Knee deep in the water somewhere...

Last game, last road trip—last ditch effort to end season on a positive note. Unfortunately, things did not go quite as planned and we left Rotenburg with a loss. It was poorly played, poorly coached and poorly refereed, so I’d rather not discuss the particulars. This was not the season I was hoping for in a lot of ways but I am still disappointed it’s over. Hopefully there is more basketball to be played in my future. Season is over now, but in one week I begin my vacation... so I got that going for me… which is nice.

Okay people, tickets are bought, hostels are booked. Bags. Are. Packed. And let me tell you, that was not a simple job. Packing for a month long, 4 country trip is wildly complicated (especially when I have to fit it all in the one bag you see) and I have no doubt that during my trip I will kick myself for overlooking some essentials; however, one thing I did not neglect is sunscreen—figure I’ll be set for like a year with my sun protection needs, but you just can’t be too safe when it comes to those pesky UV rays. They’ll getcha. Seriously, if you saw me last summer you understand why I am mildly compulsive about this now. I got sunburned so badly I looked like an actual burn victim. Don’t laugh—that crap wasn’t funny. Thus, I intend to never get burned again. But anyways, back to my actual travel plans; let’s dive right in, shall we?

I leave Monday the 26^th for Munich where I meet up with Sid and together we leave Tuesday for Zagrab, Croatia. At this point it will just be Sidney and I—Kelly’s passport expires so she has to race home to Holland and take care of that before she can join us. We will spend like a week and a half exploring Croatia, top to bottom. Our stops are: Zagreb, Zadar, Plitvice Lakes, Split and Dubrovnik. If you really want to hate your lives, google images of those places, they are incredible. The last 3 cities feature beaches that are world renowned, evidently. In each city we have different things planned from kayaking and rafting, to hiking and site seeing (museums/parks, castles etc). From Dubrovnik, we plan to head south to Montenegro—there is a city there, Kotor, which we really want to visit. After a couple days there, we will go to Mostar, Bosnia and explore for a few days. Then we head back to Munich. 

At this point, I break from the group and take off solo to Spain to visit my high school friend Max. He is teaching in Madrid so naturally I convinced him he wanted me to visit. This trip is a lot less structured, probably because I am in charge of the planning instead of Sidney. So, all I really know is I am flying into Barcelona and at some point I will meet up with Max in Madrid (which is a 7 hour bus ride away) and hang out with him for a while till I come back to Germany. I will probably spend some time exploring Barcelona before I go see Max, but who knows. It’s been years since I have learned or used Spanish, but I have been brushing up on it lately. Pretty sure it won’t be any better than my German though, let’s be real. So yeah, that is the trip… just your basic 3-4 week vacation. Ha. Who am I kidding, between Bosnia and Spain I am going to get lost and end up a gypsy in some remote village somewhere learning some useless trade to earn money to support myself. But don’t worry, I’ll be sure to blog about it. :) 

BUT first, before any of this, my friend Nick is visiting this week. He gets here Thursday and leaves Sunday. Gonna show him all Chemnitz has to offer (that will probs take 30 mins) and then hopefully do some day trips to Berlin and/or Dresden to fill the rest of the time. The men’s team plays Friday night so we will go to that as well. Short trip, but should be really fun.

Last night I had dinner with Raoul (my original coach from this season), our assistant coach, our trainer and 3 teammates to say good-bye. That was really nice—I hadn’t seen Raoul for months and who knows if I'll see him again. Ultimately he is the man that made this year possible by giving me the opportunity to play in Chemnitz, so I owe him a lot. He has an adorable daughter, Emma, that I also hadn’t seen for a while. She has the biggest cheeks ever! I'm gonna miss them. 

What a year aye? The past 9 months (almost) have been unbridled chaos, unpredicted thrills and an unadulterated transformation. It has been this incredible challenge and this unparalleled opportunity. It’s been so many things, but one thing it hasn’t been is a mistake.  Lots of people ask me if I regret quitting my UW job for this—kiddin me? Negatory. This experience has been everything I wanted and didn’t know I needed. And somehow, it’s gone by in the blink of an eye. How does time seem to both drag on and speed past us simultaneously? It’s crazy. And I can’t thank you guys enough for supporting me! But, it’s about that time. I have more than enjoyed blogging about this season’s ups and downs and sharing this whole experience with ya, but I am afraid all good things must come to an end, so this will serve as my final post (I guess till next season). Thanks for following along! Hopefully when I return to the US I will get to see all of you and thank you personally. Till then, just picture me knee deep in the water somewhere, grossly sheltered in sunscreen, happy as a clam. Ciao!

And then there was one.

With peaks come valleys, right? So I guess losing our last two games now after winning 4 is par for the course? Our game at Halle was pretty embarrassing for us defensively. Until the final 5 minutes or so, it was a 10 point game, give or take, so it was always within reach until they went on a run and closed the door on any comeback. We just could not guard their two best players—their post player had 37. Yup. One of their guards had 36. Uh huh. It wasn’t like their shots were uncontested or easy—their guard could not miss and made tough shots, and their post was just stronger and more athletic than ours. We should have played a zone, but what do I know. I was back at PG this game again because Mary hurt her knee in the previous game. I had 20 points, but I didn’t do a good job facilitating the ball and running the offense this game. 

Our Rhein Main game ended the same for us (with a loss) but was a different story in terms of our struggles. No one player killed us, rather we killed ourselves. Coach decided to start a different girl at PG this time, which I was pleased about. However, this is a girl that generally doesn’t play at all. I want to say that we started the game with like 5 consecutive turnovers, so I was eventually moved back to the PG spot for most of the game. After being down 10 after the first quarter, we outscored them the remaining quarters, but not by enough. MJ had 25 points and was really the only one to do anything well. I took 5 shots and had 6 points and 9 rebounds.

And then there was one. We have our last game of the season this Saturday at Rotenburg. That will be around an 8-9 hour drive including stops—the longest of the season, heck the longest of my life outside of driving home to Ventura from Seattle.  I am not particularly thrilled about this and I am incredibly hopeful that they drive us out the day before so we have time to recover, but my gut says they won’t.

My bed broke this week and I gotta tell ya, it was like the worst way to be woken up. Alright alright, I am SURE there are worse ways, but this ranks up there. Let me break it down for you. When it comes to sleeping, I am very much a woman of habit—I always sleep on the right side of the bed and I cuddle up next to the edge. This is exactly how I was sleeping when it happened. It was about 4:30am when the left side of the bed just collapsed, transforming my mattress into a slide. I woke up somewhere between the snapping of the wood and my own rolling toward the floor. I am only here for another week and a half and I didn’t feel like complaining, so now I am sleeping on my mattress… on my floor… in the middle of my room.  

Nick gets here in 10 days, he stays for 4 and then I take off for my trip. All of my travel plans are now booked and I am very excited about it. But, I will wait till next week to outline everything.

It's selection Sunday people! Get your brackets ready :)

Bring on the madness.

Well it appears we are peaking at the right time. Saturday we beat Oberhausen at home in what was arguably our most complete basketball game of the season. We started aggressive and efficient and sustained it close to 40 minutes. It helped that MJ scored 31 points, naturally, but our defense was the real game changer. I had 10 points, 9 boards and 4 assists. 

If you are keeping track (I assume none of you are, don’t worry) we have won 4 of our last 5 games, and have somehow put ourselves in position to make playoffs. I was informed before this wasn’t a possibility, but it looks like some other teams had some unexpected losses, so the window, though small, is indeed open. We need to win our final 3 games of course, but it is still quite possible.

Tomorrow we play at Halle (HOLLLLLLAAA). Our closest opponent, Halle is only 2 hours away, tops. They have experienced a few roster changes as well this season, but they seem to be the better for it as they continue to climb the standings. Won’t be an easy game, but if we can contain their post player, we should win.

So I know most of you haven’t seen me in a while, but maybe you will recall that I am not the tannest person in the world. Fine, fine—I am borderline albino—semantics. Well, I recently visited the skin doctor out here to have my moles checked and she recommended I have one removed and biopsied. It is a very simple procedure, she assured me. Now, maybe this is unfair, but I am incredibly skeptical of doctors over here—I think I think they don’t go to real medical school or something. Obviously I know they do…obviously. But still, this simple procedure sorta had me freaking out. One of my German speaking teammates chaperoned for me, translating and explaining what was happening. Oh, and holding my hand. Yeah, that’s right, I’m not embarrassed to admit that I needed it. I got 3 stitches for heaven sakes! The removal went swimmingly, and actually the worst part was hearing what the doctor was doing while it was happening; really could have done without that. I have never had stitches before so I didn’t realize how ugly they are, but they are.

I gave up sweets for Lent and it has proven to be especially challenging so far for two reasons: first, I live like 100 feet from the Haribo candy store. That stupid Haribo bear taunts me every time I walk by. It’s only a statue, but it knows what it’s doing; and second, my roommate has made it her mission to tempt me every chance she gets into caving and eating sweets by keeping candy everywhere in our house and constantly eating chocolate in my face... delicious chocolate. At this rate, I don’t foresee both the bear and my roommate surviving this Lenten period.

March is here! Bring on the madness. Trying to create our own madness over here, so keep us in your thoughts this weekend!