Home For the Holidays

As I write this, I am 13 hours into the second of two plane rides that have taken me from Vienna to Los Angeles. We have one hour left until we land on American soil. Our first plane departed at 6:55 AM Vienna time on the 17th and we will arrive in LA at 12:30 PM on the same day. That makes this the longest day I have ever had in my life. 33 hours to be exact.

Imagine Osier and I sitting for 14 hours straight. And we don't have seats next to eachother… and we both pulled all nighters last night to try to plan our sleep patterns in accordance to the time changes. But besides the three children in the row behind me who keep kicking my seat, the ride has been steady, filled with on and off sleeping, a Harry Potter movie which I had no idea existed, and some German tunes. I can't wait to be on the ground though and finally head to Irvine!

We had two games since the last update. Both games were against the same team; Klosterneuberg. The first meeting was Sunday out at Happyland (again, best gym name ever). Considering we played poorly, it was big for us to walk away with the 23 point victory that we did. A 96 point offensive output doesn't sound too bad on paper, but boy, it was ugly. One of the (two, in my opinion) highlights of the game came right before the end of the third quarter. After our coach called a timeout with 1.4 seconds left to draw up an inbounds play from the sideline, Osier took the ball out on the baseline opposite our basket and proceeded to throw one of the most awesome baseball-style passes to the complete other end of the court to a waiting teammate under the basket for a layup. That shot put the game out of reach in our minds…we played the last 10 minutes even more fired up than before and cruised to victory. The second highlight, which doesn't even compare to the aforementioned event, came right at the end of the game. For some reason the other team felt the need to foul…all the way down to the last few seconds (down 20-23 points the whole time). With about 35 seconds left and following a Klo-berg basket, I received the inbounds pass and dribbled the length of the floor, dodging attempted fouls from every single opposing player the entire way, for an easy left handed layup.

Tuesday night, we went straight from our German class to meet some teammates at the University. From there, we walked through downtown in the freezing cold, past the infamous Rathaus Chriskindlmarkt at City Hall, to a little restaurant called Tokyo Running Sushi. Guess what we ate there. Running sushi is where the food comes around on little plates and you grab them off the line as they "run" by you. For a land-locked country, we didn't expect much, but the idea of all you can eat and the decent quality of the sushi they did have made it a delicious experience. That's not to say both Osier and won't be enjoying some super fresh California sushi at some point this trip.

Wednesday was possibly one of the longest days. We decided to pass on class that day, just to make sure everything was in order for our trip and to mentally prepare for the game later that evening. I knew Klosterneuberg was not going to go down easy for the third time in a row. The game finally started at 8:15 PM. We probably didn't score until 8:25 PM. We went into halftime down by five, but we knew there was still hope. We were the better team and we were playing way off our game. Oh, and did I mention we are down to 8 players? And only 7 played on Wednesday. Anyways, we crawled our way back from being down 11 at one point in the first half to being up by 13 in the second half. One of our post players, who had three fouls at halftime, then picked up two quick, ticky-tack fouls and was forced to leave the game. So 6 players for the fourth quarter. Up 5 with 1:30 to go in the game, they hit a transition three. On the other end, I drove the lane, spun, hit the layup over the front, and got the foul call, converting the 3 point play. That was their first foul of the quarter, which came back to bite them. We followed with a silly foul on a prayer 3 point attempt, and the opposing player converted all three free throws. Up two with about 45 seconds left, they began to foul. They needed to commit 4 fouls just in order to send us to the foul line, burning about 10 seconds along the way. I hit two free throws, we stopped them on defense, Julia hit two free throws, and their last chance opportunity failed. We won by 5.

This game was the first round of the Chevrolet cup, which I explained a bit in the previous post. We will now most likely take on Wels in the second round. Their coach was at the game scouting…rightfully so, I think we play them three times in January. Enough about basketball though. I am so excited to have a break. I will have the chance to see both the men's and women's UC Irvine teams in action and hopefully to make it to a Chico State practice. I may not update for a bit, unless something exciting happens that is worth writing about…so if you don't hear from me, MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR! I'm so thankful for what opportunities this year has brought my way. (Wrong holiday??)

Fast Forward 6 Hours: Now I am in Molly Goodenbour's apartment in Irvine...just spent my first dollars of the trip and had my first Mexican food, courtesy of Baja Fresh. Chipotle tomorrow. And the weather is beautiful!

12-12

It's true. I have officially gotten lazy when it comes to posting. I knew it was bound to happen. And I wish I had an excuse, but I have plenty of free time, enough to write about, and I just got a brand new computer. I hope you accept this apology. Now read!

The last game I wrote about was in Sopron. Since then, our ventures have taken us south to the second largest city in Austria, Graz, which also happens to be the hometown of current CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger. I attempted to regain my title as team DJ (which I haven't held since college...a whole year and a half) and make a road trip CD. The way there was pleasant. We stopped to meet the rest of our caravan at a gas station about half way, which was between the road and a beautiful field of pumpkin or some type of squash. This stop was sandwiched between hours of mountain climbing and descending through woods that looked like they were pulled straight from the Twilight books/movies. Anyways, it was dark once we arrived so we missed seeing the actual city. Once inside the gym, we were shown the gym, which had been taken over by archers. Yes, bows and arrows. We opted, for our own safety, to stay in the locker room until they were completely through with their training. The gym was then transformed into a basketball court and we were on our way. The game was ugly, to say the least and we walked away with a 93-65 victory. I felt the pressure to one-up myself from the previous game of 38 points and drop 39 (with seven 3's). One of our players who has been flying under the radar all season came away from the game with FOUR converted AND1 plays. Pretty amazing!!! The drive back was filled with silence, minus the road trip CD playing for the seventh and eighth times. Love those songs...so much, actually, that I unloaded the CD on our coach , who was more than thrilled to accept the gift.

The next week included a lot of discussion between Osier and myself over the increasing depression we were both feeling for having to miss Christmas with our families. So we decided to take care of the situation. After asking our coach's permission, we successfully booked each of our flights home for the holidays. My trip will take me from Vienna to Amsterdam, switch planes, and then to LA, where I will continue down to Orange County (Michelle will venture further to San Diego) to visit my basketball people, who I miss SO much. After 3 days spent there, in which I will see a Men's and Women's Anteater basketball game, I will hop on a Southwest flight to Sacramento where I will be met by my lovely father. I will then spend the next 10 or so days in Chico with my family and best friends before flying out of San Francisco back to Vienna for part 2 of the season. My goal was to surprise my mother, but she found out through, what else, Facebook! So Mom, yes I am coming home. And stop stalking me on Facebook, please.

Back to games. The next week seemed like one of the longest yet, but we were rewarded with a 2 game spread over 3 days. Friday we took on a team from Bratislava, Slovakia, which plays in the Bundesliga over in Slovakia and had previously been a member of the AWBL. We started off very slowly and it seemed like every prayer they were awkwardly hucking towards the basket was going in. At halftime we were up 11. The second half showed more promise as we took a 20 lead and never let them get any closer. The team was very young and will be good in time. We can look forward to playing them again, our first game in the new year, on Janurary 5th. On Saturday, we enjoyed a lovely day off and eventually ended up at a club to celebrate the birthday of one of the Basketclubs players who turned 23. So old.

Sunday we played (again) Vienna 87. Now THIS game was UGLY. The other team managed to put up 11 points in the first half while we scored a slick 57 and rolled to a final score of 96-35. This team is also loaded with promising young talent, but is missing someone to put the ball in the basket (which generally helps in Basketball). Our entire roster of 9 people received some quality playing time and every player scored. We had a 5 day weekend since German course had been cancelled Friday, as well as the following Monday and Tuesday. We made use of this time by doing absolutely nothing.

These next few days are crucial. We travel tomorrow to Klosterneuberg to play at Happyland again, a game we need to win, and then proceed to play the same Duchess team the next Wednesday in the first round of the Chevrolet Cup. A little about the cup: From what I understand, the cup is seperate from the actual league play. The seedings are based on the previous year, giving us a 3 seed. We will play for the opportunity to play Wels in the semi-final round, with the winner earning a spot in the finals. Furthemore, I believe the winner of the cup tournament also receives an automatic spot in the year ending Final Four playoff (which should make no difference since one of the predicted final four teams should win the cup). And of course there is money up for grabs for programs that win cup games...the real incentive. The morning following this cup game, which we host in Vienna, we will prepare our things and hop our flight to our deluded idea of a vacation. Just kidding...I can't wait. Ah, Mexican food and Mommys who take you shopping...and Daddys who take you eating...and my neice!

Bis dann (until then), check out the website: www.uk-flames.org as well as a link to my new favorite song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfS_fugJYOI.

"Yeah, well today is a holiday for us and we came to class"

Today is Thanksgiving. That means absolutely nothing to us. Except for in class today when the three boys from Turkey (yeah, hilarious on Thanksgiving) claimed that tomorrow is a holiday and they will be missing german course. THEN we didn't hesitate to point out that today is in fact a holiday in our world. In reality though, all that it means is that it is the day after Osier's birthday (22).

There hasn't been a post in over a week because we didn't play a game until last night, after our game in Wels was officially cancelled last Saturday. Again we travelled to Sopron, Hungary to take on one of the teams there. (Please see the previous post titled "Fun and Games...yes real games" to read about the first time we met this team). The previous meeting with this team ended up being one of the most frustrating games I have ever played and resulted with a UK Flames 2 point victory over the host. Since then, I would easily say our team has gotten 100 times better. I can't say that for the other team. The numbers in our camp were dwindled...from work and sickness. So playing with 8 players, we took a 3 point lead after a sluggish first quarter. The second quarter was equally difficult, as we struggled to find offensive production from anyone other than Osier, and I was still getting used to that evenings position, which was at the point guard.

Clearly the mineral water and the carefully planned pre-game meal at Burger King kicked in right before the second half. Any shot that hit the rim found the decency to go in. At one point I actually tripped over my own feet, caught no air, chucked the ball up to the rim, and barely caught myself in time to see it roll around the rim and fall through the net. This similar scene happened about 15 times for me on the night and about 10 times for Osier...it was insane. We combined for a cool 61 points...which is 4 more points than the other team scored total (23 for Os#10 and 38 for Me#4). Our group of players played an overall good game, and we made the team look much worse than they actually were. One of the infamous referees from the previous meeting was back, but made a total of 3 calls all game (2 were right at the beginning, followed by an earful from yours truly). The final was 86-57. This brings our overall season record to 7-3, including these two exhibition wins over Sopron and we remain tied for the second position in the AWBL. Our next game is on Saturday and we play AT Graz. That is where Arnold Schwarzenegger is from BTW.

A little about German Course: We go EVERYDAY for 4 hours. The first day of class was interesting...he began speaking in all german. After and hour of Osier and I looking at eachother blankly, we approached him during the break and informed him that our German was very limited. Like, VERY limited. So he restructured the lessons...much to the dismay of certain students. One student (named Mustafa...yes really) was completely opposed to the level of teaching in the class and made a scene before proceeding to leave and never return. 1) Sorry Mustafa, this is the lowest level German course available. 2) Good riddance. You suck anyways. At this point, which is almost two weeks into class, I am feeling more confident in my German spreching skills (that was meant to be Germenglish). One day I will explain how difficult the language actually is, but for now, I pick out words and phrases and ask and answer questions. Give me a few months and these posts will be in German...get your online translators ready.

I had a visit from two of my best friends the past few days. Other than the first two nights (jet lag and no desire to hit the town) I had a fabulous time with them. Their visit really made me miss home and wish for a chance to get home sooner rather than later. And they came bearing gifts for both me and Osier. My dad stocked them up before they left and they met Osier's mom on the way to the airport to pick up her stuff. Last night after our game, we went for mexican food. YES. Mexican food. It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I had chicken enchiladas and Osier had fajitas. We will be returning there in the near future, but I have definitely satisfied my constantly intensifying Mexican food craving for the moment. (It's definitely no G-Mex Taco Tuesday, but it will do) Now, if only I could find a Panera...

But on the subject of food, go have some Thanksgiving dinner for me. Sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Mashed potatoes. Green bean casserole. And just know I am thankful for everyone who has read my posts and who cares even a little bit. Sorry no pics this time! But I AM typing this on my brand new Mac computer!

Back to School, Back to Schooooooooool

Last night was the eighth round of play in the AWBL. Our opponent for the night was BC Vienna 87, one of the youngest teams in the league. We handled them very easily and Osier and I were able to play limited minutes. The final score was 86-60, but they never really had a chance. The game itself was very uneventful, but there is a breif write-up on the website www.uk-flames.org. After this game, we sit tied with Wels in second place. This coming Sunday we are supposed to travel to Wels for a game, but they have begged to reschedule. My thoughts: One of the Americans may not have had the right visa...so had to go home. Or someone is sick. Either way, I think they are up to something. You know what they say, never trust a Catfish.
Last Thursday, we took a trip to Bratislava, Slovakia to figure out our visa situation. Friday would have been our last day in the European Union legally. Fortunately, we were able to get our stay visas, which are good through the middle of May. We will still continue to work on getting our student visas so we can travel through the other countries in Europe (our current visa does not allow us to other countries in the EU).
Two of my friends from Chico will be here beginning Friday for a breif stay and I cannot wait. We also begin school tomorrow. Whoever decided that 4 hours of German a day was a good idea should be shot. We officially need to go back to school shopping. I have been making due with a single pen this entire time: One from Bidwell Title & Escrow in Chico. (My dad deals with them and steals their pens) I should probably practice my handwriting too...

Going to Happyland

Two HUGE things have happened in the past 5 days...or however many days it's been since the last post.

First, we are officially students at the University of Vienna. (Uni Wien) After over a month of emailing back and forth, we finally were told that the documents we had would sufice for admission and spent Tuesday and Friday of this week making sure everything was in order. Our class begins November 16th. Osier and I both applied for the Bachelors program in Education of Sports and English...but since we are not fluent in German, we are alloted 4 semesters to take nothing but German before having to pass a proficiency test to begin the Undergrad classes.

Being a student means we can apply for our student visa finally. It also means we get insurance coverage under the universtiy and have the ability to save money on a great number of things by using our student IDs. The student IDs are funny...they are a folded sheet of paper with a passport photo glued inside and stamped. Nothing like the states. They love to use paper here for everything. AND they love to carry their papers around in little plastic covers. Whatever works, I guess.

The second thing comes in the form of a sweet victory. Friday night our game was at Klosterneuerg...who, if nothing, has hands down the best gym name EVER. (Happyland) It was not such a happy night for them though as we led from the start and continually increased our lead by 5 points every quarter, never really letting them back in the game. The game was overall the best we have played and we finally got some point production from an array of players and Osier and I each finished with 18. This is one of the first games I have felt like we didn't NEED to score all the points. The final score had us winning by 19 points and the MVP of Austrian players of the league last year was held to under 10 points.

We played a little bit inspired, since our 30 point loss last Sunday and the fact that Klo-berg beat us by 3 points earlier in the season. This win also propelled us to the second position in the league (head-to-head and point spreads). I hope we can use this game as a platform to really take off and start playing better basketball, but the season is long and every team is on a rollercoaster.

Tonight we plan on celebrating the victory and finally hanging out with a teammate who has been in quarantine for Swine flu. (she didn't HAVE it) We are also going to attend the Basketclubs game this evening and hopefully witness a victory for that program as well. We were debating going since they haven't won a game while we have been present. Anyways, I need to take some time now to tweak my fantasy rosters...yes, there is Basketball now also. And I must say that I would have rather had the Dodgers win the world series *gasp* rather than the Yankees.

If you have facebook, become a fan of our team http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Union-Kuenring-Flames/185276658419?ref=ts

Snowtime...

So I figured that while the baby snowflakes continue to fall outside our window and we wait for them to stick, I could post a little sumthin sumthin. The last 7 days have been a very long 7 days...as in, I'm pretty sure the days have been lasting 30 hours rather than 24. Speaking of hours, we had a time change about a week and a half ago, putting us only 8 hours ahead of the states (CA of course), but I believe the states just recently had a time change, bringing the grand total back to 9 hours...yeah, I know you don't care, but I think it's weird.
Our weeks feel the longest when we have games on Sunday. This past Sunday was our second meeting with the Flying Foxes, who beat us by 29 points last game...which was totally not refelctive of the way the game was actually played...whatever. This time around, I felt even more unprepared (for multiple reasons) and it showed. We ended up losing by 30...which again, was not reflective of the game (it felt like we lost by 75). The highlight of the game was when the opposing coach proceeded to yell at ME during the game...apparently I like to take out players in the backcourt. "Why do you do that? That is an intentional foul!"...bla bla bla. Yeah. Clearly, I enjoy sticking my "bad" knee into right into the bad knee of the other American player, whom I actually have respect for. It took me a moment to realize he was in fact yelling at me...and I just looked back at him with a crooked smile like SERIOUSLY??? I think the other American player was also embarassed. You would never beleive the politics involved with that club.

I also had my first experience with an And 1/Offensive foul. Osier went up for a layup (did a 180 and shot it backwards) and was called for an offensive foul as she made the basket. The refs stopped the game and informed the table that the basket counted, but the foul was on Osier. She and I looked at eachother like "WTF" as we ran back down the court, and were even joined by the opposing team's Americans in our thought process of "the rules here are sooooo dumb". I never thought I would be wishing that the referees were more like the CCAA referees (I am bias, they all loved me!), and I continually make the argument that since Americans invented basketball, we have the right rules. I really don't have enough time to explain all the dumb calls I have seen made in this country by referees and the different rules that make absolutely no sense. I one change I do enjoy is the 24 second shot clock. (I would!)

Halloween also passed us right by. Since we had a game on Sunday and the celebration routine here is a little different than Hallo"week" in Chico, we did not make any effort to dress up and go out on Saturday. I DID buy pumpkin seeds though.

We also learned that we may be able to start a course at the University ASAP. The german course we were interested does not require the diploma with the Apostille...they told us it did 6 weeks ago. We are both looking forward to learning a bit of German. Just being immersed in the language, I feel like I can generally understand what someone is asking, but usually our conversations with the people in our buildings consist of nodding, laughing, and agreeing. Then if they ask a question, we finally reveal that we do not in fact speak any German (in German.).

The snow does appear to be sticking...so Osier and I are going to have a winter photoshoot. We then plan on finding the Costco equivalent and turning these photos in to cheesy Christmas cards, which we will then mass-mail to the states. Please send me your address if you would like to receive a limited edition audimichelle 2009 Christmas card.

*Christmas vacation may include a trip to Belgium or London!!! And I went to a small concert last night and saw an amazing band from Wien. Moonshaker Sunnymaker: check em on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1_1hvxOGXk. And we went to 80s night on Friday...kinda.

1 win, 1 loss, and 42 points in 30 minutes

Two games in three days has really helped me to realize that my body is *gasp* OLD. Fitness wise, i would still put myself up there with the best of them...but my bones and joints defintely had an easier time recovering from excessive physical activity 3 years ago. But anyways, we played three games in two days.

The first game was against Klosterneuburg, currently the second place team in our league (we sit third, btw). Klo-burg has last years MVAP, who I had the pleasure of guarding the whole 40 minutes. I'm sure you are wondering what MVAP means...It doesn't take a rocket scientist to decipher it, but for all of you who accidentally stumbled upon this blog and have no real interest in sports, its the Most Valuable Austrian Player. Yeah, it's tricky and you're welcome! Generally the best players are foreigners (Americans, hell yes) so they invented an award to give to the best Austria player. Whatever.
I'm gonna direct you to the website for the game write-up, but I will still try to give you a breif recap myself. We started the day by going to our Saturday morning practice gym and getting a good number of shots up before returning home to nap. Basically the whole game was played within 6 points...somtimes we led, sometimes they led. Towards the end of the game, with no real strategy in place, our squad made some silly mistakes that led to an eventual 3 point Klo-burg victory. Our lack of experience was evident in the waning moments of the game and we paid for it. Down by one with 45 seconds to go, a player proceeded to foul (she made both free throws) and then shoot a quick 3 pointer on the next posession. After another Klo-burg posession and eventual bucket, Osier hit a last second shot to bring the final score within 3. None of our players were happy with the game, but fortunately we get to play them 3 more times this season, and if the standings stay the way they are, first round of the final four.

Our second of the two games was on Monday against Graz. We played, for the third time in a row, at the Mollardgasse in Vienna, which has served as our home gym. Graz is not a very strong team, so we were able to get everyone playing time and the final score was 90-53. I have never really in my career been one to score a lot of points...more of a consistent scorer. I'm just gonna say it: This game though, I had A LOT of points. 42 to be exact. That is more than I have ever scored in my life. Here's the real kicker: I sat out the entire second quarter. Sure, the team we were playing wasn't the greatest, but it was just one of those days where I was feelin it. Lets hope this continues through the next weekend. Again, the website has a little write-up, so check that out too. http://www.uk-flames.org/. Our overall record is now 3-2 following the first round of AWBL games.

I was fortunate to have two friends in Vienna with us from Friday to Monday morning. They rocked mine and Osier's jerseys at the Klo-burg game and were very entertaining. Sunday I took them to the Schönbrunn (my second time there) for a nice view of Vienna and to enjoy the amaing weather. It's still cold as hell, but at least the sun will join us for a few hours a day. Following our visit to the castle, we ventured through town to our favorite Asian restaurant, Bamboo, where you can make your own concoction for the chef to cook. They also have great sushi and a happy hour everyday, which we were sure to make it for. It's also one of the only places open on Sunday.

Today (tuesday) is our day off (minus the practice we RUN later) and we took our time to visit the MA35 to turn in our visa applications, which has taken a huge load off my back. Minus a few small things I may need shipped from the states, everything else seems to be in order and we will be able to remain legally in österreich for the remainder of the season. So anyone who wants to come visit, Yes, I will still be here.

Next Sunday is the first game of round two in league and we start with our favorite cross-town rivals, Flying Foxes Post. They ran off with the game last time, but we were two forwards down, so we sill see how we fare this time around.

That's it for now. I have to go fill out my rosters for BOTH fantasy hockey and fantasy basketball. The NBA starts tonight. Not that I can watch the games or anything, but its still something to read about on ESPN.com. And yes, I play fantasy hockey. Don't Judge.

We (Osier and I) have decided that you can wear anything you want in this damn country and it's ok. I never thought I would be the girl wearing legwarmers...but they are pretty awesome!

Catfish

To explain the title of this post: every time my google translator translates a german page to English, the name Wels (which is a city in Austria) is translated to catfish. So I will just do the translating for you.
The good news is we beat the catfish. Oh, yes we did. Check the website for the final score, but I think we won by 5. At one point, I think our largest lead was 14 points. I lied when I said Post was the only other team with Americans; Wels also has two American players, as well as an American coach, and as much as I wanted to approach them and ask "will you be my friend?", I held it together and decided against it...Wels is too far away to really be friends with the anyways.
Catfish was the defending cup champions from last season and this win could be considered our first "real" win against a somewhat decent team. Going into next week, where we play the second place Klosterneuberg on Saturday, we are 2-1. The season is very long though, and we will meet all these teams at least 3 more times after the first round of play.
Alright, this one was short, but its 11:45 and i still need to shower! Goodnight!

Hello, Winter!

The past week in Austria has definitely been filled with a variety of activities and we have been through many changes. Some of these changes are somewhat unimportant...like the changing of one's age. Some have really effected us immensely, such as the dropping of the temperature and the picking up of the winds. Some aren't even changes...we played basketball this week like we do every week.

After our University applications were denied and the hopes and dreams of a student visa were put out of reach, I began to research the legality of our stay here. Much to my surprise, I found that we have exactly 30 days from today to remain in the European Union without a visa. So naturally, we will be spending the next 4 weeks stressed out and wondering if our visa application, which we are allowed to do while in Vienna, will be done in time and if we have enough time to take care of the situation. Originally, we would have gotten a student visa, but because the University took so long with the admission system, we were unable to do that before our trek across the Atlantic.

Lets talk about the weather. Last thursday we walked across the street to the park, wearing our swimsuits and carrying oversized blankets, and attempted to bronze our sun-deprived skin a bit. After 20 minutes of overcastness, which 1) included a cliche parting of the clouds in which we turned to eachother and thanked Jesus AND 2) is not a word, we finally enjoyed a good 2 hours in the suprisingly strong rays of the sun. Unfortunately my ipod ran out of battery midway through, but the scenery around the grassy nole was enough to entertain my eyes for an hour.

Since that lovely day in the park, the wind has really picked up and the temperature has dropped 10C. Combine the two, and even the warmest outfit in the states will do you no good. Example: We went to our practice last night, in which we coach 5-6 girls for an hour and a half, fully clothed and with no intent of working out. My outfit consisted of shorts, sweatpants, a t-shirt, a long sleeve shirt, a fleece jacket, gloves, a scarf, and a knit beanie. Osiers outfit was similar, give or take a set of leggings under the sweatpants. We walked straight from the apartment to the bus and from the bus to the gym, a total of maybe 4 minutes outside. Any longer and I think I would have been in pain. BUT I did figure out how to turn on the heater in my room, which I have a feeling will be very useful in these coming months. My only question is What the hell happened to the fall season? Hello, Winter. It's supposed to snow next week.

My birthday was on Saturday...the big 23. Here is a rundown of the big day: We woke up at 8:15 AM to eat before practice at 10. I was surprised at the door by Bodo, Julia, and Katrin, who held possibly the largest chocolate cake I have ever received (and delicious...thank you mama Pöcksteiner!) We then continued on to practice, where I was presented with a box of milk chocolates! We were done at noon and headed home to shower and get dressed. We then hopped the bus/ubahn to Neubaugasse to have lunch at an amazing pasta restaurant called Vipiano. Following a hearty portion of Scampi, the girls bought me (what do you think?) a piece of chocolate cake! This particular cake even held the name "Death by Chocolate". It was just that, and even my chocolate-loving self had to SHARE. After walking around the city for an hour or so, including a trip into the Museum Quartier, we hopped the U4 and headed to the Basketclubs game on the other side of town. We arrived just as the U22 game tipped off and were treated to two games, both of which were entertaining. Our next stop post-game had to be McDonalds, which happed to be on the way to the American cinema. We rapidly ate our meals (Big mac, pommes, and coke) and headed into the Cinema. The movie that evening was "The Ugly Truth" and was the perfect nightcap for the day!

No, we didn't go out on my birthday. Here's why. Sunday we had our game against the reigning champions, Flying Foxes SVC Post. Gametime was set for 5 pm. Osier and I were ready. Post is the club in town with the money...they are the only other team in our league with American players. Before we were set to warmup, we were informed that two of our players would be sitting out the game because they were late to the game. I definitely have an opinion on this decision by our coach, but I won't share it here.

Post jumped out early by 8 points or so. Our first couple baskets came after a few minutes into the first quarter, but we battled our way back to a 2 point lead midway through the second quarter. After trading baskets, we headed into the locker room down by 5. The second half was a poor showing on our part and the game eventually got away from us as Post took a 20+ point lead and never looked back. Read the full story here: http://www.uk-flames.org/. It's hard to say anything about what "should" have happened in the game since we were nursing self-inflicted handicaps from the beginning. The good part is that we get to play them 4 more times this regular season.

This week we host Wels (catfish) in Vienna and travel to Klosterneuberg next week, both of which should be good games. Stay tuned!

Fun Facts: I will be watching "New Moon", which is the second movie in the Twilight series, on opening night, probably before most of the people in the states. Also, My birthday next year will be on 10-10-10 and will be my 24th...if you don't understand the coolness of that, please check the url of this blog.

Season Opening

After a good 7 weeks of practice and practice games, we have finally started the official season. We played our first game on Saturday, game two of the AWBL triple header in the Mollardgasse, our home gym. Here is a rundown of the big day:

The first game was a thriller between the Klosterneuberg Duchess and Wels. After holding a four point lead for most of the game, Wels let the game slip away in overtime. Both teams looked strong, especially K-Berg, which played overtime with two if its starters on the bench, including last years MVP. Wels definitely had some BIG players and, we surprised to find out, are coached by and American. sidenote: while looking up train tickets from Vienna to Wels, I learned that Wels literally translates to "catfish" in German. Weird.

Our game was the second of the evening. Each player was told to bring 10 fans. The turnout was great and the gym was full. The team we played never really gave us a run for the money. We scored the first 8 points and were up by more than 20 for 80 percent of the game. Check out the website for the actual numbers and scores. http://www.uk-flames.org/. Vienna 87, our opponent that night, was a very young team and also had players that had spent training camp with our team before deciding to play in the cross-town club. Every one of our players had the chance to play, and all those that did scored. We had a great time engaging the crowd in our game and having fun while coasting to the victory. I finished with a game high 23, while Osier had 22, despite only making one field goal. (Not really, but she did have about 15 free throws.)

The nightcap game was even less thrilling than ours, as reigning champions Flying Foxes Post dominated the team from Graz. We didn't even stay until the end of the game. Post, coincidentally, will be our next matchup, as we travel across town to their gym next Sunday. The support for our clubs was amazing, and there were even some TV cameras present, as our game will be aired on local Vienna TV within the next few days.

I also have a friend currently staying with us until tomorrow evening. She attended our game and (what a good sport) wore her Dirndl while doing so. She had come from Oktoberfest...but if you don't know what a Dirndl is, please google it. Tonights plan is to get schnitzel after practice, something I'm sure I will make every visitor to Vienna do. Recently, we have also been obsessed with Kebaps. Sooooooo gooooood! And cheap! Lastly, postcards should be going out this week, so if I don't have your (new) address, please send it to me and I will send something your way...eventually! Word. I will leave you with this link to the most amazing German song...enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7mGrPJvYhw

If you have facebook, check out more pictures from our season opening!

Fun and Games...Yes, Real Games

The UK Flames Bundesliga team competed in their first friendship game this past week. As far as the game goes, that is all I want to tell you about it...

No, but really. We played our first game in the Czech Republic this past Wednesday. We played a first divsion team from the city of Brno, which is only a two hour drive from the city of Vienna. We piled into a small VW golf and a 10 seater van and made the trek North. Since both the Czech and Austria belong to the European Union, there was no border control, which I found amazing conidering the fact we had just passed through a region that was once part of the Iron Curtain.

The gym was nice in Brno.We arrived over an hour prior to tipoff and were escorted to our dressing room. The gym was occupied until 20 minutes before game time so we warmed up for a measley 15 minutes or so and began our game. They jumped on us from the start and sped to a 10 point lead in a matter of minutes and we never really gave them the need to look back. I'm not positive what the final score was, but we were definitely on the losing end. (I'm not holding out...I really don't know the final, but it was about a 40 point spread. Lets just say 100-60?) There were some bright moments for our side, but those glimmers were simply not enough to keep us close, and our weakness were made obvious by their quicker style of play.

Ignoring the final score, it felt good to play a REAL game. Not counting my recent summer league venture, the last real game I played was in May of 2008. A year and a half later, here I am, playing basketball halfway around the world. It's amazing how things can turn out so well, despite how bad they can be at times.

Despite the flu-type sickness I am convinced I picked up on our little road trip, Osier and I made an effort this weekend to be social. Saturday, following our morning practice, we attended the Vienna sports day, which was held at the Volkstheater in front of the national library. We handed out flyers for our season opening, without speaking of course, and walked around the venue to chek out all the sports Austria has to offer. We left after 20 minutes. Later that evening, we took a short drive to Traiskirchen to see the BasketClubs Vienna Bundesliga, which is our brother team if you will, in action. I was surprised at the attendance, which had to be a couple hundred, but just overall excited to watch some basketball. Unfortunately, they lost. Oh well
To end our day (OK, maybe not) we returned home, changed, and headed to the opposite end of the city to the birthday party of the Vice President of our league. His daughter is also on our team so we made the trip out for a little celebration at a bar in the Northern part of Vienna. We were then driven "downtown" to our favorite German club, which plays 99% german music all night...which can be suprisingly fun. I knew exactly two songs the whole night.

We just returned from our second exhibition game, which we played earlier this evening in Sopron, which is the first city you hit coming from Vienna into Hungary. The drive took about 45 minutes. I am happy to say that we came away with our first victory. WE WON! The final score was 64-63 in our favor. We got some point production from a few different girls and took baby steps towards being a better team. I was pleased with the playing from my teammates and hope that we can build on this experience in the coming weeks and months.

Ok. So I have never really had the opportunity to complain about refereeing in any form of media (It's against CCAA and NCAA rules), so thanks to my deprivation in this area, here we go. Before I begin, I would like to add that the referees were clearly parents or even COACHES for the opposing team. I have never been so frustrated in my life with refs. True story. It's one thing to make bad calls, but at one point I felt like we were being straight cheated. It makes it all OK that we won the game...otherwise I would be calling this a friendship game rather than an exhibition. There was a highlight of the game, and it had nothing to do with basketball. During halftime, I was informed that I had 4 fouls. I knew I had 4 fouls. Nevertheless, I looked at the ref (who speaks Hungarian) and held up three fingers and said "I only have three". He looked at me like I was crazy, looked at the scorekeeper, looked back at me, held up three fingers back, and nodded. So essentially, I talked myself out of a foul. Later in the game when i was called for my 4th and the book said I had 5, I looked at the table and held up 4 fingers. The same ref ran over and nodded. I was still tempted to hold up one finger to the ref after the game, but decided against it, due to my 15 extra minutes of playing time.

When we arrived back to our apartment about 10:30, I unlocked the downstairs door to the elevator, pushed level 5 and opened the elevator door to let Osier out. Usually, I go out first, turn on the hall light, and open the front door. Osier reached for the light switch, which is surrounded by a red light, and pushed it twice. No lights came on, but we could hear a faint double ringing of a doorbell in our neighbors apartment. It wouldn't have been a big deal if these neighbors hadn't been over to our apartment 5 times to tell us 1) not to slam the door 2) not to do dishes 3) not to bang our hands against the wall 4) not to walk so loudly etc,...and we never even have people over. Anyways, we were aware that they were most likely in bed. Our door has a double lock, so I knew that I would never have had enough time to run and unlock it before angry neighbor #1 came out to yell at us. Our first thought was to bolt up the stairs to the next floor. From there, we took the elevator down to the basement, where we sat for 20 minutes just talking, and waiting to return to our floor and act as if we had just arrived home. Luckily when we went back up, neighbor man had already returned to bed so we made it in safely.

Moral of the story: Osier is not allowed to push anymore buttons after 9:00 PM.

That's it for now...season opening on Saturday will be worthy of a post so stay tuned, but Old Lady Spencer needs to go ice her hip right now, so good night from Österreich.

Fun Facts: The website (http://www.uk-flames.org/) has been updated. Pictures...yeeeeeee! Also, our season opening will be on Vienna sports TV, along with interviews and profiles. I've never been afraid of an interview until now...should be interesting. Let the games begin! Please.

€1 Lunches and Thrift Stores

Today was our adventure of thrift store shopping. I did hours of research last night to try to find the best possible places for us to shop. I came up with a list of about 12 places and narrowed it down to 5 this morning, set with directions and a list of which U's and buses to take. I also took the time to circle each destination in my transit book, which is a pretty amazing thing to have at all times. I'm over the fact that I look like a tourist, and am tempted to tell the locals who stare "hey, I live here too". But they probably don't speak English...
Anyways, the goal of the afternoon was to find a bomber jacket. They are very in style here and I wouldn't mind having one after a long night at the dance clubs, which they make very possible with a 1-2 euro coat check or rentable lockers. Walking down Wiedner Haupstraße, we almost missed the first store while focusing on avoiding the woman trying to shove some sort of text in our direction. A block and 3 minutes of blankly staring at eachother later, we decided to turn around and head back to the U. Sure enough, there it was in all it's glory, the sign reading "seconhand store". It was very exciting. This specific store, called Humana, was a little pricy for being all used clothing, but had an amazing Dirndl section. If you don't know what dirndl is, you should probably find out. Like, now. We were tempted to try things on, but figured our time would be better spent in a store where we could actually afford the clothes.
While walking to the second shop on the strategically planned list, we spoke of our hunger and about how much we wanted Kebap. As this conversation was happening, we passed a EuroSpar, which is another huge chain of supermarkets. In the window was an advertisement that I have seen nearly a thousand times in my month here for a €1 lunch consisting of a ham sandwich and choice of a coke or beer. We went for it and it was a fabulous buy. We took our sack lunches to go and walked two blocks to a small park to eat and to talk about how good it was for ONE EURO, also while being entertained by 3 old men playing bocce ball, or some form of it, in a gambling sort of fashion. After finishing our sandwiches and cokes, we continued our trek to thrift store number two. The second store was a REAL thrift store or at least it smelled like it. This would be the store where I would enter as a very unstylish American tourist and emerge as a super chic euro wannabe...pshh just kidding. But I did find my bomber jacket and boy, do I love it.
At this point, we still had two hours to kill before we needed to hop our bus to the gym so we decided to try out our third listed shop. The online reveiws said this store carried English books, so i was excited to see what they had for us. We were disappointed to find an extremely small shop with nothing but designer clothes, used but still way over priced, and childrens toys. On this note, we chose to call it a day and head home to prepare for practice.
After taking the U1 back to our beloved Reumanplatz and making our way to our 66A bus stop, we couldn't resist the temptation that is Tichy. Tichy the Eis Salon that is conveniently located at the most central part of our travel. We can't go anywhere without having to pass Tichy and thus have been there three times this week alone. Today I went with the Pistazien, or Pistacio, while Osier went with her usual boring coffee/chocolate (which is reeeaaaaally good in real life), which rounded out a day of well balanced meals. Nicht.
Wednesdays we help out at the U16 practice for our club so we left our apartment early and reached the school around 5:20. After an hour of individual layup practice with our two girls, we were in need of an energy boost before our own practice, so we ventured down the street to the corner market and grabbed a couple Red bulls.
After practice, dying for some healthy food, we were driven to the Schnitzelhouse, which we discovered is just down the street from our apartment and open very late. We ordered the biggest schnitzels possible and took them home to enjoy with a little CNN. Osier likes hers with the ketchup, I prefer mine with just lemon. We opened our boxes to find, not one schnitzel, but TWO schnitzels!!! Just what we needed. My self control allowed me to save about 6 bites for tomorrow, but nonetheless, I am convinced that we consumed about 13,000 calories today.
Fun Fact: "Austria" to the Austrians is Österreich. Naturally, every other country is called something different as well, which makes it really fun when discussing mine and Osier's desired travel plans in other parts of EU.

The New City and our Living Quarters

Ok, so I am fully aware that it has been over two weeks since my last update so bear with me for this scatter-thought post. In general, we have had a lot of free time, but we have also accomplished a decent amount of things in our two weeks in Vienna.
First of all, we have the public transportation system DOWN. It helps that the bus that runs right next to our apartment, but that is besides the point. It pretty much takes us at least 20 minutes to get anywhere, but we have nothing better to do except wait for the bus everyday. The places we go generally consist of the gym of choice for the day, our new best friend Sara’s house, or the Reumanplatz. Oh and the Billa. I thik I mentioned what Billa is. We literally live right on top of one. Yeah, its all fun and games. Except for that its only open until 7:00 each night and it’s closed on Sundays, along with everything else. Our new friend Sara is on our team and naturally speaks the best English. Its such a releif to not have to explain all of our smart ass jokes to her or repeat everything we say.
Rewind back to the end of training camp. We were the initiators of a mini prank war. On the last Thursday, we snuck into the boys’ room and stole all their bedding, which we kept through the night. They were upset, but none of them said anything because they were all scared of me. Julia asked the boys what they thought of the two American girls. They responded by labeling Osier the quiet, shy one and me as the gangster. I guess I’ll take it. Anyways, we were prepared for a retaliation the next night. I strategically moved my sleeping spot to the top bunk in the corner next to the giant cabinet. We outfitted the room with a barricade of stacked chairs at the front door and a bucket of water on top of the cabinet. The girls in my room (age 15) were really afraid of what was going to happen. I promised I would wake up when they came in and scare them off. Still worried that nobody would hear them come in, I had the brilliant idea to put a coin on top of the lock and one on top of the door handle. Sure enough, when they unlocked the door, the first coin dropped and I popped up out of bed and onto the top of the cabinet. The intruders were a bit rattled after the first coin, but proceeded to enter the room a few minutes later. The second coin dropped and they were committed. The barricade served it purpose in the dark, and they eventually turned on the lights. We then blasted a few of them with water and they were gone. I regretted that we didn’t let them make it in the room so I could have really hit em hard. Consensus: Ladies win.
The next day we returned to Pöchlarn for the weekend to prepare for our move to Vienna. We had dinner on a farm, which also had a small restaurant. The meat and cheese assortment was one of the best I have ever had and was all straight from the farm. We took another day trip around the neighboring towns and visited the beautiful Melk abbey. I lost a battle with a bee and ended up with a nice sting on my left leg. That evening we went to a Japanese bbq for a boy who was moving to Japan to go to school. We packed our things and caught up on our sleep and left the next morning for Wien.
Our apartment is in the 10th district in Vienna, which on the southeast end of the city. It’s not really near anything important and it usually takes us about 30 minutes to reach our destination. We have a transit pass that is good for all three forms of transportation in Vienna; the U-bahn, the Tram, and the bus. The Europeans have the transportation thing down…Those who absolutely have to have a car have compacts. I have never seen so many SmarCars in my life. Osier and I make it a point to show each other every Smartcar we see and it’s amazing how many autos can fit on a street block. If Americans drove cars that size, I don’t think parking would ever be a problem.
One of our most exciting escapades was last Sunday around the city with Sara, Osier’s aunt, and her aunt’s mother. We were happy walking around the downtown area near St. Stephans and over to the ring, when we were stopped on the street by none other than Sara’s dad, Christian, who happened to be driving by. Mind you, Vienna is NOT a small city. He took us on a brief tour before dropping us off at the Schönbrun, which is the castle where Maria Theresa lived, as well as Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife Elisabeth (Sisi). The castle was beautiful and we took one of the tours through 29 of the rooms before making our way through the garden and up the hill to have coffee and ice cream at the café overlooking the city. Following our coffee, we were driven around the entire city by Christian and finally treated with takeout Wiener schnitzel, a perfect end to a great day.

We have branched out a bit and made about 5 friends, all of who are invovled some way in the Vienna basketball world. Some days we are afraid to leave the house because we are screwed if someone trys to talk to us, or we make fools out of ourselves while trying to ask if they speak English. Our neighbors are interesting and insist that we are banging our pots in the kitchen every night at 11 pm and rant at us in German, while we nod and pretend to look apologetic. Meat and chesse is pretty much what my diet conists of and I generally eat two meals a day. We cook a lot of our own food since the stores all close before we get home from practice. Mineral water is cheaper than regular water and is easier to find in any store. Wiener Schnitzel is the most amazing thing ever invented and I have bread with either nutella or cheese and proscuito every morning. More on the food scene when we really get settled/brave enough to venture to a restaurant.
Another scene we explored was the club scene. The Austrians impress me in the fact that they don’t even hit the clubs until 1 AM. They go to dance and to listen to house music and don’t leave until 5 AM. As you can imagine, this has really messed with our sleeping schedules and we are constantly sleeping until noon or later. What a job. My favorite club has been the German club. The German music is so fun and peppy and always says “la la la” at some point n the song. What’s not to love about that!? Anyways, hopefully the updates will be more regular now that we have our working internet and I have a new computer on the way. Oida…

Fun Fact(s): McDonalds with a drive in are called McDrive, McDonalds serves beer, its legal to drink EVERYWHERE, and clubs don't ID anybody so we can roll with all our 17 year old friends ;)

A Quickie

The title of the post is clearly referring to the length of this entry, people. It's friday in beautiful Austria and we have one practice and a "game" before the end of training camp. I can't wait to be out of here and start living our real lives in the big city, bright lights. I'm currently bored...it's 4:00 pm and we don't have anything until dinner at 5:30 and practice number two of the day at 8:15. I also took a short trip to the Billa, which is the equivalent of Safeway/Vons in the States. Except much smaller. And with different food products.
Anyways, I was looking to fulfill my CRAVING for some form of high fructose corn syrup, naturally in the soda aisle. I thought about getting a Red Bull...in fact, I thought this out loud. I was then informed that the creator of Red Bull lives in Austria...which makes sense considering the ridiculous price here. When you fools over in the good ol' U.S of A are spending over $3.00 on a Red Bull after tax, we are paying a silly 1,50 euro for that same caffeinated goodness. And a 6 pack of them is less than 6 euro.
But that isn't even the most exciting part of the story. My purchase ended up being a Red Bull COLA. I was stoked, since this drink was even cheaper than the normal Red Bull. When I cracked the top on the can and took the first sip, I was pleasantly greeted with a perfectly created mixture of Coke and Red Bull. Who would have thought? Someone, apparently. Lastly, it's interesting that Red Bull is the sponsor for everything over here. They may even sponsor this blog post if I was to ask. There ya go...took me less that 5 minutes to write. Just wanted to share my new addiction to Red Bull Cola.

*I used "Red Bull" 8 times in this post. 9 if you include the foot note.

After Hours, Salzburg, and Week 2

So the first week of training camp is done, and we are through the weekend and onto the second week. Here are some of the highlights of the past few days. Our trip to Salzburg included myself, Osier, Julia, Katrin, Gaby, and Bodo. Important things to Note: I will be mainly be reffering to the Sound of Music as "the movie" since the Austrians aren't fans, I took all the pictures in this post, and almost everything is surrounded by mountains, so forgive me for telling you that over and over.

Extra-curricular Activities: The Austrian kids enjoy their tv, but all their shows play in German, and even though I have seen each episode of "Friends" 10 times, I still have no idea what is happening. So we resort to card games and outdoor sports. First, the card games. Take every card game you know. Then add a bunch of rules that will make each round of that game last 20 minutes longer, and somtimes to the point where they just won't end. Examples: Presidents and B.S. In Presidents, if you end up with a 2 AND a 3 you pretty much have no chance to win. I have found every way to cheat at the game, just so I can have a few minutes break before the next round. Did I mention we play with 2 or 3 decks and like 12 people...from 10PM - Midnight? Wirklich? And I have definitely won some hearts with my expert card castle buliding skills.

Then we move onto sand volleyball. We did the old fashioned picking teams thing and my team ended up winning in 5 games. We played in the rain and everybody was fairly decent at the game, which is impressive considering I think it's one of the hardest games to play recreationally. We also had some pretty awesome uniforms. :) (left)

Our Trip to Salzburg: Sound of Music anyone? No, we didn't go on the tour, but I had the most amazing day trip to Salzburg and the surrounding lakes and cities. We left Sunday afternoon around 10 AM and drove to Mattsee, the first of our 3 lake stops. The family told me they had taken my former coach George Libbon here, so we took some pictures and were on our way to Salzburg. An hour later, we pulled into the city, which is incredibly scenic considering the whole city is surrounded by gourgeous mountains. We parked in a parking structure inside a mountain and made our way through the tunnel on our way down to the city. We came out of the tunnel in front of, what else, but the theatre in the end of the movie where they sing at the festival. I was under the impression we would be going in, so I didn't take any pictures. We ended up passing the theatre and heading up towards the INCREDIBLE Festung Hohensalzburg. This castle sits on the top of one of the mountains and has an incredible view of the whole city. I ended up with about 100 pictures of the city because I had no idea that the view would keep getting better! We went through the fortress, which also has a museum and other stuff...most of the type in the Museum was German though, so Osier and I pretty much just looked at the items and pictures, which was still mildly entertaining.

We then took the tram down the side of the mountain into the town, where we found a brewery and had an amazing lunch. We then continued onto the Dom, which it the huge church in the center of the town with the green cathedral tops. We walked through the church, which was flooded with people and into the Residenplatz, which is surrounded by baroque style buildings. Continuing through the square, we reached the Alter Markt (Old Market) and the legendary Getreidgasse, where we had the opportunity to see the buliding where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born. This concluded our visit to Salzburg, and we were on our way to visit the surrounding lakes at about 3 PM. left: the fortress from the end of Getreidgasse

Wolfgansee and Mondsee: Our next stop was the first of our lake town visits, and was the town of St.Wolfgang on the north side of the Wolfgangsee. The place we stopped we very touristy, but had an incredible view of the lake and the surrounding mountains. We planned to take a boat tour around the lake, but were too late to catch the last ride, so we settled for some coffee, soda, and ice cream. We then took a brief stroll around the town then hopped in the car for our trip to Mondsee.

Mondsee was literally over the mountain from Wolfgangsee, so it took us less than 20 minutes to get there. We parked outside the city and walked in. We went straight to the huge church...which looked oddly familiar once I was inside. Had the lighting been better, I would have immediately realized that it was indeed the church where they are married in the movie. As we were leaving, I grabbed a brochure and across the front there was a line regarding the movie. From there, we walked about 3 blocks to the lake itself, which it surrounded by mountains, naturally. The water was super nice, and if it hadn't been so late, we may have considered swimming. We then headed back to town and had a nice dinner, which included the largest Wiener Schnitzel I have ever seen! That was the end of our day trip, as we headed back to Mattighofen. The ride back included an exchange of American slang for smart-ass German phrases, which we shared with all the boys when we got back to the camp.

Week 2 of Camp: We now have our entire team at camp for the week. I have learned the names of almost everyone, which is a task considering I have never heard over half the names before. Our first team meeting lasted about an hour and was held in German, naturally. I sat next to Osier the whole time, pretending to listen while picking the nail polish off my fingers. The first two practices were a learning process in terms of playing with a whole new group of players who play a different style of basketball, but the one we had this morning was a lot better after a night of sleep. There are 5 players our age and the rest range from ages 18-20, with a total of 14 players. We practice twice a day and have a "fitness" workout in the evening. That's about all I can say about the week so far.

That's It: I got nothing else. These days are very monotonous and we never really do anything THAT interesting, but I have no doubt I will be filled with experiences as soon as we get into Vienna next Monday. Check out our team website: http://www.uk-flames.org/. Finally, there is a lot of love flowing at camp since I learned the phrase"ich liebe dich".

Fun Fact: The diet coke equivalent here is called Coke light and tastes EXACTLY the same as regular coke. And the internet runs on Gbytes and you have to buy the amount of internet you want per month.

Training Camp

The past three days of my life have been some of the longest ever. It's so strange not having a cell phone or very convenient internet access. I have been trying to use the internet twice a day (facebook, email,etc...) since it really is my only form of communication at this point. I swear sometimes I can feel my cell phone vibrating in my pocket. Then I realize that I have had my cell phone off since I got here AND that I have no pockets to begin with.

The camp is amazing. It's located in a small town called Mattighofen in Upper Austria (Oberösterreich), not even an hour from the German border. Everyone has been very nice and understanding to the fact that Michelle and I do not speak much (any) German and we have been having multiple practices a day, sometimes with the boys team. Right now, the camp is very small and consists of 4 players from our team, 5 players from the boys U18 team, and a number of U13 players. Next Monday we will be joined by the rest of our team. There will be 15 players total.

The practices are interesting...the coach will say something in German, Michelle and I will look around frantically, and one of the players will translate quickly as we are running to our positions. The level of basketball is pretty decent from what I have seen. I enjoy practicing with the guys. It's great being back in the full swing of things. We basically live basketball here at the camp. When we aren't actually practicing we are thinking about the next practice that day, or we are doing some other sort of exercising. The program has a well rounded staff and we have done things I have never experienced before in terms of working out.

Technically we have been to Vienna, but only because that is where the airport is. From there we were picked up by Bodo and driven about an hour to his alternate home. We then spent the next day trying to compensate for our jet lag, and finally left for camp Monday at 8 am. The ride was incredible. We drove past Linz, one of the larger cities in Austria. We worked out twice the first day. The first workout was with the coach of the U13 boys team, who is pretty awesome. The second was with Bodo and the blder boys team.

Today we also went swimming. Each town in Austria has a community pool...and everyone goes there in the summer. PLUS they all have waterslides. Yes, slides, plural. I took the opportunity to behave like a 12 year old and push all the little kids out of the way to have my turn...or eight. The club today also had a whirlpool and two diving boards...not to mention multiple levels of grass noles and a hell of a snack bar. We walked there from the school through the town about a mile so we also had the opportunity to see some stores.
After we returned, we attempted to use the magicjack, which is SUCKING right now and then went to possibly one of the most epic bbqs ever. We had some of the best veggies and sausages I have ever had and there was a sour cream based sauce for the baked potatoes which was amazing. Following another 2 hours of attempted magicjack use and fifa on the playstation, the five of us girls went on a 45 minute jog through the countryside. I was tempted to bring my camera, but figured I have over a week to compile some pictures. During our jog we had a miniature German lesson in which I learned how to be a sarcastic a-hole in a second language. All in all, today was fabulous and I can't wait for our weekend off and a promised trip to Salzburg. Sound of Music, anyone?
Lastly, Michelle and I spent our first Euros yesterday. I purchased some hair products and candy, and of course, a large package of Manner treats, or wafers with chocolate. Gut!

New Beginnings and Awesome keyboards ß

We finally made it here to Austria after a looooong plane ride. I feel like I need to provide a little bit of an update, although we have been here a whopping 24 hours. We got into town last night around 7 pm. The airline lost one of my bags...OK maybe not lost, but apparently it didn't make it on the plane. My bag arrived at the house this morning, though, so I only had to suffer through one night without half my stuff. Not that I would have noticed...I fell asleep last night with the light on I was so tired.
So we left San Francisco at 6:50 pm on Friday evening. The flight length was about 10 hours. I fell asleep, woke up for a meal, watched a movie, listened to some music, slept again, watched another movie while eating the second meal, then we landed. We each received a care package at the beginning of the flight with a toothbrush, toothpaste, socks, and a sleeping mask. I thought it was funny that the British were offering dental care...
Our plane flew into London/Heathrow airport, where we hopped a shuttle to terminal 3. We were so tired, we barely noticed the shuttle driving on the opposite side of the road. I was a little freaked out when we rounded a corner and a car was coming straight at us on the right side...the Heathrow airport is exteremly large. Our shuttle ride in between British Airways terminals was 10 minutes alone. The second flight was much more interesting. We flew lower to the ground and were able to see the countryside of 5 different countries on the way to Vienna. We flew over London, which you can't see from the airport, the Northern part of France, Luxemborg, Germany, and a bit of Switzerland...maybe not in that order. We landed in Vienna about 2 hours later. Customs was so much easier than I imagined. We then proceeded to collect our bags, one of which we left without, and were greeted by our host family, the Pöcksteiners.
The Pöcksteiner family is made up of Bodo, Gaby, Julia, and Flo. Bodo is the coach of our team, and Julia, who is considered the best young player in the country at 15, is a member of our team. We then boarded their very European VW van and were off to their country home. The drive was about an hour East of Vienna on the A1 highway. We stopped in Melk on the way to eat at a little restaurant on the Danube river. I had Weinerschnitzel, which was not a hot dog at all, but a fried piece of pork. We then continued down the road a bit to the house. I took a shower and fell asleep in no time.
We woke up this morning at 9. We had a bit of breakfast and then took a bike ride through the town and along the Danube. Bodo gave us a tour of the town he grew up in and we cruised around for about an hour and a half. I took some pictures, but have no internet on my computer, so was not able to post them yet. I will soon hopefully. We then play some basketball on the outdoor court at the house before going to the big community swimming pool, fully equiped with multiple water slides and high dives. Oh, did I mention the weather is AMAZING and I think I may have even gotten a sunburn from the abnormal amount of outdoor activity today.
Once we got back from swimming, we had proscuito and cantalope...one of my absolute favorites, and we attempted to figure out MajicJack. The first few tries were unsuccessful, but we were able to receive a call from Michelle's mom. The time difference is 9 hours.
Later tonight we will Barbeque. I am very excited to be here and to have the chance to let you all know how things are going.
Tomorrow we leave for training camp, which will be 2 weeks at an amazing sports camp in the mountains. I can't wait to get started playing and to have more of a basketball aspect to write about next time. I haven't actually been to the city of Vienna yet, minus the airport, but we will be able to move in two weeks from tomorrow. I'm not sure if we will have internet access at camp, so it may be a few weeks before another update. My email address is AGspencer24@aol.com. If you want my address, we would love to get some packages from the states so feel free to email me and I will send that to you. The next post will also contain a season schedule, hopefully.
Auf Wiedersehen!

The Dirty 5-30

So I have been at home now in Chico for 6 days. It has been great seeing all the familiar faces and hanging out with all my old friends. Annnnndddd eating at all the familiar restaurants. I made a bucket list of food I want to eat in Chico, which I have been trying to do in one week. What does it mean when every post is about food? Anyways, here is the list: La Comida, Hula's, Kinder's, Tres Hombres, Sierra Nevada, Aca Taco, Sin of Cortez, Celestino's, Jack's, Pluto's, and Jon & Bons. So far I have crossed out 3...I am definitely slacking.

I did have the opportunity to go to a going away party for a friends little brother where we did the most Chico-ish thing possible. No, not DRINK. Tye Dye! It was super fun and we made sets of towels and I colored a couple basketball shirts. Overall it was a great experience. My goal for the next few days before I leave is to REALLY experience Chico. I have lived here most of my life and I'm sure I take a lot of things for granted, but my life is about to be completely different in less than a week. Last night we went out on a boat on Black Butte Lake. I had never been there and it was extremely beautiful. We were there until about 8:30 when the sun set and it got a bit chilly. Then we ventured into town to have some Casa Ramos. MMMM.

I went shopping to buy some new luggage. I haven't actually bought it yet, but I am excited to have this much space for my stuff! Next on the list is the European outlet adapters, which I have been told to buy at "The Shack". Stupid Radio Shack commercials. I also have a goal to buy a new computer and a new digital camera, but we will see how many purchases I actually make. I am in dire need of a new comp. since my laptop is filled almost completely with music. It's sad that my ipod has more giggage than my computer. Yes, giggage is a word.

Well this may very well be my last American update. I may throw one more super emotional post in there before I leave. Maybe on my new computer. Stay tuned for my first Austrian post. There's a good chance it will be on food and dining.

Orange County: Where life doesn't give you lemons

Alright, so I just wanted to get out some final thoughts out before I make the epic drive up to Chico tomorrow morning. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Irvine and I had the first realization that I was actually leaving today in George's office. He wasn't quite sure how to respond when I started crying after telling him I wasn't staying until Sunday because my DAD wanted me home. I picked up the boss from the airport on Tuesday night, following my goodbye party and a very interesting taco Tuesday. She convinced me at 11:30 PM that I should stay until Sunday and tried to bribe me with a trip to Disneyland. I barely slept that night, subconsciously knowing that I couldn't stay that long, and told her this morning of my plans. So instead, she talked me into staying through the afternoon and taking a trip to Universal Studios and leaving from there. I couldn't turn it down. Anyways, here are my general thoughts of Orange County after 11 months:

Huntington Beach: I spent the first 8 months living in the good ol' HB. I made a 20 mile round trip drive, but it was such an amazing place to live. The people are not super "Orange County-ish" but embrace the surfer/biker attitude, which is awesome. Like the whole wearing-black-tattoo-motorcycle thing will never go out of style here. And the tourist aspect of the actual beach itself is amazing, despite the local love. There are all types of people in HB and I plan on living there again at some point in my life.

UC Irvine: I could go on all day about the amazing experience I had as an assistant coach, but I will never be able to do the people that made it all possible justice. The staff here has so much pride and are some of the most genuine people you would ever meet. I guess you can't NOT have pride when your mascot is the anteater. The school itself is beautiful...wayyyy to big, but an awesome campus.

Irvine: The city of Irvine itself cannot be grouped with the school. Whoever designed Irvine was clearly looking for the perfect community. Everything is very cookie cutter and WAY too expensive. THE STOPLIGHTS ARE SO INEFFICIENT!!! I have developed a bad habit of running yellow lights because a) the yellow lasts about 6 seconds and b) I know I'll probably be waiting a good 4-5 minutes til that light turns green. Everything is corporate and all the property is owned by the Irvine Company.

The Food: I have to mention the food because it was a great way to bond with people. If I had to choose a top 5 for Orange county it would look like this: 1 - The Beach House in Laguna Beach. I had the BEST piece of Ahi Tuna. And I love my tuna. 2 - Lazy Dog Cafe in Huntington Beach. Everyone who visited got to experience the LDC. Tried half the menu and loved it all. 3 - Pei Wei in Irvine (at the Bluffs). Besides the fact that the manager was funny and awesome, the food was super yummy and the student discount was just the icing on the cake. 4 - Duke's in Huntington Beach. Would be the top of the list if it wasn't so expensive. They DO have a good Taco Tuesday and if you are willing to pay for it, the food is pretty incredible. 5 - Great Mex (or G-Mex for the professionals). BEST taco Tuesday and in a great spot down the Balboa peninsula. The local spot and also has a "taco Friday" since one day to celebrate the goodness of tacos is not enough. Get the shrimp and crispy chicken tacos.

Great Mex - Taco Tuesday AND Friday

Consensus: I love food.

I hope I have the opportunity to experience more of Orange County down the road. My time has been amazing and I have appreciated every moment of it. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go build up my base tan before I move to the Alps.

Random: I just learned that players in Oregon refer to "blocked shots" as "caps". Only in Oregon.

Not So Funny, People

I have officially moved out of the apartment. It was a long two days that consisted of a large amount of red bull and a small amount of sleep. I ended up being able to pawn off a bunch of food to my friends who live down the road in HB. Yes, I have friends. I also took like a 5 hour break on the last night to go to dinner and a movie with my boy Ryan. Pro: Sushi at RA was awesome and I've never enjoyed Sake so much. Con: The movie was wayyyy too long. Funny People: good for about the first hour. Then downhill from there.
I have been absolutely dying for some good new music lately, so I plan on spending a good portion of this evening looking through the itunes store. I don't think anyone actually has found this blog yet, so I enjoy writing at myself. Super fun. I am currently posted up in our head coaches apartment. She DOES have HBO though, so I caught up on all the missed Entourage episodes.
Today for lunch I chose to go to Pei Wei, which is so awesome. The manager there is hilarious and knows me because I go there so often. He asked me if I would be blogging about my travels and playing experience and I informed him of this blog. So let people know about it. Would it be too bold to link it from the Chico State website?? ;) I don't know if anyone will care, but my goal is to just share a little bit about my time in a country that most people would not think about vacationing in. Hopefully I can do it justice. I am so excited to go and to be part of a different culture and to have the opportunity to try new foods. I would be excited about the food. Chico in less that 5 days...until then I am going to enjoy the rest of my time here in the 949/714 and chill with my special ladies.
Random: I learned the secrets as to why Kobe Bryant is the best basketball player in the world. Gave me something to think about. And the title to this post would have been the headline for my review of the movie Funny People. Yes, classy.

Moving Day...Again

I get so distracted while moving. First, I have to go through all my clothes, something I didn't do the last time I moved. So then I end up trying stuff on. Now I also have to pack a suitcase for another week down here while I roam the streets of Irvine (not a bad place to do so, I might add). Anyways, the Gabrielino apt will no longer be in use since my other roomies have gone home to St. Louis and WV respectively.
I spent a fabulous week in San Diego with a friend I haven't seen in a long time. She got married in February...are we getting THAT old? Her mother also got married recently so they had a rager of a party that consisted of me smashing a pig skull (he was DEAD already) and kissing its burnt snout. It was way fun.
This is also my shout out to Ashley Marcelle(sp?) Bocast who recently started a blog. Follow her travels in New Zealand here: http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=113415886915&h=pgMlZ&u=EhBvV. I can't wait to visit! Random: I rolled my ankle super bad on Monday and it still hurts like a bitch. Our summer league team is 5-1, no thanks to me, since I missed both games this weekend! My last two games will be this Saturday so we best secure some wins.
My stay in IRV keeps getting longer and longer. As of now, the plan is to stay until Wednesday, but some are trying to convince me to stay until Friday, but I would really like to get home and see my niece, who is just over 10 months. Maybe 11. Don't know.
Also, check out this article from the Chico Enterprise Record that ran last Saturday: http://www.chicoer.com/chicostate/ci_12913203. Right, the real blogging is gonna start in about 2 weeks when I'm traveling across the world to Austria and might have something new and exciting to write about. Word.

My Future Home

Audi-Austria-August

So I am almost down to my final two weeks living here in SoCal and my final month in the States for now. I learned today that I will be joined in Vienna by another CCAA legend (from UCSD, boo) and we will be roommates. Her name is Michelle Osier. I am super stoked to finally get out of here...my days are so long with nothing to do.
The summer league was super fun and a great success. We played two teams featuring girls from the UCLA team. We are currently 2-0 and Jade and I got to play all 40 min of both games. The league goes Saturday and Sunday of every week and we play in the USC PE building, which is featured in the epic movie Love and Basketball. The gym is also right across the street from the track where Monica and Q are talking before she has curfew...ill stop now. It surprises me how many people have not seen that movie. Anyways, it was great fun getting a chance to play again.
My mother is coming to visit with one of her good friends on Sunday and will get to come to one of the games. Then my Dad is coming on the 25th for absolutely no reason. My leaving date keeps getting pushed back farther and farther. I am now set to leave here on the 2nd of August, but want to stay a little longer to see a friend that is going out of town until the evening of the 2nd. I need to eventually drive the vovlo, and its new brakes, up to Chico. I am not yet certain of the date of the flight over to Austria but it will be mid August.

Austrian Flag

I went to the beach today in Huntington and there was a massive setup for the Hurley US Open surf competition which will be July 18-26. I hope to attend multiple days next week. Also, the annual Office Olympics begin next thursday. The three events are cornhole, bowling, and ping pong. Pretty sure I suck at all 3 so lets hope I get a good partner. Cooking this week: We made crabcakes, pork tenderloin, and enchiladas. And margaritas. And when I say we, I mean me all by myself. Whoever said spending time alone wasn't fun, probably was not a very fun person in general. Harry Potter tomorrow. I'll leave you with these words to live by: Tigers don't like cinnamon. Tigers like pepper.

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The 4th, visits, and ABBA

So I have gotten into the whole twitter thing, which is almost like a mini blog. I am one week into my last month here in Irvine. It's sort of bittersweet. I am super stoked to finally be able to play again, but I just got to the point of comfort living down here. I definitely want to come back and live in Orange County when all is said and done. My friend Liz is coming down this Thursday and we are going to San Diego on Friday for another friends birthday.
Also this Saturday, I start the summer league. Im excited to get to play with two of the girls from our UCI team. It should be a nice little test run before the big show in Vienna. I have been reading tons of travel books and I think im ready to do it. My last official day of work is this Friday.
We had our summer camps the past couple weeks. I am finally done after having to do youth camp by myself and team camp, which was just a big project. I am so releived that they are done and that I can get paaaaaaaid. Yeah! I may invest in some new basketball shoes.
This has been an eventful couple of months since the last post...we just celebrated the 4th of July. I spent the afternoon in Newport Beach with my Chico friend Kyle and his girlfriend. I had a great time laying on the beach and riding bikes. We ended up in Huntington Beach for the fireworks, which were LAME. I purchased a bike that morning just for the day, which I plan on returning.
I also had my first church experience. It was interesting to say the least, but my roommate is moving back to West Virginia at the end of the week so I wanted to spend some time with her and check out her church scene. Dont know if its for me though. I am totally obsessed with the music of ABBA and Journey right now. It's not like I just discovered it, but it is like my happy music and makes me feel juiced! ABBA is a little rough sometimes, so I switch it up and just listen to the Mamma Mia soundtrack, which is awesome! Ill update after the summer league starts and something interesting actually happens in my life. Oh, and the movie Twilight gets better everytime I watch it.