Hocus pocus.

It’s easy sometimes to forget that playing basketball is my job. It’s easy to overlook that I am being paid to do exactly what I want to be doing—until it’s not. Until my check comes late, or not at all, or worse—until someone or something tries to take your job away. Suddenly you are desperately aware that your livelihood is contingent on playing this game, your survival is fundamentally linked to it. When you are fighting like hell to keep what you have, you become frighteningly cognizant that basketball is your job. This past month has been a frustrating and scary blend of the aforementioned, but fortunately, the dust has settled and things are just fine. I guess God was just reminding me of how fortunate I am and how grateful I should be. Well played, God.

A lot has happened this month: 5 games, Halloween traditions, a painful discovery regarding Dirk and the arrival of undoubtedly the greatest care package to ever travel across the Atlantic Ocean. Yeah, I said it. Bold I know, but if you saw what’s inside this box, you'd get it. 

Okay so let’s recap the games, shall we? After season opener, we were back at home against Rotenburg who we had barely beaten a couple weeks prior. This time around, things didn’t go as well for us. I don’t know what it was, but we really struggled offensively, missing easy buckets and forcing bad passes. After being down by 15 we stormed back and I really thought we were going to pull off the comeback, but we simply ran out of time. We lost 68-71 and I had 36 points. Next up was Donau Ries on the road, and sadly, our offensive woes continued. Our defensive efforts kept this game closer and certainly winnable as well, but again, it was too little too late on our part and we lost 52-58. I played as poor as I have all season and finished with 12 points.

 

As a team we collectively agreed that if we were going to make a change and compete better in games we needed to compete tougher in practices. And so the following week we took out all our frustrations in practice and beat each other up every night. Our game against Bamberg that Saturday was a breeze compared to 5 on 5 in practice, and we won 77-60. I sat with fouls much of this game and finished with 13 points.

We had a short turn around following this game as the Pokal series (series where all the German teams play in a tournament separate from conference play) started for us the following Tuesday. We were on the road against a Div 3 team in Erfurt. We won 114-41 and I think nearly everyone on our team scored double digits. I had 26 points but missed an embarrassing amount of easy shots. Seriously, it was silly. Our next game was again on the road against Oberhausen, a team notorious for physical play, cheap shots and unbelievably biased refs at home. While we were never more than 15 points ahead, we were in control the entire game, even as they attempted a 4^th quarter surge. We took punches and asinine no-calls and kept battling to win 60-55 in another game that highlighted our defense. I again missed way too many easy baskets and finished with 13 points, but we got the win and that is the only stat that matters.

So we are 3-2 in conference and 1-0 in Pokal. We play at home this weekend against Halle (Holllllllllla, sorry it’s still funny to me) who despite having a pretty solid roster has struggled thus far.

Since Halloween is in the middle of the week, we opted to celebrate it this weekend with costumes and a party! But, that didn’t stop us Americans from getting into the spirit still before the weekend. Sunday night we carved our unsightly second-hand pumpkins that we resourcefully secured last minute while watching my favorite, Hocus Pocus. We aren’t the most talented carvers, but we did our best and no one lost any phalanges, so I’d say it was a success.

I have bad news people: Dirk is officially off the market. So all my years of pining and planning our pretend life together comes to a sad and necessary end since he married another woman. I know we hadn't even met in real life yet, but I still had hope. I only recently found out about his wedding, but it turns out, in an odd and painfully ironic twist, they actually got married this summer…on July 20…my birthday. How special for them. That day will forever be marred for me—darkened by the loss of what probably never would have been between Dirk and I, but will now certainly never be. All hope is lost.

It’s a good thing my family sent me this care package when they did! If I got stranded on an island with just the contents of the box, I'd totally survive longer than if I was stranded without it, that's how good this box is. Thanks family :)

                                                                                   Happy Halloween!

That escalated quickly.

Finally, season has officially begun! Season opening weekend started bright and early Saturday morning, but unfortunately for us, we would only be spectators until Sunday. Our entire Saturday was spent watching the other teams play, watching people shoot in the 3pt contest, and then watching other teams play again. Thrilling. Our league rules dictate that every team stays and watches every game. It’s silly and a bit ridiculous to enforce this, but enforce it they do so stay and watch we do. The banquet was that night and just like last year the best part of it was the food. There is just so much and it’s buffet style so I get real liberal with my portion construction. Otherwise it is just a lot of German pish posh for a couple hours. The real disappointment for the evening was Vlasti being robbed of the coach of the year award from last season. He is way too dignified to care about any award, but everyone in that room knew he deserved it.

Saturday was a lot of watching and sitting around—mildly put, it was dull. However, in the middle of my nagging boredom was the first round of the 3pt competition, and of course you remember I was participating. One player from each team shoots and the top four move onto the semis. Standard rules apply: each shooter gets one minute, 5 shots from the 5 spots, but instead of shooting balls from a ball rack, you get two balls and two teammates, one to pass one to rebound. I held a tryout before selecting my passer and rebounder. It was rigorous, I won’t lie and ultimately I picked Mort and Bri. It wasn’t easy, but they proved up to the challenge of chasing down potential bricks and passing me the ball in my shooting pocket. Having lost last year in this competition I am regrettably aware of how important those two things are to winning. Each shooter shot at the same time as another but that was simply for time saving purposes—you didn’t have to beat that person to advance. I decided I would anyways. I made 17 and moved onto the semis. We wouldn’t shoot again until Sunday afternoon, and this time it was head to head. I got paired against a girl from Osnabruck who had played Saturday, so she was visibly hung-over from celebrating the previous night. 

Seriously. All the teams that play Saturday party together that night then stagger into the gym Sunday to watch the remaining games. We keeps it classy. Anyways, I thanked her after beating her 14-7—hope it was worth it. The final was a few hours later, just before our game. Mort asked me if I wanted to know throughout the shooting if I was winning or losing and by how much. I decided I didn’t want to know since that wouldn’t really change anything—regardless I needed to make shots—but I did want to know how much time I had as I moved to each spot. This created some comedy. As I got to the last spot, I had no clue how many I had made or if I was winning and as I made my last shot I stopped and just turned to my teammates, almost unsure of what to do and waiting for some sort of gesture or clue as to the result. It felt like 3 long, full seconds passed before they started cheering as they swarmed me. I guess I won.

Winning was nice, I won’t lie, but you know what makes winning way better? Prizes! And it turns out the 3pt champ got a prize! It was the best kind of prize there is too—a cash prize. I won 300$ for making 16 shots. They literally handed me an envelope with the cash inside. Sorry I’m not sorry. This money actually comes at an auspicious time since I recently got my speeding ticket from the famous Chemnitz road-trip. Allegedly, I was driving 160 in a 100 speed zone. First of all, no. That is flat out wrong. There is no way I was only going 160. As you can imagine I got a hefty fine, and my license is suspended for a month. That’s rich. I don’t want to hear any “oh my gosh” or “holy cow” nonsense. Must I remind you I was driving on the autobahn, not in some school zone—there is no speed limit, mostly. If you are gonna have a highway without limits, don’t be surprised when people are driving really fast. Needless to say, the prize money will come in handy.

 It had already been a long weekend but finally it was time for us to warm-up and play. Our game began shortly after the 3pt final around 4:30 on Sunday. We started off a little slow but once we shook the cobwebs off it was a pretty good game for us. At half we were only up 6, but the next time I looked at the scoreboard we were up 30. That escalated quickly. We played one of the two teams that moved up from Div2 last season to replace the two teams that moved down—one of which was Chemnitz. We played good defense and ran their butts off that second half and won 83-60. Everyone contributed which made the game really fun. I had 11 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists and couldn’t hit a single 3. How fitting.

Minus all the waiting around, Saturday was actually really fun. Sidney and Mary (teammates from Chemnitz) drove out with Raoul and Ralf (coach and trainer from Chemnitz) so I got to hang out and catch up with them which I loved. There were actually a lot of former Chemnitz players at season opening, some playing and some not. Judith is now with Freiberg, Tina is with Halle (HOLLLLLLA), Sam is with Rotenburg and I am with Wolf obviously. It was great to see everyone again doing well.

So I am backtracking here, but I am sure you can manage. Friday night after practice, a group of us drove to Braunschweig for dinner. We heard about this sushi place, this all you can eat sushi place and we were intrigued. No one ever needs to eat "all you can" but there is something about that label that entices us, isn't there? Ichiban was the name of the restaurant and boy oh boy did we enjoy this place. First of all, you order from an ipad. I hadn't even eaten yet and I was somehow satisfied. Here is how the place worked: you spend 20$ for all you can eat sushi as well as the hot food, like teriyaki chicken, noodles, fried rice etc. They had it all. We could order 20 items at a time but before you could get more you had to finish your first order. No problem. I am still disgusted when I recall how much we ate, how much I ate, but I didn't spend 20$ to fool around with no salad or a roll. That's not my style. I like to make those places second guess their profit margins when I eat, cause I absolutely leave on the winning end of that scale. 

We play at home this weekend against Rotenburg who picked up a new player since we last played them and it happens to be one of my teammates from last season, Sam. They lost their game at season opener in a close one to Freiberg. Evidently the link I posted for watching games didn't quite work so I will try to figure that out and update the link next time. Happy October friends!

I'll sleep when I'm dead.

I have slept nine hours in the last seventy-two, so please mind the poorly veiled urgency dripping from this post—but frankly, all I wanna do is shower and sleep for three days straight. Instead I am writing this. Guess I'll sleep when I'm dead. 

This week we played our final preseason games. Holy cow, I can’t believe that is true, but it is and now, one week from today, season will have officially started. Tuesday we faced another team from our league, Rotenburg. The game was at home, which is always nice, and we had an energetic little crowd that night. The game started really well for us and maybe that was the problem. After jumping out to a fifteen-point lead in the 1^st, it seemed like we took our feet off the gas for the rest of the game until the 4th and sorta lost our edge. It didn’t help that Bri, our PG, twisted her ankle in the second quarter. I was PG for the remainder of most the game. AS I am writing this I am suddenly seeing a distinct correlation. Anyways, we had sustained a ten-point lead going into the 4^th, despite not playing particularly well, but as the clock ticked away, so did our uncertain lead. With 4 minutes left, they took a one-point lead for about ten seconds, but wouldn’t regain it again. We won by six and I had thirty points.

Thursday was our next and final game and it was on the road at Marburg. Though a different team this year after losing their starting posts, Marburg is still good and they proved this. Again, we started the game fairly well, though we boasted only an eight-point lead. But instead of improving as the game progressed, we got worse. After three quarters we were down five and I had scored two points. Yikes. I had missed everything with the exception of two free throws. I was something like 0-6 from 3’s and 0-2 from inside, so it was hardly my day. Down nine with four minutes left in the 4^th quarter, things finally clicked. Finally. Before I knew it, there was less than a minute left and I had just tied the game with two free throws. Moments later we fouled their shooter and she gave them the lead with ten seconds left. We inbound the ball to Morty and we have the length of the court to go. She kicks it to me on the right wing at half court—eight seconds, seven seconds, six seconds—and all we need is a two to tie. I don’t like ties (incidentally, that’s why I quit soccer) so as I dribbled toward the three-point line, I faked the drive and pulled the three with two seconds on the clock. And boom goes the dynamite. We won by one and I finished with nineteen points. Perfect way to end preseason.

This weekend was our last free weekend before season starts, so I thought it was necessary to do something—go somewhere. Who do I know in Europe close enough to drive to that would love to have me visit them? No one. Okay fine, let’s rephrase: who would LET me visit them? The answer to this would be Kelly, my Dutch roommate from last season. I have always wanted to visit Amsterdam and I hadn’t seen Kelly since we said bye in Croatia so Holland it was.  Since both my roomies were nursing injuries, this would be a solo road trip and my first one at that over here. The trip took exactly five hours and turned out to be pretty simple. And as much as I don’t especially like driving for long periods of time, I gotta say it’s hard to not enjoy yourself driving through Europe. I left at 4am and got to Delft, where Kelly lives, at 9am. Maybe you are wondering why I left so early and the answer to this is two-fold: first, I couldn’t sleep and there is nothing worse than being desperate to sleep and knowing you won’t; second, I find I feel waaaay more comfortable driving unfamiliar territory when I can stop, turn around and/or reverse on the highway whenever I need to. That might sound ridiculous, but when you have to read signs in a language you hardly know, being able to reverse after passing your exit, or simply slow down to a crawl in order to properly comprehend the signs is ideal. And yes, I did this. We took a short train to Amsterdam and walked around the city all day; it seriously is unlike anything. The canals stream throughout the city and are truly breathtaking as are the buildings, which I realize in Europe, isn’t that uncommon. 

Amsterdam though has such a unique atmosphere, thanks in large part to the liberal and free-spirited culture fostered there from all the weed. It is everywhere and it is pungent. The coffee smoke shops are all over the place and they are all filled all of the time. But this city is more than just weed, sure. It’s got that whole weird, inappropriate and questionably legal purchasing of sex element too, if that’s your thing. Even worse than that—yes, I am actually suggesting there are worse things—within the “red light district” area you can also pay to watch live sex. I was warned about this show and, actually, encouraged to see one while I was there. Honestly, it was considered. I mean, you hear “live sex show” and you wonder what’s that all about, thinking maybe it’s a metaphor or an odd improv show. Then you get there and it’s not, it’s simply people having sex…live. The consideration was short lived and we decided our imaginations were enough for us. I know in the past I have adhered to a pretty impressive tradition of embracing cultural differences, even the ones of the naked variety, but paying to see that is outside my scope of comprehension or capacity. I could barely walk past the establishment without feeling like I needed a shower. How that became normal for the people there I will never know, but all this goes into what makes Amsterdam such a remarkable city. I watched Kelly play that night in her Dutch league game and then we went dancing with all her friends. We got home at 5am and I drove home to the Wolf at noon. I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Season opener is next weekend and Marburg is hosting this year. Since we won the league last season, we play the last game on Sunday. My team picked me to shoot in the three point competition, which if you recall didn’t go too well last season so I am happy for a second shot. Below are the links to both my team website and the website for the league, as promised. To watch my games, you click the league link and then on the right hand side there will be a list of each of the games for the week there. Below each game there is another link that says "livestreaming"--click this and you should be good to go. If not, tinker with some things and figure it out. Ha. 

http://www.wildcats-baskets.de/

http://www.dbbl.de/cms/

Oh, by the way, I have a number now that you can reach me at via text if you so desire. It's 1 (805) 253-2987. It is just a texting app but I'd love to hear from you if you ever get a chance! Or, if you are as cool as this lady, you can just skype me when you wake up at NOON on a Sunday :) Whatever works.

One step at a time.

I hate losing. I think I have always been this way. And I bet if you’d ask my mom, she’d quickly agree that I have never handled it particularly well either (over the years she has learned to dispense with the pep-talks and simply leave me alone for 24hrs). I have found the ONLY thing that can ease the sting of a loss is playing that team again… and beating them. I was so grateful to learn we would have this opportunity with Osnabruck who had embarrassed us when we visited them in August. This time they were busing to us, and this time we had a few more weeks of practice and games under our belts to prepare. We were up by 10 most of the game, but they cut it late and had chances to take the lead. We sealed it with some free throws and solid defense at the end. I had 15 points. They scored 80 on us last game—this time we held them to 56. Need to keep moving forward, one step at a time.

The tournament in Prague was next, and we headed out the following afternoon on our 5-hour journey to Czech. We played the next day at 2pm against a team that turned out to be pretty bad. Actually, that is being generous. This team was just terrible. I have always hated the excuse that you play down to the level of your competition. Why? Why not force them to play up and when they can’t you simply kick their butts? Unfortunately, we went with the excuse and played pretty bad most the game, too. Eventually we pulled away by double digits and won, but it was not a fun game to be apart of, nor did we take any steps forward. The team we were playing the next day was in the stands watching, no doubt enjoying our remarkable impersonation of high school basketball (barely an exaggeration there). We went into the city that night; this was my second time in Prague, but I was reminded of how incredibly stunning Prague is and how impossibly blessed I am.

Despite our awful first game and despite witnessing said game, our next opponent decided to run a box and one against us on Saturday—I can only assume this was because I scored 25 points in that stink fest. I guess it sorta worked since I scored just 10, but we won by 15 as the rest of our team played well...so ultimately, not so effective since we have other scorers. Again, our defense stepped up big, too, which is becoming our bread and butter more and more. One step at a time. The championship game was the next day against the host team, Prague. They are a good Div 1 Czech team so this would serve as a tough challenge for us as well as a benchmark moving forward. We came out on fire and for most the game stayed this way, which was helpful cause our defense wasn’t quite on point for parts of the game—what was I saying about bread and butter? We won by 9 and I had 31 this time around. Following the game, we quickly collected our things and bused the 50kms to Nymburk where our camp would be held. We had a short turnaround: our five days of fun started the next morning at 7:30.

I’ll just give a quick outline of what our days looked like during camp: conditioning in the morning followed by breakfast; then shooting practice followed by weights followed by swimming; then lunch followed by court practice followed by dinner; and lastly another court practice followed by pool, ice tub, or sauna. Tuesday and Thursday night were different because we had games back in Prague rather than practices, which we were grateful for. Tuesday’s game was an interesting one for a couple reasons. First off, we played in a gym you’d expect to find in a prison, somewhere. Having never been in a prison, it’s hard to explain why I was sure of this, aside from the gated windows, tiny space, creepy lighting and general “trapped” vibe, but go with it. It was also interesting because of how the foul situation unfolded—in the first half, Roli (starting SF) fouled out, I had four (big shocker) and a couple posts had three for us. I’d bet no one on their team had more than one. Talk about home court advantage, these refs certainly seemed to dislike us. Despite being rather exhausted from camp and the Prague tournament, we battled and actually didn’t look like the more tired team. Maybe that team should invest in some conditioning workouts. But this team was good, the best team we'd played so far. After going back and forth for much of the game, we took a one-point lead and ultimately won 69-68. We were really proud of ourselves for gutting that one out. I had 35 points but shot the ball excessively to do so—but only cause my coach Vlasti made me. Seriously. 

I wasn’t having a great shooting game to start, which was frustrating, naturally. I tried playing through it, getting to the basket instead, meanwhile passing up a few open looks, too, which ticked off Vlasti. He called me out in a timeout, more or less saying, “You are a shooter right? Well you can’t make baskets if you don’t shoot it, so when you are open, shoot.” Tough to fight that kind of logic. And while I don’t like the idea of shooting my way out of a slump in a game, I generally prefer his perspective since it gives me the green light to shoot, and there is nothing I like better…except winning, I reallllllllly like that. So shoot the ball I did. It was the darndest thing, but after he said that (when you’re open, shoot) I found myself open, like a lot…like allll the time…mostly. Basically. Yes, I was basically open most the time, sometimes. I probably coulda shot my way out of 3 slumps as much as I shot it after that, but I was just following directions. I think that’s what my tombstone will say: Here lies Sami, she followed directions well.

Thursday, again, we had a game rather than practices that night, and it was also in Prague. This team was pretty good, but I think we lost because we finally gave into fatigue. Well, fatigue, and our zone defense was dreadful. I can only speak for myself, but I know I was huffing and puffing and generally exhausted throughout the game; our 20-minute warm-up has never felt longer. Still, we had a 10-point lead much of the game, despite a painful number of turnovers, until we decided to try our zone.  Our appalling attempt at a 2-3 zone allowed lay-up after uncontested jumper after lay-up and killed us. Sure, we hadn’t ran it before, but it’s a 2-3 zone so I figured we’d be alright. Hardly. By the time our coach put us back in man, we’d lost our lead and in fact faced a small deficit even. Here is where my fatigue beat me as I missed a short jumper and a 3 to tie the game. I finished with 25, but felt pretty bad for coming up short. Despite the unfortunate outcome, we established where our zone is ineffective and needs work and we competed with our tank's on empty, so I think we took a step forward—maybe not a Shaq size step, but like an 8 year old girl’s step.

Camp was actually pretty cool. Of course it was exhausting, but the team has this tradition where every night during camp it is Vlasti’s birthday, and so every night became a celebration. All of us—players, coaches and trainers—gathered at the bar to drink beer and hang out together to honor Vlasti’s invented, perpetual birthday. Since I still hate beer, I drank water, but that wasn’t really the point. We’d play games and just spend time bonding a little bit. 

We made it home late last night/early this morning to Wolfenbuttel. I am really starting to like this place more and more. Despite essentially being a tiny village, we have been fortunate enough to find some cool activities to do to entertain ourselves on our weekends off or between practices during the week. We made some friends who play American football in Braunschweig (just outside the Wolf) so we went to a couple of their games, which was fun, even though they suck. We have a men’s Pro B basketball team in Wolfenbuttel too, so we caught one of their games as well. Aside from having a horrendous football team, Braunschweig also boasts a cool zoo and movie theater that plays movies in english every Monday night. I especially love this since I have vicariously lived a lot of great life moments through movies. Good times.

Season opener is in two weeks. We have two more preseason games this coming week against teams from our league and then a week of prep and practice for opener. We still aren’t where we need to be, but we are getting there, one step at a time, and I think with a couple more weeks of work we will be ready to go for season. Regardless, I am really excited for this team and this year. When the time comes, for those interested (Mom), I will post the team and league websites so you can watch our games. For now I will just post my address in case someone wants to send me pictures of their face for my room walls. They are currently blank and it's unsettling. 

Sami Whitcomb

Wullenweber Strasse 4

38404 Wolfenbuttel

Germany

When in Rome.

Firsts are always a little rocky and certainly a bit embarrassing—first steps, first driving lessons, first public speech, first guitar lesson, first kiss. Considering the mixture of inexperience and anxiety, imperfection is an understandable product. Our first game last week was, unfortunately, a fantastic illustration of why firsts can sometimes suck. While the game ultimately proved to be a useful teaching tool, highlighting our weaknesses and strengths, it was more than a little embarrassing. I am sincere when I say that game suggested we had only weaknesses. Defensively we missed rotations and struggled to pressure the ball, while offensively we shot with less accuracy than Shaq at the charity stripe—simply unconscionable. Still, it was our first game together, and firsts can be a little rocky. We played two days later and this time we demonstrated our strengths a bit better, individually and collectively. We won 115-81, so while it was pleasing to finally make some baskets, allowing 81 points a game won’t lead to many wins this season. Our team has a nice balance, though. Every position has multiple scoring threats and we have two really crafty, intelligent point guards. Morty has transitioned really well so far, executing the fast break and driving and dishing with ease. We played again tonight against the team we beat Friday and did a lot better. We held them to 40 this time and scored 80. Boom. 

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been to a spa. Maybe you’ve never been to one, but it’s reasonable to presume everyone is familiar with what they are. Just in case, a spa is defined by Webster’s online dictionary as, “a commercial establishment providing facilities devoted to encouraging health, fitness, weight loss, beauty, and relaxation.” This sounds like an accurate explanation, and it was certainly in agreement with my own perception. Well, it seems the Germans adhere to a looser interpretation of spa—that, or something somewhere was lost in translation. Friday, after our game, our coach treated us to a couple hours at a spa. If only it had been as simple as that, though. But no, like every other experience I have had out here, my episode at the spa proved to be hardly ordinary. Perhaps you know where this is going and maybe your imagination is enthusiastically engaged, producing a variety of uncomfortably weird scenarios based on your own twisted sense of humor. I promise you, whatever you are conjuring up in your head, it can’t touch my reality.

This place had all your basic essentials, all the misleading trappings of a typical spa: pools, Jacuzzis, saunas, and cold tubs—things encouraging health and relaxation. This place even had slides and a salt-water pool, cleverly manufactured distractions to lure in the innocent, naïve minded folks like myself; I won’t lie, it totally worked—Morty, Bri and I (the Americans) were pumped. And juuuuuust when they had us locked in did they mention, ever so casually, the one caveat: “oh, by the way, you have to be naked at the spa.” I beg your pardon? Naked? The naked where you don’t wear any clothes? Obviously there has been some sort of misunderstanding. First of all, let’s backtrack to your erroneous use of “by the way”, shall we? By the ways are generally followed by simple after thoughts, or reminders: by the way, the new Ryan Gosling movie is fantastic; by the way, we’re out of milk; by the way, there’s a stain on your carpet; by the way, your colonoscopy is tomorrow. Those are all acceptably casual, harmless statements following a “by the way”. I think any mention of the word naked automatically makes whatever you have to say unsuitable for any sort of coupling with a “by the way”. Just saying. But seriously, who forgets to mention the dress code when the code is your birthday suit! I was in a pickle I found myself at a cross roads, and yet I felt like the decision was so obvious, so straightforward that there really wasn’t even a choice: of course I wasn’t going to parade around naked in front of complete strangers for two hours—don’t be ridiculous. Thirty minutes later I found myself hugging a towel, staring at my feet as I nervously entered the spa. This was happening.

Involuntarily, I looked up as we walked in only to have all my fears confirmed: just naked people everywhere—and this was the bad kind of naked. I’ll spare you the details, just know I’m irrevocably scarred. Bri, Mort and I, under the heading “when in Rome”, made a pact that we would be open minded and give their nude colony version of a spa a try. Still, if we could avoid any awkwardness we were going to; and so we made our way to the one place we thought we would be alone—the cold tub. Sure enough, it was empty. All three of us let out the deepest sighs of relief. Like toddlers learning to swim, we slipped into the tub and clung to the railing, each of us in our own corner, discussing the pure insanity of the moment. Talk about a culture shock, we couldn’t believe the difference in social norms. And then it happened. An older man entered the room, comfortably open, and walked toward the tub. None of us moved—maybe if we are really still, he won’t see us and we can sneak out. Nope, he definitely saw us. As he entered the tub, butt first, I could no longer take it—I chuckled, and then without warning, a bellowing cackle erupted nearly splitting my sides. I had lost it; the sight of that man’s bare buttocks was the last straw. After the shock wore off, we ditched the tub and sprinted from the room, sincerely mortified. Eventually we reconvened with the girls for the finale: team sauna time. Our captain led us to the excessively hot room…filled with about 40 random, naked bodies. You’ve GOT to be kidding me. “When in Rome,” I thought, and I sat down determined to embrace the experience. But as the room reached extreme temperatures, it became increasingly unbearable. It had been about four minutes I’d guess when the steam got so thick I shrieked, “I’m blind!” I tried to remind myself—when in Rome, when in Rome—ah screw it, if this is what they do in Rome, I don’t want to be like the Romans! I grabbed my towel and bailed; sure, I stumbled out of that sauna with zero dignity or grace, but at least I wasn’t naked anymore. I know this was my first time and all, and I know what they say about firsts, but gimme a break. Some things can only be endured once. 

One week from today we head to Prague for a tournament. We play Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then begin camp Sunday night. Camp is 5 days somewhere in Prague as well. That will be a long, exhausting week but it will also be incredibly instrumental in our development as a team, so I am really looking forward to it. The returning players from last year have already warned us of the hellish nature of camp. We had a team camp last season in Chemnitz that was rather horrible too, if you recall. Something tells me I’ll survive again; just wish they wouldn’t call it camp.