Globetrotting with the Big Green: Larsson-Sax & Nedelchev

Globetrotting with the Big Green Archives

In upcoming weeks, Dartmouth men's soccer players who are spending the winter term abroad will check in with DartmouthSports.com, starting with sophomores Teo Larsson-Sax and Stoian Nedelchev.

Summer greetings from Sydney, Australia! We (Stoian Nedelchev '13 and Teo Larsson-Sax '13) are spending our winter term down under studying and playing soccer at the University of Sydney. We are both taking a "Philosophy of Happiness" class that has proven to be very interesting and far more mind-boggling than we expected. Teo's second course is also a philosophy course concerning "Practical Ethics" so both his courses will count towards his philosophy major at Dartmouth while Stoian's second course in "Microeconomics" will count towards his Economics minor.

Combining school, travel and soccer down here at this time of the year has proven to be a near perfect combination! We have class Monday through Thursday, three hours a day with Friday free, leaving a long weekend to our disposal. Typically we have class in the morning and then jump on the bus or the ferry and hit up one of the many beaches that are under an hour away from where we are staying. As the sun slowly starts setting in the afternoon we head back and either have soccer practice or hit the gym before studying in the evening. We have been lucky enough to be allowed to practice with the University of Sydney soccer team that plays in the second highest league in Australia. The team is run as an independent club team so it has contracted players who aren't students as well as players who are studying at the university. Since their season starts in the spring, they are currently in preseason so in addition to playing we get some good fitness workouts in. We also conveniently have a pool in the building we live in and a gym right across the street so there are no excuses for slacking off. Sydney is an incredibly diverse city. It is packed with students and travelers from all over the world. During our time here we have met people from every corner of the globe including Brazil, Japan, Sweden, Germany, USA and more. Sydney's amazing diversity and the friendly Australian locals makes it easy to fit in and creates a very welcoming and open atmosphere despite the large population.

A couple of weeks ago we took advantage of one of our long weekends and travelled to Melbourne where we watched Djokovic defeat Federer in the Australian Open Men's semifinal at Rod Laver Arena. We also watched the final outside the stadium and the atmosphere at the tournament was incredible. In-between the tennis we walked around the city as much as we could in the heavy heat. One of the past days the temperature difference between here and Dartmouth was over 100 degrees!

This past weekend we took the train to the Blue Mountains, which is a national park only two hours away from the city. The view from the top of the mountains was overwhelming. We travelled down the mountainside using the world's steepest railway track, hiked through the rain forest and took a fresh shower in a secluded waterfall. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience!

On our way home from Sydney we will make a stop in Hong Kong for a little less than a week. We will then continue to Germany where we will meet up with teammate Sean Donovan in Berlin before heading back to Dartmouth. Thanks to the Dartmouth "D-Plan" we have been able to take the opportunity to travel and see other parts of the world. This has filled us with lots of energy and we are now looking forward to returning to Dartmouth and joining the rest of the team in preparation for the 2011 season.

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