It was a great party spent with great people. I went on a free trip to Antwerp, Belgium. Helen, my assistant coach had a meeting with a client on a Friday afternoon in the city so she offered to take me along for the ride. She also invited her mother who is from Ireland. Her mother has lived in the Netherlands for 30 years, but it was nice having a native English speaker to walk around the city with. Last minute, we ended up getting a Brazilian friend of Helen’s mom to join in. We arrived in the city in the late afternoon just in time to enjoy a Belgian beer in the center of the old town. The buildings are beautiful and nothing like back home. After some slow service and relaxing in the sun for a bit, I split from the two women I came with so I could explore on my own for a bit. I walked around and enjoyed the old town and the waterfront. The city was bombed heavily during WWII, but they rebuilt the churches, town halls, etc in the old town to look like they did. The contrast from this area to a few streets down to the big shopping streets with the modern glass and steel buildings brought me back to reality. When Helen was done with her meeting three hours later the four of us met up and went for dinner. We walked through a big Jewish quarter and we saw at least 50 Hassidic Jews walking to Temple, we assumed. None of us knew too much about this type of religion, but it was interesting to see their clothing, hairstyles and headgear, which was nothing like what either of us were wearing.
My team, Terrasvogels, had a tournament in Enschede, which is on the eastern side of Holland. The country is so small that it only took two hours to get there from Haarlem which is only a few kilometers from the North Sea. We had five games and won all of them!! This is Marije and I between games on Saturday.
We were the champions of the tournament and we also had the best batter. Meike is our lead off batter and hit .680 for the two days. I pitched 2 of the 5 games. I only gave up 3 hits, 2 of which landed only a few feet in front of home plate. I also played right field in the championship game and made two nice catches. I am really getting along well with the team on and off the field. We went out as a team on Saturday in Enschede.This is a few of us in the club where we ended the night. 
Dana, our team captain got us hooked up with free vouchers for a local casino. We got free admission, one free drink and free instructions for Roulette and Blackjack. Eva told one of the dealers that I was English and asked if he could speak English so I could understand. I thanked her and then corrected her by saying I was American not English. The best part was that we got to play some practice rounds and I did pretty well. Too bad I was not willing to gamble my euros away. A few teammates played a few games and most ended up even. After a short time at the casino, we walked to the center of town to go to a club called Aspen Valley. It was packed full of young people, but we were able to fine a corner for our team to dance in. A few hours passed with lots of dancing, a few drinks and lots of pictures and then 3 am hit and we walked to Eva’s parents’ house where the team was staying. It was a great night and my first time going out as a team the night before a game. 
The coaches were with us as well and they said that we can go out as long as it does not affect our playing the next day. Thankfully, it did not and we continued to play well and win the tournament the next day. The team with the 1st place trophy. Meike, our lead-off hitter and second baseman received the best batter award for hitting .688 over the two days.
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