First Day of Practice

Courtney, Jessica, and I

Today marked the first day of practice.  I would consider it more of a pre-season practice.  Not all the girls on the team were able to attend today's practice.  Some are in the United States taking some classes and others were injured.  One girl had broken her toe and another girl hurt her back before practice.  Before we got dressed for practice, we warmed up, which consisted of jogging, high-knees, lunges, etc.  Once we were dressed, we took to the ice.  We mostly did some power skating drills for the first half of practice, which worked on our edges and our skating technique.  The second half, we did some skating drills with pucks, which we were able to fire on net at the end of the drill.  The team is young but seems to be promising.  They definitely are eager to learn more and become better hockey players.  After practice, Courtney, Jessica, and I put on the Neuberg Highlanders jerseys for the first time and took head shot photos for the team's website.  After that, the team and I went for a run outside the arena as a cool-down, which I enjoyed a lot.  We have two more days left of "pre-season" training this week, tomorrow and Tuesday.  I'm looking forward to getting to know the girls on the team more and to get back into the flow on the ice.

Leberknödelsuppe und Bier

After practice, our manager, Margret, took Courtney, Jessica, and I to a restaurant next to the arena.  There, we just had to try Austrian beer again.  We also tried some Austrian dumpling soup known as Leberknödelsuppe.  We had the sweet dumpling dessert a couple days prior, but we decided to try the dumpling soup this time.  We were unsure of what we were eating at the time, but both Courtney and I enjoyed it quite well.  Jessica unfortunately didn't crave it as much as the rest of us.  Little did we know that "leber" means liver.  We were eating liver dumpling soup.  It seemed better not to know what we were eating before we ate it.  If we knew it was liver, we probably wouldn't have eaten it, let alone enjoyed it.  But we enjoyed it for the most part until we came home and looked it up on Google.com.  For my meal, I tried wiener schnitzel!  It was very tasty.  I have enjoyed all my meals so far in Austria and I can't wait to try more.  That's all I have for you tonight.  I will continue to keep you posted on my stay here in Austria.  Gute Nacht! (Good Night!)