Monday, July 7, 2008

All by myself...

On Sunday we played our second game with the International All-Stars against the Belgium National team. These were only exhibition games and for the All-Stars some of the guys did not take it so seriously so we ended up only having 9 guys to field a team. That meant that we were fine to play, but we would have to have some guys play positions that they had not played in a long time.. The reason why I played right field and hit in the 9 hole. I actually had about 5 fly balls which I played all without any trouble, but again went hitless but did have a walk and a sac bunt with a run scored I must add. We actually ended up winning the game 9-6 with 3 run homer late in the game.

Right after the game I became the driver for the Americans who were leaving to go to Spain. They had two hours before their train left and one of the guys had not packed yet. We hurried to get to his place to pack up and then we were off to Central Station. As I was driving down there I looked at my roommate and started laughing. I have been the driver and he has been my navigator but I was just about ready to drop him off and I currently have no cell phone. The guys just gave me some good luck as I dropped them off and told me to find the "Ring" highway that circles Antwerp.... So I was ALL BY MYSELF. I tried to think of the way home and just started to drive, we have taken the tram down to central station before but I wasnt really paying attention to how we got there. After awhile of driving around and feeling like I was getting no where I remembered that I had the GPS system and it stores recent destinations. So I turned it on and found our house number in the recent destination and pushed GO, but I was in these little side streets and the GPS system was hard to understand and it kept recalculating the directions so I felt like I was getting no where. Finally I came upon a street that looked very familiar, took one left and realized where I was but the GPS system I believe was taking me the wrong way. I made a quick U turn and made it home safely, 1 hour after dropping off the other Americans.

It is different now that I do not have an American at the house with me, but I also think that it is good since I will get to explore some things on my own, and maybe by the time they get back I will not need a navigator. Without someone around today I was a bit lazier and really just hungout all day at the house, but since their was nothing I needed to do I just enjoyed relaxing, something I needed after quite a long weekend. I was asked to run the Junior practice tonight (the last one I went to I showed the younger boys some new games and I guess the presidents wife was there and told my host mom that practice went really well and I had made practice fun for the boys) , but it was raining so I had the night off of baseball. I plan on going back to the gym tomorrow and checking out the Library. I want to get a book to read. My host brother gave me his Library card to borrow so I could check out books. I have so much time and the English speaking t.v. channels are limited, so limited that I found myself watch The Wedding Planner tonight.

I am doing some backtracking to Saturday but I purposely left this for the end. I guess since I have been here I have had alot of fun and have really enjoyed the experience so far, but one of the reasons why I commited to do this was because I wanted something more than just baseball out of this, I wanted life experience. We had gone out with Chad, a former player who is from Kansas City and played two years here about 10 years ago and played with our Coach and is his bestman in the upcoming wedding in August. I was sitting there talking to Chad and I had asked him what his favorite experience was in his two years here. He thought about it for awhile and he said that maybe there was one trip that he had alot of fun on, but really it was the little things that he loved so much. The times he had with the people here and it really just made me think, I quickly told him how I have a fascination with the people so far. That I believe they are so genuine and they just live their life at a different pace. When people ask me how Belgium is in emails and such that is the first thing that I go to, the people. My point is that maybe I will not find some large discovery because I came to Belgium, I probably won't come back speaking fluent Flemish (Dutch) and I am going to come back to America, but maybe I can learn what these people teach me and take those "small" experiences and make them a bigger part of my life.

Peace.

3 comments:

*KJ said...

Hi!! You're amazing, I'm so glad you are blogging! I can't wait to continue to hear about your daily life in Belgium.
:) to getting lost and finding your way - must have felt a little rewarding.
:) to you having to watch the Wedding Planner
:( for not knowing baseball terms.
Keep it up !!

Anonymous said...

What's so bad about the Wedding Planner again?

Jason said...

This post titled, All By Myself, ends with the narrator discussing the glory of the other.

In that same vein: I miss you, buddy.