its not how you play the game, its if you win or lose...

.... and unfortunately we lost...

...but we played well :) This weekend gone I ventured up to Connecticut for a netball tournament.. everyone I tell kind of laughs at me and then says 'what did you say?'... as you would imagine if Americans don't play it or know what it is, it can hardly be a real sport (even though wikipedia says the game was invented in the States!) Anyway just to backtrack a little... as I've been playing forever, I thought I would see if I could find anyone in the city who plays netball, I found 1 club in New York, Manhattan International Netball Club. There's about 50 girls in total and we train every week, most of the girls are English or Australian and its been great meeting new people and getting some exercise... As its such an unknown sport here, there is no local competition, instead there are day tournaments around the country which teams are invited to play in... We entered two teams in the connecticut one so I went up to play...

Myself and a friend of mine thought we'd make a weekend of it so we attempted to get up there on Friday night... squashed in a little mini van the 2 hour journey up took us 4 and a half hours, leaving manhattan on a friday afternoon coupled with lots of rain i guess just made it a part of the adventure! We met some quirky types on the bus, and got some tips of where to go so it wasnt all bad...

We stayed in the Marriott in Hartford, which is the capital of Connecticut... (not the marriott but you get it...)... lovely hotel, bit of a boring town. Hartford is where a part of the Gilmore Girls is set... the grandparents live there!... It is also known as the insurance capital of America so as you can imagine its not the most pumping place on a Friday night.. regardless we had some dinner and walked around the deserted streets a little and then had an early one before the big day..

Saturday morning we attempted to get a bus except I took us to the wrong bus station (..oops..) worried we would be late we jumped in a cab to get there in time.. the ride through suburban hartford was lovely, seeing all the weatherboard houses was just like in the movies... real America!! So we arrived on time to Weaver High School (the Home of the Beavers is there tagline.. no joke!)... we'd been warned on the bus up that the school was known as the ghetto so we were a little weary... especially cos there was noone in sight and there we were two little white girls wondering around a huge American highschool... we bumped in to a caretaker who took us to a room full of kids who were writing their SAT's or on detention ... still trying to work it out... anyway eventually he led us to the gym.. it was empty, it was 9am and noone was there!!! At that time I didnt really mind, I was still in awe about being in a real American highschool gym! I was waiting for the girls from Bring it On, or Coach Carter to come out, but no...noone came... by 9:30 the rest of our club had arrived and a few of the organisers were straggling in... anyway two hours later we finally got to play... most of the teams were made up of jamaicans and other island countries (call me ignorant... i dont know where they were from) but until saturday i was convinced netball was a non-contact sport! well not over here... i think everyone in my team left with at least one bruise on their body as a souveneir... if you were lucky it was on your face! Anyway we played 5 games, our best result was a draw, the other team did a little better, but it was good excercise and another experience to add to the list! Saturday night we ached all over so took it easy and went to West Hartford, nicer then the real hartford we found a restaraunt serving great steaks and filled our appetites!

Sunday we decided to stop by New Haven, another Connecticut town and home to Yale, one of the three Ivy League US colleges (what college you study at is a massive deal here and Yale is one of the best... story for another time). With all our heavy luggage and our bodies still aching there was no way were going to shlep it around all day...so we casually strolled in to a classy hotel nearby, asked if we could leave our luggage there... they thought we were staying at the hotel so they said 'sure', took it off our backs and put it in there luggage room! that little trick was my favourite part of the day!!

So we ventured out to find Yale, the town was again beautiful, all the weatherboard houses! I wanted to go inside and see if they were as beautiful as in Father of the Bride, but i refrained and ventured into school territory... Yale was beautiful... massive stone carved buildings... huge green parks, flags, the whole bit... hard to explain but I'll post some pictures soon! We ventured in to the gym and stumbled in to the Yale basketball arena... i dont think we were supposed to be in there but we climbed down the bleachers (like in the movies :) ) and took some photos in the middle of the court... we then bought a Yale sweater each and moved on to some lunch at Pepe's pizza, apparently the best pizza in town... im no connoisseur but it was pretty good...

So the day came to an end, we went back and collected our luggage from our faux stay in the pretty hotel and trained back to New York... back on the subways and through the streets of the East Village, there was something nice about coming back... kinda like the feeling you get driving through the Rushcutters Bay tunnel... ahhh home.... :)