Talk the Talk, and Walk the Wok

This past Saturday we traveled a couple hours up the road to play in a tournament. This was our first real scrimmage against other women’s teams, there were 2 teams from A2 and 2 teams from A1. Saturday we played against one of the A2 teams so there wasn’t much competition. But it was great seeing how our team played together offensively and defensively. I think we ended up winning by about 30 points, so Sunday we played in the championship game against the other A1 team. We will play against this team a couple of times this season so it was a good time to see how wed stack up. We ended up winning the whole tournament! We played great in both games, but I think the best part of our team is our defense.

Now we count down to our first game of the season on October 24!

Even better then the victory this weekend was a little restaurant that we found in our City. Its called Wok Sushi. Normally im kind of nervous when I try new sushi spots, especially in Italy, but this place was new and pretty big. My teammate, Shamela, and I went and we were not disappointed! It turned out to be a Chinese buffet where they would special make sushi rolls, or grilled meats or fish, or you could pick any meat and vegetable for them to cook in their Wok.

My pictures don't do it justice, but believe me it was delicious!

I will be going here weekly. And our little waitress was so excited to meet us. She asked for our autographs and for some pictures with us BEFORE she knew we played basketball here! I guess it was cool for her to see 2 women over 6’2. All she kept saying was “oh my, I cant believe……” Next time ill ask for a discount.

Anyway, if youre ever in Lucca, Italy, I highly recommend this Italian, Chinese-Japanese Sushi bar/ buffet, tell them an American sent you ;)

Once Upon a Time.......

To bring everyone up to speed on a couple things….. This summer my only sister/sibling, Cameron, got engaged to her boyfriend, Paul. They are getting married on 10-10-10 and luckily I get to leave Italy for a few days to participate in this special day!!!!! The other week I bought them a few gifts off their Bed Bath and Beyond registry. Including a coffee maker, some pillows, something for the grill and this ceramic cow creamer that was too cute not to purchase. A few days later I received this email from Cameron:

“There once was a princess named Anastasia Beaverhausen. Anastasia was about to marry her Prince Charming, Lord Bartholomew Von Inkus. Whilst Anastasia sat in her tower awaiting the day that she would become Lady Anastasia Beaverhausen Von Inkus, she dreamt about one day throwing an impromptu brunch for her soon to be in-laws, the very prestigious King Bernard Von Inkus and his ex wife, Lady Susan of Wellington. Alas, she never got to throw her impromptu brunches for she was without one special thing that separated the town folk from the poofy white collar. Anastasia knew that if she were to invite the King and Queen to brunch, and not have this particular item out for them to see, that they would surely not allow their son to marry this common peasant. One day, while Anastasia was on Facebook talking to her best frienemies Madame and Sir Belche A Lot, telling them how she wished that one day the Inkus Mannor would accept her. At that very moment, the doorbell ring, and Anastasia went flying down the very lengthy spiral staircase, catching her extremely long braid of hair on the banister, causing her to fall backwards, hitting her head, knocking her unconscious. While Anastasia lay helpless with her loyal pack of guard dogs at her side, Lord Bartholomew pulled into the driveway with his Ford F150. Lord Bartholomew sashays into the castle, seeing the box of goodies, and Anastasia laying helpless on the ground.

As he opens the box, he brings the priceless cow creamer over to Anastasia and pours her concoction of Captain Morgan and Diet Coke from the cows snout, into Anastasias mouth, waking her up with glee. To this day, Lord Bartholomew says he has never seen Anastasia so happy to have a ceramic cow with holes in its nostrils. As they lay their heads upon the most fancy pillows you have ever seen, all they could talk about was how they should feast on potatoes on the grill and coffee in the morning to celebrate their upcoming nuptials. So the story goes, that the priceless creamer was found in a far away land by Anastasias sister, Madame Happycleavage of Cocoa Village. Madame Happycleavage has spent years, and lots of gold covered chocolate coins, traveling the world to find this gift for her adoring sister. While Madame Happycleavage was riding a camel thru Egypt Land, her camel got a flat hump and Madame Happycleavage was stuck on the side of sand dune. A handsome dark knight, Knight Hefty Von Tootall (pronounced too tall), came to her rescue and showed the lovely Madame Happycleavage the way to the secret treasure where they would find a nice place to sleep, a nice place to clean up from all the sand, and a nice place to find anything your heart desires, Bed Bath and Beyond.

With this knowledge, one creamer made 4 people very happy. And they all lived happily ever after.

The end.”

I thought it was too creative not to share ;)

CONGRATULATIONS CAM AND PAUL! See you soon!

Almost settled......

This past week my team finally gave me my car for this season. As I said before this is a small city and a new team to the first division so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But they handed over the keys to a new Mercedes!!!

Ok, so it is a Mercedes, but a little bit smaller then what you were thinking. I have been over here for 6 years now and I have somehow never seemed to see the inside of one of those little Smart cars. Let me take you on a tour:

The inside:

The END.

My Smart car:

I think that covers it. I do see why they call it a smart car though, it is both a manual and an automatic….so it’s a semi-automatic. And I don’t think I will ever have a problem parking in the city here or weaving in and out of traffic!

Here is a picture of our gym (the picture inside didn’t turn out too well, but you get the idea). They have other sports here too, as well as an indoor swimming pool.

And here is my apartment.

I finally got my television the other day and this year it has TiVo! So now I can record all the shows I miss during practice and all the late night basketball games that come on while I sleep!

I finally thought that I had everything I needed and was all settled, and then 2 days after I got my USB key for internet, it shut off. They said that for one month I could use up to 3g…. (no idea what that meant) but apparently I used that up in 2 and a half days. So now I am again without internet and waiting to see what they come up with next. For now I can find a wireless spot outside my apartment in certain spots. This is usually what it looks like before and after practice posted up against the street lamp!

Hopefully this coming week I will have everything so from now on all I have to worry about is practice!

Back In Action

It seems I left everything hanging now that I look at my last post! I have 2 reasons (or excuses) for this. 1. My team ended up losing the last few games, and dropped down to the second division :( and 2. The last week of the season my computer died on me... Luckily around that time Clint had come out to see me, so there was a way to continue blogging.... so refer back to excuse #1.

A lot has happened since then, but I'll catch up on that a little later. Let's fast forward to NOW!

About a week ago I arrived to my new city, and my new team in Lucca, Italy. This team won the second division last year so this is their first season in A1. I like playing for these teams because they are usually filled with young girls and a city thats excited to be playing in the first division. Lucca is about 30 minutes from the city where I played last year, which is right on the water, and about one hour from Florence. What makes this city unique is that it has a wall surrounding the entire town and it has been this way since the medieval times. I live just outside the wall. I will take more pictures later, but these I found online to give you an idea.

After about a week of practice and getting to know the girls, it is still kind of difficult to see how we will be as a team. We are VERY young. I am the second oldest on the team, following our most experienced player who is from Portugal but has played in the Italian league for 11 years and 5 years in the WNBA. We have one other american who is also young, but is very strong and athletic. This is only her second year overseas, but I think she will be a huge help for us in the post.

That is all for now. We got today off and it is my first full day with internet so I will be spending the day catching up and getting settled into my new apartment!