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Members of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh women’s soccer team have embarked on an overseas trip with stops in both Holland and Germany.

The players, coaches and family members left Oshkosh on Thursday, May 18, and will return on Sunday, May 28. While abroad, the team will play a few games, watch a professional soccer game and bond over traveling together in a foreign country.

These experiences will be shared via a blog by two student-athletes, Katie Schauer, a senior studying journalism, and Maddie Morris, a sophomore pre-nursing student.

Women's soccer team

Day 1

Halo (“hi” in Dutch)

Four-thousand miles later and the UW Oshkosh women’s soccer team has arrived in Amsterdam. One long night of traveling makes for 16 very tired girls! We hopped off the plane at 6:45 a.m. and began our adventures.

Our first stop on the trip was walking around the city. It’s similar to what you’d expect a European city to look like; old buildings with brick roads and then you see modern buildings that made you want to stop in each one of them.

Walking past bakeries you couldn’t help but take in the mouth-watering smells. Indulging in the bakery treats were not a disappointment.

Our tour guide, Niek, explained to us some of the cool things to see. One of the coolest things we walked through was the Red Light District.

Women's soccer team

After touring around the city and shopping, next on the agenda was lunch. Lunch and shopping in the city? What more could a girl ask for? Soon the jetlag started to sink in and it was time to make our way back to the hotel.

On the train back the team was so tired that everyone started to fall asleep, but the day wasn’t over! We still had to have dinner. Luckily dinner at Elders Restaurant was AMAZING. Prime ribs and cheese croquettes was a perfect way for everyone to end the night in good spirits. Overall the day was so much fun and made us so excited for the rest of the trip!

Day 2

Our first stop of the second day of this soccer journey was to visit the Amsterdam Arena, where Ajax and the Dutch National teams play.

soccer game

On first arrival, you could hear the “oohs” and “aahs” from a few teammates just admiring the sheer size and glory of the stadium. Renovated in the last 10 years, the stadium is a staple for the town of Amsterdam and is a symbol of the beauty that soccer can bring.

Within our tour, we saw the incredible dressing rooms for both sides, walked the halls of the legends, gave press conferences to our fellow teammates and much more. Since it is concert season here, there is no pitch (field), instead the stage for the numerous acts fills this venue.

A truth breathtaking experience with a little history lesson thrown in there as well.

After our morning tour, we took a bus to SC Buitenveldert, a local Holland club team, and had lunch in their clubhouse to prepare for our afternoon match. With a bit of fear for playing a local team, we hit the field with smiles on our faces.

Women's soccer team

Even with our sore legs from all the traveling the previous day, we worked hard to make the most of the game and experience no matter what the score was. It makes the game more challenging when you can’t understand the language of the opposing squad, but the basic principles of our game remain unchanged.

After the game we handed our UW-Oshkosh soccer shirts to the opposing team to share a little memory with them and also took a combined photo as a memory for the both of us.

After a quick wash up in the locker rooms, we boarded a 40-minute bus ride to the Utrecht stadium to watch a semi-pro Dutch match. Upon walking in the stadium, you could feel the passion the fans had for their team as well as for the sport.

With Utrecht winning the game 2-1, the atmosphere was perfect for a mini dance party to celebrate the win as well as our second day in the Netherlands.

After a busy soccer day, we returned to the hotel with our heads filled with many more memories from just our second day abroad.

Day 3 

Day three began with an early morning bus trip to Volendam.

Obviously being in a foreign country means that we have no idea where we’re going, but when the bus driver took us in circles, we knew enough that something wasn’t right.

After finally reaching our destination -with a few of us feeling the effects of the drive- we arrived in a new and beautiful city.

At this point we hadn’t seen a city quite like this. Being along the water, it had the charm of a beach town similar to one back in the United States, but with a whole different vibe.

Little shops and restaurants lined the streets and had a friendly vibe that made us want to stop in.

Lunch was on our own so we could pick what we wanted to eat. Since we were on the water, trying the fish seemed like an obvious choice. Aside from fish, some restaurants had the cutest little pancakes that were so sweet and perfect!

After spending a few hours walking around, we took a boat to the nearby city, Marken.

We all thought Volendam was interesting but Marken was even cooler! There were restaurants along the water and small souvenir shops, but the real sights came when you explored deeper into the city. The churches and canals were so pretty.

Cats were roaming around the streets and if you walked far enough you could see goats and sheep in the nearby fields. We headed back to our hotel to freshen up before dinner, which was at a Cuban restaurant. We had tapas which are small, shared plates. They were amazingly delicious.

We headed back to the hotel all full from dinner and got ready for the next day’s adventure.

Day 4

Our fourth day started early in the morning with fresh pastries, yogurt, meats and other Dutch delicacies in our hotel.

We then took a train into downtown Amsterdam, where we boarded an open top canal boat to see the various sights of the city. While on the boat we were given little history lessons about the architecture of the buildings and their importance.

While floating by in the warm weather, we saw many beautifully built churches, which dated back the 18th century.

Along the canal we also saw the very famous Anne Frank house, which was used as her hiding place during the Holocaust.

Many teammates enjoyed the boat tour because it allowed them to see the beauty and history of the city while simultaneously enjoying the warm weather of the day.

After our team boat tour, we were allowed to split up into different groups to make the most of our last day in Amsterdam.pro gamesmall

Many of parents chose to visit the floating market, which contained large barges that carried thousands of flowers for sale by merchants. Many said that the smell was “amazingly overwhelming, but was worth it for the eyes as well as the nose.”

No matter what each chose to do in Amsterdam, we all had a good time due to the sheer size of the city and numerous activities available. We were very sad that it was our last full day in Amsterdam, but the team was looking forward to our time in Berlin.

We ended our day at a Chinese restaurant roughly a mile’s walk from our hotel. At the restaurant we had buffet style food consisting of five meat dishes, which all the players sampled.

We ended the night with the long walk back home and the task of repacking our suitcases for our trip to Germany the next morning.

Before we departed, we made one last pit stop to Zaanse Schans to see the iconic windmills that make the Netherlands so famous.

We were in awe at the sheer size and power the windmills were able to generate for jobs, such as grinding cinnamon and making peanut oil.

Once we finished our time in the Netherlands, we boarded a train for a six-hour ride to Berlin. On the ride many read, looked at the scenery, played cards or caught up on the beast named “jet lag.”

Next Stop: Germany

Upon arrival to Berlin, we were all surprised about the big-city atmosphere it had to offer. Many girls compared Berlin to Chicago due to the high skyscrapers, above-ground tram system and bustling streets.

For our very first day in Germany, we were accompanied by our tour guide, Michael, for a seven-kilometer trip around the cobblestone streets of Berlin. This trip revealed the major historical monuments that line the streets. These sites varied from massive cathedrals to the very first Berlin university, which contained books that were burned by Hitler during WWII.

While many of us were not into history before this trip, we all gained an appreciation for the fine architecture that lined every building and learned about the rich culture that Berlin offers.

A site that we all will be sure to remember is the remains of the Berlin Wall. Throughout the whole city there are remnants of the wall, and there are also bricks sunken into the streets that indicate where East and West Berlin were once divided..

berlinsmallAnother memorable sight in Berlin was a Holocaust memorial, which contains 2,711 concrete slabs that can be accessed on all sides to represent the central affect that the Holocaust had on the Jewish people.

Berlin was a whole new experience that brought us so many different, cool and exciting places to go and see. But the main point of our trip was soccer, so soccer is what we had to do!!

After playing a game in Holland, we had some experience playing foreign teams on this trip. The next game we played was against FC Internationale Berlin.

The weather was nice, and we had a fun day touring around the city. So the challenge was being prepared to play after a long day of traveling and walking. Luckily, we played a lot better this time around, although we lost 1-0.

It’s always an experience playing a team from a different country. Many of the players spoke English as well as other languages fluently. We were just happy to walk away from that game playing better and keeping it a close game!

Our next challenge was playing again the following day. That’s hard any time we do it, but doing it abroad was even harder. Fortunately for us, we were playing in a seven-versus-seven tournament in Berlin. Smaller fields (less running), smaller goals (easier for our goalies) and less players per team made for a great time!

We split into two teams and entered the tournament, which was composed of clubs from around the area. The women we were playing were young and old, but it made for good competition.

The setting was typical German, fans watching and drinking beer (being loud too). It made for a cool experience as we were the only team from the U.S. One of our teams took third and the other placed sixth. Not too bad for our first time in this type of tournament and playing on tired legs!

The best part came after the tournament when we got to hang around  and experience what the Germans do. We enjoyed German brats, potato salad and lots of desserts. It was fun to sit around and talk to the people from other teams and the food was delicious. We were so popular that most of the other teams wanted to take pictures with us!

I’m glad we got to play both games in Germany because it showed us two different sides of soccer. We couldn’t have done it without our coach setting it up and we’re so happy she did!

Luckily, we had much more exciting things to do besides soccer.

Over the next few days in Berlin, we were able to choose our own activities.7v7 tournamentsmall

One morning we boarded a hop-on-off bus that made a large loop around the city, allowing people to have access to sites on the outskirts of town. Some people visited a popular destination called Museum Island, which contains five breathtaking museums for tourists to visit. Many others chose to hit the streets for some local shopping or food tasting (Currywurst was a fan favorite).

On our final night in Berlin we attended a local eatery to watch a professional BVB vs. Frankfurt game. Many of us were draped in black and yellow to support BVB (Coach Coppernoll and three players had won jerseys playing a street contest earlier that day). But no matter who we supported, the game was memorable.

BVB ended up raising the cup at the end of the game. With high spirits, we headed back to the hotel to prepare for our early flight the next morning.

With the memories that will last a lifetime, we closed our book on the journey that was the Netherlands and Germany. We participated in activities that ranged from playing the usual soccer game to canal trips to visiting historical islands. This trip truly was memorable for each and every one of us who make up this Oshkosh team.

Tot ziens (“See you later” in Dutch)

— Katie Schauer and Maddie Morris