Volleyball

I just go back from heading out to play volleyball. I'm so glad I went! I'd heard that the university I'm at has lots of opportunities to play sports. Someone had mentioned volleyball, so I looked it up online. The site was completely in German, but I could pick out a few words, including "volleyball" and "Mondays at 19:00." It was in some funny-named gym, that on the map, didn't look too far from my dorm. I gave myself half an hour to walk there, and good thing, since naturally I got lost. I was pretty nervous walking there. I didn't really know what to expect or whether I'd be able to find the place. And volleyball is one of those things where you have to be playing with people at the right skill level. They can't be awful, or you never get a volley going and it's just boring. And for me, they can't be too good. Otherwise, it's impossible for me to do anything right, and I just feel like I'm in the way. Well, I did find the gym. There were a lot of people there; three courts filled the gym. A guy came up to me and asked in German if I wanted to play volleyball. I think I looked lost. I said yes and immediately added that I only speak English. So we bumped and set back and forth. Everyone was just warming up. It wasn't until about 8:00 that we'd start playing a game. When the time came, the guy I'd been warming up with (I think Kyle was his name or something similar to that) told me the other courts were a little bit easier and I should probably head over there. Good thing, because I was definitely intimidated by the skill of the people on that court. I went to where they only had only four vs. five and made the teams even. I think I was the worst one out there, but I wasn't ridiculously bad compared to everyone else. Afterward, some of the people introduced themselves to me, including a girl named Maria. She was very friendly and told me there was volleyball again tomorrow night at 10:00. She'd go if I went, so I agreed. We decided to take a bus back since it was raining--big surprise: rain. I was looking at the weather forecast for the next week and every day in Aachen for the next six days, weather.com predicts rain.--While we were waiting for the bus, the topic came up, and I told Maria I was a Christian. She is too! When we got off the bus, I went to her place. She has an apartment in the city. She told me about some churches in Aachen and said we should go together if we're both in town. She also showed me some pictures of her family and friends. She has three brothers; she's the third child. Her parents both coach volleyball, so that explains why she's into it. We're both Facebook friends now. We tried to make a profile for me on StudiVZ, the German version of Facebook, but it didn't really work. MSU wasn't in their system. I tried again later with RWTH and now I have an account.
So can you believe it? I made a new friend just by going to play volleyball. And there is volleyball every week Monday and Tuesday evenings so I can play more if I want to! I'm already starting to learn the German volleyball vocabulary. "Aus" is "out"; use "habe ich" for I've got it. I'm definitely glad I took a step out of my comfort zone and went to play volleyball instead of sitting alone back in my dormroom all evening like I felt like doing.