Ik bij 't polo

thanks to Anna...ik bij het polo evenement van afgelopen weekend.

Last but not least....Aki van Andel & Luis Saenz

Strafschop, ride off, line of the ball..... it's polotime

Polo: Amsterdam Polo Trophy 2006

Yesterday was the second try to see some polo (and poloplayers) in the Netherlands. A vew months ago I visited Anna with the intention to visit horses by the sea, but that event was canceled due weather conditions. So yesterday some poloplayers visited Amsterdam (Amsterdamse Bos) and Anna and I were there to watch them.

The moning started sticky and cloudy and with some raindrops. After I picked up Anna of Muiderpoort trainstation and we dressed up to the dress code we left for the train to Amsterdam Amstel to get the bus over there to the Amsterdamse Bos (the woods of Amsterdam...) As soon as we got out of the bus, it started to rain (yeps you can start laughing, always when it should be nice weather it starts to rain) and as soon as we got on the pologround it started to rain even harder. Luckily we could sit dry, but we had to pray for better weather conditions....

With a delay of 45 minutes the tournament started and although there were still lots of clouds there was no rain anymore. First match was Al Metejon Polo Ranch (red shirts) against Porsche Centrum Amsterdam (yellow shirts). A quick introduction:

El Metejon Polo Ranch = Harry van Andel (0), Martin Hartman (-1), Julio Bouchon (4) and Armand van Eken.

Porsche Centrum Amsterdam = Brenda de Boer (0), Edward de Kroes (2), Nicky Grooss (2), Carlitos Ortiz Centenno(1).

Probalby due to the slippery underground the game started very soft. No quick actions and all together at a square meter. Not a lot of excitement, but as the chukka's past by (four instead of the normal six, at least I believe there are six) the game got better.

After the first match all the people had to entere the polo zone (treading in) and put some grass back in place. As we had the perfect spots we decided to eat some food and watch the people and think who that hot guy could be we saw passing by before the first match (...we though it must be a number two...and it was a number two, but it was one of the umpires... who was already in the match at the first match...must be the helmets that makes them unrecognizable)

After repreparing the grass, the Veuve Clicquot Ladies Race (pretty obvious I am not moving around this people, did not know thatVeuve Clicquot = champagne brand ) and some more waiting match number. As there were already tons of kids around at the first match, I am still surprised were they were coming from at the start of the second match... Their number was increasing steadily and the noise they were making tripled. And on top of that, a mother was screaming at them over my head.... and it took here a while before she realised it.. If you want to take your kids with you get there in time and keep an eye on them or leave them with the au pair (they really where there, the au pairs).

Anyway, second match. Scapa Sports (blue shirts) against Rolex (green shirts).

Scapa sports: Michael Redding (2), Gerry de Cloedt (1), Luis Saenz (3), Kiki Grooss (-1)

Rolex: Jim Souren(0), Peter Holsbeek(0), Aki van Andel (3), Niels van Baasbeek (2).

At first I was thinking about cheering for the blue shirts.... because who the hell goes for green (and one had yellow bandages....) but soon (after I told some kids to sit still and shut up...which helped for three seconds) I changed sides and starting to cheer for green. They played with way more attitude. I wasn't jumping around, but it game close! Great match...want to see more of this ones... made me think of the ones I saw in Argentina..... Just great!

The green team- Rolex - won the match in the last minute. It was tight, but it was so great, a perfect ending of the day. To put some cream on top of it, we stayed to watch the ceremony. Watch the umpire and all the polo players, what a treat (well, at least some of them hahahaha).

And what about the public? I would be suprised if everybody has seen some polo, guess there was a lot of networking going on. Maybe I should do some next time (yeh right, nice try).

PS: best player of the day, just through my eyes, was Aki (Alexander) van Andel. Strangest player the guy with the snowboard on wheels. How desperate for attention can you be (or how much free time can you have??).....

Amsterdam Polo Trophy 23 september 2006

Alvast een korte sneak preview van de actie tijdens de Amsterdam Polo Trophy. Anna en ik waren het er allebei roerend over eens...volgens jaar meerdere gaan we naar meerdere toernooien..... Wedstrijd een kom het qua spannening niet halen bij de wedstrijden bekenen in Pilar (Tortugas Country Club ), maar de tweede was erg spannend!

morgen een uitgebreid verhaal met alle ins and outs en wat meidenpraat!

Not watching horses by the sea - Saturday

Saturday morning no reason to rush. We had a slow breakfast. Nicely reading the newspaper. Love that! After that, another moment of “activity” planning. Weather still sucked, and the tournament was already cancelled for today. It did not need any discussion, we would go to Antwerpen and do some shopping and for me to just look around. To see what Antwerpen is like. Anna’s dad did the driving. We did some shopping in between loads of rain, had a really nice lunch with Anna and her parents in some Danish restaurant (way to much chicken and pasta, but really nice, I should practise to make it that way), did some more shopping’s and had a Belgian Waffel with strawberries (really nice again).

At the end of the day I also bought a really nice pair of pillowcases (the sheet wasn’t a sheet, so that was a bit of a pity) and nice summer shoes (I can go classic). Antwerpen is a nice city. I have to go back there some day to make some pictures, some more shopping and enjoying sitting outside)
We came back around five and decided I would take the train around six. When Anna dropped me off, a train to Roosendaal just left the train station. Some small bells started to ring and they became louder when the normal yellow timetables were exchanged by blue ones….. Right, I had to take the touristic route.

Everything went well till we left Tilburg, when we had to wait for a slow train to get in the station. When we were close to Den Bosch I saw the Amsterdam train passing by… and got a bit stressed out, because I wanted that train. So right before the train went into the station I got up and started to walk, almost stumbling over a huge bag in the middle of the angle. The owner of the bag started like: Just wait I am going to clean the angle blablabla…but I did not say anything… SO I just went like: Well, I really want THAT train…and he was like...well me too (well, that makes two of us). Then he was like…but you don’t have to worry, because it is gonna stop at the other side of the platform, and I was like: Well, but it going to another platform so we have to run….
So as soon as the train stopped we took off and got jammed on the way up… So I was like: You still think we are gonna make it…and some people in front of us were as friendly to just let us move on. We were able to jump in and the train took off. Furthermore everything went fine. I decided to stay on this train till Amsterdam Amstel and then wait for the train to Amsterdam Muiderpoort, instead of chancing in Utrecht.

Around nine twenty I was back home. I did some e-mail reading, some reading and went to bed early. Although I did not see a horse or poloplayer, it was nice weekend…

pictures made by horses at the sea 2004 (http://www.horsesbythesea.nl/)

Watching horses by the sea - Friday

i Watching horses by the sea was the plan of this weekend. But as rain was falling out of the air on Thursday I thought that watching some polo players wasn’t going to happen on friday. When I was hanging in the train towards Kruiningen, Anna gave me a ring and told me the plans where off. The grounds were soaking and it was way too windy. All kinds of equipment was flying around. Oh well, just visiting Kruiningen and hanging out is nice as well. At one o’clock I arrived in Kruiningen where Anna picked me up in her new car and we drove to her house to have a drink and to rethink our plans.

Okay, Plan B. Shopping in Goes. As I have never been into Goes (except for one evening when it was already dark) it was a new experience to go there (can put it off my list :-)). It is a nice little village. It looks really nice with the old houses and no high buildings. Guess I do understand why people love to life over here. We did not a lot of shopping, but I bought a nice shirt. And we had a nice drink and a bit later dinner.

Although dinner was nice it was not a lot. We wanted to go for tapas, but it were not really tapas (maybe this is why the woman who write down the advertisement by Tappas) , and we should probably have settled for some extra bread and chips. But what we got was nice. After dinner we went back home and sat down with the family to watch a movie on the television. And I just have to say: Harrison Ford stays creepy, dirty and brrrrrrr… (I believe we watched The Fugitive).

Around half past one we went to bed. It was still windy and raining like hell, but I missed it all, because I just fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

picture: El Tortugas Country Club , 3th of October 2005 , Pilar - Argentina,