Ey Türk Kası, sen çok yaşa...

I made my international debut in Ultimate a few weekends back. A group of mixed foreigners in Istanbul have been playing twice a week for about the past year. It was started and is led by a small group of Americans, but they have drawn a fairly large crowd of Turks and other internationals from the big city. They traveled to their first tournament this past spring. They went all the way to Austria, only won one game, but had a blast doing it. They had so much fun, they decided to enter a tournament in Germany this fall.

That's where I come in. I met some of the players this summer and they mentioned the tournament to me. When it became obvious that the EU and some injuries were depleting the team, I was presented with the opportunity to play with the team in Germany. Of course, I jumped all over the opportunity.

We flew out of Istanbul late one Thursday night/early Friday morning. Everyone was in high spirits, but a delayed flight out of Istanbul bit into the enthusiasm a bit.

A rocky landing woke everyone up when we landed in Frankfurt, but we were all pretty tired. We drove for a few hours to a town called Heidelberg. Heidelberg is famous for being the place where the Heidelberg Confession was written. It has a cute little old town and a fairly well preserved castle overlooking the city. It was our first stop and we took the opportunity to walk through the old town and visit the castle.


It was a great time for team bonding and for disc tossing. For those keeping score at home, I think there were half a dozen buildings hit,


a few road signs,


two parked cars, two moving cars,


one river,


and no tourists hit (though it was close a couple times).


Heidelberg loves a hammer!


From there we drove on to the town we were staying in (I don't remember the name). It was a quaint little German town and we had a wonderful and very gracious host. We had a very good meal of sausage and sauerkraut in a restaurant that just dripped with personality (or sausage grease). Our meal was interrupted by this man though...


He came into the restaurant and sang a little song before going on a monologue in German. Come to find out, he was just giving out the evening news to the local shops. Why he needed a battle axe to do that was beyond me. After a good night's sleep, the tournament started up!

It was a cold, cold morning. Coming from Adana, where the highs are still over 90 some days here in late October, having lows in the single digits (Celsius) was hard to deal with. But all the excitement of finally getting to play some ultimate kept me warm.

Andrew teaching me end zone plays with Oreos.
As did my snazzy ski cap, which bore the marks of good hustle, and thick chalk lines.

You can't teach heart.
We played extremely well, if I can speak for the team. Everyone was hustling and playing smart. Our offense ran smooth, relying on short, precision passes for most of our scores. This was mostly due to the wind we had that first morning and the fact that one of our handlers (me) was very rusty. Though the team played well, I felt like I was out of the flow of the game for most of the day. I was always a step behind on defense, out of position on offense, and my throws just did not do what I wanted them to. But, despite my poor performance, we were 4-0 at the end of the day. Enjoy some pics from day one.

Everyone is cold, but happy.
Our cup resulted in two Callahan's the first day.
Good hands resulted in lots of points.
Rock resulted in the destruction of scissors.
Which led to victory.
Which then led to drinks for all.
Which led to everyone's Türk Kası (Turkish Muscle, aka Beer Belly).
The best part of the weekend was the camaraderie. Not only did our team really bond well, but we bonded with other teams as well. There was a team from Germany made entirely of native English speakers named Mother Tongue that we really hit it off well with. After an emotional feeling circle and throwing down on the dance floor for a while, we all got cleaned up and headed out for a nice dinner of sausage and sauerkraut with Mother Tongue.

You played well today Matt, please don't cry.
Yes, over 30 years later, it's still ELECTRIC!
They should've drank more.
I say that because Mother Tongue was our first game on Sunday. You would've thought we were the ones hung over by the way we played. We got crushed by them, and by the Junior National Team, and by Dreisden. That's right, after going 4-0 on the first day, we got beat pretty soundly by all three opponents on Sunday. We were all very tired, having left it all on the field Saturday. But in our defense, the only three teams that beat us were the #1-#3 teams in the tournament. We played the Junior National Team in the third place game and they came away victorious leaving us in fourth place. 4-4 and taking home 4th place isn't bad considering that most of the team had only been playing for a year and that their last trip to a tournament only resulted in one win. We were a little disappointed, sure. But in the end, we were very happy with how we finished. We played hard, we did our best, and we had a BLAST doing it. The pictures just can't capture the perfect weather, the festive atmosphere, or the incredible bonds that were formed during that weekend... but I'm going to put a few up anyways.

It seems that Dreisden was watching when we ran our cup.
But no cup can stop this.
We'll play anybody, anywhere, anytime.

After another great feeling circle, a shower, we hit the road headed home. We ran into some nasty traffic and had some fun tossing candy to a car-full of Mother Tongue players.

3 out of 4 ain't bad at that speed.
Yes, we lost to them.
We also passed time by playing fun car games. After a weekend being together, having a ton of fun, and toughing out some grueling games, I was not prepared to hear some of the stories that came up (Sorry Ken, but you just don't have the legs to be wearing a dress).

The smiles on our faces cover up the pain in our legs.
We arrived at the airport just in time for me and Ally to sprint through to the check in counter and catch our plane before it took off. Special thanks to the kind Turks (aren't they all) that helped us in the airport. But that was when the greatest tragedy happened. They wouldn't let me bring my twelve pack of Dr. Pepper back with me. So what is there to do?

Here's to you, crappy airplane laws.
Share! They wouldn't let us take it on, so everybody grabbed a can and toasted Germany for such a wonderful weekend.

Crappy airline laws kept the desk worker from enjoying the moment with us.
We made it to the gate just in time to toss the disc around for a few minutes and climb on board. All in all, it was one of the most fun weekends I've had in a long, long time. It was great to meet all the guys and gals from Türk Kası and share the field of Ultimate with them. Friendships were born and memories made that will last a lifetime. Hopefully this is not the last time I get to toss the disc around with the fine folks from Türk Kası!