Hey, I got a lot to tell to you guys. So make some time, sit back, and read.

To start off, this is Leonor's last weekend here in Firenze. On Sunday she returns to Lisbon, after spending half a year here. That's a sad thing since I've been living with her for the last five months, and she has been an amazing roommate. So the last couple of weeks we've been looking for a new roommate. And last week we made a decision. Our new roommate is a Dutch girl, from Utrecht. Sounds familiar right? I know. It was a coincidence though, she wanted more information about the room we had for rent, and she turned out to be the best candidate out of quite a lot. She's actually moving in as we speak.

How we met the people for the room was actually quite an experiment. A lot of people couldn't be physically here to see the room, so we spoke to them on skype. Strange right? Even though our amazing internet just failed a couple of times, we managed to clearly make up our mind. So Roos was chosen before we even physically saw her.

Something completely different now:
As some of you might know, though I think most of you don't, I started playing baseball again. I'm playing for the under 21 team of Fiorentina Baseball. And this club just keeps surprising me.
When I signed up, they told me to do a physical exam, to see if I have no heart problems or something of that nature. If the results were ok I could come and play. Did I have to pay any form of contribution? No! The baseball team is run on governmental money, which I think is amazing. It doesn't mean that they have a lot of money though, but it makes the sport accessible for everybody.

Then I found out that trainings are three times a week, all taking two and a half hours. So by now I'm spending about seven and a half hours a week on just trainings. That's the same amount of hours compared with what I used to do when I was playing in Holland. The only difference is that in Holland it also includes about five hours that I needed on game-day.
Than last week this trainer of this youth-team comes up to me, and asks me if I could give him a hand with the trainings on Wednesday and Thursday, because he was just short of a pair of hands. So that adds four hours a week to my time on the baseball field. Which results to a training total of 11,5 hours a week. I know, that's a lot, but it feels good.

Then I found out that the under 21 team just has five games to play this season. And those five games are all against the same opponent. Apparently Grosetto and Firenze make the under 21 league of the region Toscane. So what to do with the rest of the time in the baseball season? I think I'll complement the season by also playing for the adult team if they let me.

Also the team is in for a tournament in Holland, so that's something that I'm trying to organize right now together with the red caps. So maybe somewhere in the beginning of August, or at the end of September, I will be playing with this team against the club that I've been playing for for over ten years. It will be a lot of fun, but also slightly bizar.

I know, I'm going on and on about this, but I'm just so excited to play again, and happy to feel welcome in the team. So please, excuse me but I still got one more amazing thing about this club. It's the single most inspiring thing that I've encountered in my time playing baseball.

This baseball organisation has a team for blind people!!! I'll get back to you on how it exactly works after I've written my 'Baseball for dummies' for my roommates, who want to see a game of mine. I'll also upload it here because it surprises me how little people sometimes know about baseball. As an example: Roos came here last Tuesday to meet us, and we were just talking about ourselves, when I mentioned I'm completely obsessed by baseball. Her response was: 'Well, you're tall, so that's a good thing'. She was obviously thinking about basketball, and even Hugo, who doesn't care about sports was offended. Because honestly, baseball non se frega niente di altezza (I hope that's gramatically correct).

But as I said, I'll get back on that one, because it deserves its own page on my blog.

See ya.