Read Me! This One's a Münster

I feel like as soon as I type "history" everyone is going to immediately open a different tab and open up Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram; nonetheless, I'm going to take the plunge and attempt to win you over with a little history!  *Pushes glasses back onto bridge of nose and clears throat*

30 Years War

Ring a bell? If not, either high school was too long ago or you fell asleep during your Western History class, as it is one of the most important (and longest, obviously) wars in European history.  Germany was especially effected, losing 20% of it's population and thereby constituting this war as the country's second biggest catastrophe, right behind (you guessed it) World War II.  And how do we suppose it all started? Your guess may fall short of the answer unless you are familiar with the Defenestration of Prague, a fancy way of saying someone was thrown out a window (defenestration = literally, the act of throwing someone or something out of a window) and into some poop.  If you think I'm joking - look it up!  

Oh S***!  Saved By Poop

On May 23rd of 1618, four Catholic Regents met with a group of Protestant Lords to discuss their involvement in ordering the cessation of churches on royal land.  Two were declared innocent and free to leave, but the other two weren't so lucky and were chucked from a 70 foot high window to fall to their deaths.  Luckily for them, angels swept from the sky to save them (or so everyone said), but really they fell into a heap of manure allowing them to stomp angrily back to the Catholic Hapsburgs and rally allies against the Protestant estates (who were also hastily calling friends to their cause).  

What a bunch of squares.. Seen below are pictures from Osnabrück.  The city's main church, it's courtyard, and the fanciest Fachwerkhaus I've seen!

As you can imagine, the war didn't last for 30 years because someone got poop on their Lederhosen, multiple countries eventually joined in and a series of wars were fought over the three decades that ultimately radically shifted the balance of power in Europe.  Eventually, everyone decided they'd had enough and 194 sovereign states emerged as a result of the Treaty of Westphalia, which was signed in.... Osnabrück and Münster!  The necessity of two cities was due to the thousands of ambassadors, diplomats, and supporting staff who needed to be fed and housed during the time it took to come into a peace agreement.  Since E-Mail, telephones, and text messages weren't available at this time, creating this agreement was not by any means quick, and took around 4 years to complete.  Fast forward ahead a few centuries and Münster was made to be the headquarters for 6th Military District of the German Wehrkreis in World War II.  It had a large military presence, making it an obvious target for Allied forces and was unsurprisingly badly bombed in 1943, destroying 63% of the city and 91% of the historic Altstadt (old city).  

"The target was a built-up section of Munster, and I thought it was rather inappropriate that this large set of steps to one big building in Munster was picked out as the aiming point. I'm not sure now whether it was a church or not, but it seemed to me that it was." - B17 American Pilot Keith E. Harris

Thankfully, the Münsterians (ha) have pride in their city and it's history and rebuilt everything we see today to match it's pre-war state.  And if you're wondering - NO! - cheese is not made here!  (I wondered this and every German I asked looked at me with an expression of "What the hell are you talking about?")  Come to find out, the muenster cheese we buy in the States is not only made in the U.S., but has nothing to do with this city!  Whoops. 

Muenster cheese

Münster city - Outdoor movie at a castle anyone?

One of Münster's center-most churches jutting into view along the main boardwalk. 

More Münster, still no cheese.

For a day of training we participated in running 11km of a 50km run from Osnabrück to Münster, called the Freidenslauf (Peace Run).  The Scottish fellah putting on the run (seen below in a kilt), was also raising funds for the 200 kidnapped young girls in Nigeria.  An amazing man and amazing people who ran the entire 50km in support of him and his cause!!

The team in Münster after the Friedenslauf.

A Phrase I Wish I Never Learned: "I'm Tired"

Tired? (Time I Re-Evaluate Dang it!)

"I'm tired."

I bet we've all heard or said this a few times this week, heck maybe even a few times today.  From the coffee drinker who needs a steaming hot cup of java in hand to the ER doctor who works from dawn till dusk saving lives.  And it's true, I'm sure you are/were/are going to be tired because hey, we are human and therefore need sleep to function.  But how often do we say this, not because we need sleep, but because we've decided that's how we're feeling. "I'm tired" holds us back more than we should let it and is probably one of the worst used excuses in the history of mankind.

The human body is capable of so much more than we give it credit for.  Only a few people unlock it's potential and show the rest of us what it can do.  What if the following people had said they were "too tired"?

Roger Bannister - First man to say "screw you" to the 4 minute mile
60 years ago running a sub 4-minute mile was "sports greatest goal" and something "as elusive and seemingly unattainable as Everest" but Sir Bannister (yes he is called "sir") shattered the preconceived limitations we put on the human body and broke the 4 minute mark on May 6th, 1954.  Four days before his 60th anniversary of this run he announced he had Parkinson's, and continues to be an inspiration in his fight against this difficult disease.

"Whatever barrier there had been was psychological rather than physical..." - Sir Roger Bannister

The Navy SEALS - Regarded as the most physically and mentally elite military personnel in the world
The SEALS go through likely the most mentally and physically arduous challenges of today's time.  But "tired" is redefined during the SEAL's infamous "Hell Week", where they are pushed to the limits while running on less than 4 hours of sleep for 5 and a half brutal days.

"I will never quit. I persevere and thrive on adversity. My Nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates and to accomplish our mission. I am never out of the fight." - from the SEAL Code

Alex Honnold - The "Michael Jordan" of free climbing
Bet you've never heard of this guy.  He is the best at what he does, and what he does most people would classify as insane.  Not only is it physically demanding, it's stupidly brave and mentally exhausting.  Climbing without a rope is like going "All In" in a high stakes game of poker, but instead of the chance of losing your money on a calculated gamble, you put your life at stake.  Some may call him crazy and reckless, some may call him bad ass, I call him inspiring.  Check him out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leCAy1v1fnI#t=87

Diana Nyad - Elite endurance swimmer...who is 62 years old 
In recent news, aka last fall, Diana Nyad finally conquered her life long dream of swimming from Cuba to Key West.  One sentence to summarize a hard fought, life-long struggle doesn't do her justice, because not only does she defy the odds of gender, but age as well.  An inspiration for all people, women especially, Diana swam 103 miles for 41 long hours to shame us all for thinking a 10 hour work day is long.  Hey Webster, why don't you put her name under "perseverance" in your next dictionary update?

''You can’t start to get into negative spaces…telling yourself it hurts too much, maybe another day… because even people with an iron will [can] talk themselves out of stuff and quit when things get tough.'' - Diana Nyad

So what brought all this on you may ask?  The phrase: eat, sleep, workout (repeat) may ring a bell with any athletes reading this, and there really isn't much of a truer statement for my past week in Deutschland.  I found out on Sunday that we were going to have 14 practices this week.  On the exterior I tried to be stoically professional, while on the inside I was crying a little (and if my coach reads this he now knows the truth - NOOO! haha).


Let's see here... doesn't take a genius to do this math... 7 days in the week, 2 practices a day... repeat the  next week.  My first thought, "I'm tired just thinking about this", my second thought "Shut up Alysa, what an opportunity to get better", and my third thought "thank you Wellspring for teaching me how to function without sleep/going all day, everyday".

Now that it's Friday evening and I'm 10 practices in, I can't help but want to go back and slap myself a bit for even having that first thought run through my mind.  Though sore, tired, and hurting a little now, it's all been (and will continue to be) worth it.  I'm incredibly lucky to have the push of my team and coaches to get me up and going in the direction I need to everyday, because without that I know "I'm tired" would win quite a bit of the time and I would miss so many opportunities to challenge myself and grow.


My challenge (not only to myself, but all of you), is when that feeling of "I'm tired" is creeping in..no matter what you've done that day or think you have tomorrow or later on, reevaluate, because life is too short to miss opportunities and we have too much to be grateful for (health, family, friends, etc.) to take it for granted.

The OSC (training center) front desk.

Training for (and with) basketball at the track. 

The preseason squad ready to work! (Except for Jewels who is probably wondering why I'm taking a picture instead of stretching and warming up).

The OSC gym where we practice and will play.  

Thanks for reading all, more to come soon! :)

Meine Neue Stadt (My New City) - Osnäbruck

My new apartment.                                                       The Pauluskirche, aka the church down the road.

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Guten Tag from Osnäbruck!

With a new year overseas, the blog is back for your reading pleasure ..or distaste.. But I assume if you make it to the bottom of this page or if you are one of my 30 loyal readers (thanks!!) then you have good taste in reading material! ;) 

This first post comes after a lonnnnggg day and night of traveling yesterday.  I left San Diego at 11:30am after my first flight, meant to leave 8am, was delayed due to mechanical issues.  I guess that does happen in other places than Kodiak, Alaska, where I swear every other flight is delayed.  That meant my 4:15am wake-up was almost for nothing and the next hour would be spent rebooking as I could no longer make my connecting flight from Atlanta to Düsseldorf.  No harm done, other than I had to listen to an angry vegan harass the staff at Qdoba for "her burrito touching that piece of cheese on the counter... Now you have to throw it out and make a new one!!"  I guess cheese molecule transfer to tortilla officially makes the tortilla a milk product.  

My flight from Detroit landed in time for me to power-walk to my next flight, which left for Amsterdam 40 minutes later.  The 8 hour flight was rather miserable.  I was smashed between a college student from Uganda studying in Nepal (interesting) and a Dutch lady who was a bit bigger than the seat and incidentally took up a bit of my space.  It wasn't all too bad until the kid from Uganda fell asleep on my shoulder after having a serious talk about the conditions in his country.  I felt like not waking him would be some sort of tiny U.S. reimbursement for not helping more with the terrible 94' genocide in that region of Africa. 

Well, now I can officially say I've been to Amsterdam, although I didn't find the airport too exciting other than it smelled like Europe again...and yes, apparently Europe has a particular smell to it because a whirlwind of memories from last year came flashing back as I stepped out of the flight-bridge-connector-thingamajig.  

Fast forward to Düsseldorf and my bag is no where to be found.  Apparently it was still on it's way from Atlanta, Georgia.  (Not surprised, it didn't call the airport customer service like I did).  Nonetheless, my coach and the team manager picked me up and we made the 1.5 hour drive to Osnäbruck.  During that ride, I felt like that kid in class who didn't get enough sleep and was stuck in a boring lecture because I could not keep me eyes open for the life of me and felt pretty rude when I woke up and realized we were at our final destination.  

The backside of the Pauluskirche, you can see it's crack and everything. (haha) 

After a really weird night of sleep, I woke up to Sunday church bells ringing like they were right outside my window.  It wasn't until later on that I realized the ringing originated from the Pauluskirche, a church only 300m down the road.  Not a bad alarm clock though if I do say so myself.  A few of my teammates took me to brunch later on, and after eating 2 months of non-fat Wellspring food, it was like heaven (no offense Wellspring, hehe).  After the big breakfast, I was happy to go exploring around my neighborhood and found the coolest little gardens.

Apparently people over here rent out spaces and grow all sorts of things from flowers to fruit.  I even saw some kids playing, so make that flowers, fruit, and kids.  I instantly thought that had my mom been there, she would of have wanted to move into one of the little garden sheds and see how green her thumb is.

On the way back home I stopped by the cigarette vending machine and got some smokes.  NOT!  But this particular vending machine was on a random street in the suburbs, what the heck?!  Europeans and their smoking, I mean really guys, it's not the 1960's anymore!  

Stay tuned :)