Romance language? Not always.

Sierre 2, Riva 0.  This past week we had our first two games of the second round of playoffs, and we walked away empty handed.  Sierre is the number 2 team in our conference, we beat them once to kick them out of the Swiss Cup, but since then they have had the last laugh.  

Our first game was this past Wednesday at their place and since it was a week day, the game didn’t start until 8:30pm.  The end result was a deficit of 22pts.  The 4 hour bus ride home was quite quiet and a little less cheerful than the last bus ride with Marco.  Thursday, Friday and Saturday we practiced and prepared for our next encounter with Sierre which took place on Sunday.  Sunday’s game was a home game, starting at 4pm.  The game started out rough for Riva and by the time the first 10 minute quarter was complete the score board read, Riva 10, Sierre 25.  We trailed by as many as 23 points during the game, but inched our way back during the 4th quarter and found ourselves within 11pts, however, it was too little too late.  So, we travel again to Sierre this upcoming Saturday for what could be our last game of the season.  

Basketball games in Europe, from what I’ve learned, are never complete though, without their fair share of drama.  Our former Coach, Fabio, used to tell me that “That’s just the way we Italians are,” this comment was always in reference to his verbal and physically dramatic outbursts during the game or when showing his dislike for the opposing coach.  I never felt that these childish antics were justified, but in Sunday’s game, I had no problem with what Aldo decided to do.  

One of Sierre’s players had been playing dirty all game, intentionally throwing elbows, reaching, slapping and Aldo had had about enough.  2 minutes after he voiced his opinion to the referee, this particular player took-out my 17 year old teammate with an elbow to the jaw.  My teammate was taken straight from the gym to the hospital.  Well, naturally the foul was called on my teammate and the Sierre player went to the line.  While she was at the free-throw line, Aldo decided to take advantage of the silent gym and gave her a piece of his mind.  From what I understood, he gave her a thorough verbal lashing with several choice words and told her that if she were to play like that during a men’s game she wouldn’t be able to finish the game since someone would’ve knocked her out by then.  Well, this lovely speech did not go over well with the Sierre coach or the referees.  In short, the 10 of us out on the court waited for 5 minutes or so for things to cool down before resuming the game.  I guess Italian isn't always used for sweet little nothings and love songs, but for bursts of emotional frustration as well.  The good news is that my teammate did not brake her jaw but has an extremely bad contusion.  

The 2nd and final good piece of news from this game was that my Special Needs basketball team came out to show their support.  There were about 20 of them, all dressed in the same orange zip-ups.  During warmups and during the game I could hear them cheering my name, they even made me a sign!  After the game my team joined them on the court for a group photo.  

The day before our game, I had the pleasure of attending one of their games.  I was extremely fortunate to be able to attend one of their games because they only have games once every several months.  Seeing them in action during a game was quite different compared to seeing them in practice.  On game day they have their game faces on and they are ready to compete.  All of the jokes and silly shinnanigans are left behind and in their places stand serious basketball players!  I really enjoyed seeing this transformation.

And that’s all for this past week, oh and April Fools day, they kind of celebrate it here but I didn’t hear of anybody getting tricked.  There was an article in the paper about a bear wondering around some town, bla bla bla and that was pretty much all I heard about for the day.  

Hope the week has started off well for everyone, I’m sure all the UNC fans are happy;)  

Love,

Leslie

Playoffs

Last week I left off talking about the playoffs.  Here’s a little refresher; the first round was best out of 3 games, which we played against our French Friends, Troistorrent.  Troistorrent was the 3rd seed and we were the 6th.  We played our first game at their place and we lost, so we played them again this past Thursday at home, pressure was on because it was do or die for us.  

We lead the whole game, I think we ended up winning by a margin of 8 or so.  We split 1 and 1 with them and had to travel once again to their home court for the 3rd and final game.  This game took place yesterday at 4pm.  We started the game off on a bad note, giving up rebounds, allowing for penetration and sending them to the free throw line.  In spite of all that, we went into half time only down by 2pts.  The 3rd quarter started out somewhat slow for us, Troistorrent continuing to lead by 4-6 pts for the whole 10 minute period.  The Troistorrent fans were thumping away on their large bass drums and wildly shaking their OBNOXIOUS cow bells, however, our fans stepped up in the 4th quarter and drowned them out with their chants of “RIVA, RIVA, RIVA” and “FORZA RAGAZIE” (clap clap clap clap clap) this last phrase means “let’s go ladies!”

Suddenly, with about 4 minutes left in the game, we found ourselves leading by 2pts after raining in 3 3pt shots.  Troistorrent was back on their heels and we continued to shut them down on defense, we extended our lead to 8 and then in the last minute and a half they were forced to foul.  We finished up the game leading by 14 pts!  So, we are still alive and we start off the 2nd round against the number 2 team, Sierre, this Wednesday at their place.  

This last game against Troistorrent was our 3rd time playing there in the past 4 weeks, and to say the least I could live a happy life without making that 4 1/2 hour bus ride ever again.  Returning home last night, however, was quite a celebration.  Our president had gone out and purchased several bottles of white wine and one of my teammates had made sangria for everyone, so there were a handful of toasts going around the bus;)  The most unusual and memorable experience from last night is summed up by one name, Marco. 

Jessica, Polona and I in the locker-room.

Marco is a man of 30+ years, complete with a thick set of jowls, a never ending booming voice and a mid section that has enjoyed it’s fair share of adult beverages.  The story behind Marco is blurry around the edges because nobody really knows who he is.  From what I understand, he called up our president and asked if he could ride the bus with the team so that he could come and cheer us on.  Well, cheer us on he did!  Out of the 4 1/2 hours on the bus ride home, I think that we were singing cheers and songs for a solid 2 hours.  Right when everybody would start to get quiet and I would think that perhaps we were wrapping up, Marco’s voice would roll through the bus like a fresh clap of thunder and once again everyone would be singing a new song.  Now, I tended to sit and smile, bobbing my head from side to side since I didn’t know any of the words, until Polona told me to start some English songs, ha! So after that we started singing the Beatles, Build me up Butter Cup, In the Jungle, and I will Always Love You!  Surprisingly, many of my teammates and their parents were able to sing along to almost all of these songs.  Polona then started to sing “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands...” Ha, so I chimed in with her and once everyone in the bus recognized the tune of the song, they jumped in and sang it in Italian.  Now, I have been a part of quite a few Bus Sing-a-longs, but this one stands out, for sure. 

On a different note from basketball, spring has sprung and is in the process of taking Switzerland by storm.  Everyday as I drive to the gym or walk to the grocery store it’s as if a new flower has decided to explode into color, attracting my gaze and successfully slowing me down as I attempt to continue onto my final destination.  There is one specific flower that runs wildly alongside the highways in shockingly bright, electric yellow streaks.  The rose bushes are opening more and more each day and the flower arrangements on people’s doorsteps are quite lovely.  The mountains are still a dull brownish color, but they will be lively and green in no time.  

Bella;)

Two quick food updates:

I ate frog legs for the first time last week.  I was a little disturbed when I found out what it was that I was eating, but in all honesty, they were actually pretty good and tasted just like chicken.

I ate my first Swiss Hotdog the other day.  The assembly of these hotdogs is a little different than American ones.  For starters, the bun does not sit horizontally in your hand, but vertically.  Think of it like an ice cream cone, the bun is vertical with one opening at the top, the ketchup and mayonnaise (not mustard) squirted into the bun and then afterwards comes the hotdog.  The design is actually pretty brilliant because it prevents you from any unfortunate ketchup globs falling onto your white shirt, but it is limited in the fact that there is no room for relish or sauerkraut.  Good nonetheless.  

Well, that’s about all from this past week.  I hope everyone is doing well, for my friends in Fargo I know that things could definitely be better.  Next week I’ll let all of you know if they celebrate April Fools day over here;)

Love,

Leslie

Knights in Switz!

We both know that if I were to give a day-by-day recap of the past 2 weeks, we would both find ourselves sitting here for an absurd amount of time.  So, in attempt to shorten this update I am going to make a list of memories that were blissfully and innocently made during the past 14 days or so.  

First off, however, I’ll give you a little time table of my family’s Suisse Adventures.

March 6th, they were supposed to arrive in Italy at 8:50am but due to many unfortunate events they ended up flying in 10 hours later, without their luggage.  

March 7th, they took the train to Neuchatel to watch me play

March 8th, they took the train to Lausanne and saw the Olympic Museum, vast vineyards and  large Cathedral.  Then they took the train to Montreaux where they explored the massive castle de Chillon.  I met them in Montreaux after my game on Sunday in Troistorrent.

March 9th, We took the train to Zermat and went hiking, and then trained it to Brig for the Night

March 10th, took the train back home to Chiasso

March 11th, went to Como, Italy and took a boat tour of the lake

March 12th, Trevor and Sarah went to Milan while Cory, my parents and I went for a nice walk, went to my Presidents Vineyard and looked around the town of Riva San Vitale.  That night I took everyone to Cinthia’s house where my family met Cinthia’s grandmother and her aunt, Onorina.  For dinner, Cinthia, Sarah and I made gnocchi for everyone!

March 13th, went shopping and site-seeing in Lugano 

March 14th, toured a vineyard owned by one of Cinthia’s friends, taste tested wine, and then went to the castles in Bellinzona.  That night we ate authentic Ticinese food, polenta!

March 15th, drove Trevor, Sarah and Cory to the bus station:( My parents stayed until the 17th so they came with the team as we went to Syon for an away game.

March 16th, went to Lugano and rode the cable car ride at San Salvatore

March 17th, dropped my parents off at the bus station!

So, there you have the outline of what their/our trip looked like, but now onto a few of the more intimate details of our experience.

Lists are the theme for this week, definitely not going to be in order since I am just writing them all down as they come to me, so here we go again;)

Walking around aimlessly at night in Neuchatel looking for the bus that was supposed to take us to our hotel and having absolutely no idea where to find it!

Finally on the bus and heading to our hotel, when a crazy woman gets on and starts yelling at my dad in French.  I don’t know if she was preaching the gospel or calling my dad every word in the book, but for some reason she didn’t take her glaring eyes off of him for a solid 5 minutes while she continued to rant and rave in a language that none of us could understand.

We won our game against Neuchatel!  My family must be the good luck charm because Neuchatel is the best team in our conference and in the past we have usually lost by 50pts or so...crazy.

First dinner in Neuchatel eating cheese fondue.  We had the pleasure of being served by a cheerful, robust man, who had a thick white mustache that curled up into little swirls at both ends and who spoke only French.  Watching him speak French to my family while they all stared blankly back at him was pretty entertaining, he didn’t seem to realize that we had no clue as to what he was saying.

Fondue in Neuchatel

Cory getting yelled at by the Swiss/Italian police as he unknowingly crossed the Swiss/Italian border on the wrong side of the street.

Boarding the wrong train, luckily it only went for 5 minutes in one direction and then headed back to where it came from.

Mom hiking up the snowy slopes in Zermat with the type of black, leather boots that she would wear to work...but you do what you gotta do when your hiking boots along with the rest of your luggage doesn’t make it to the airport, right?!

Zermat:)

Going for a morning walk in Neuchatel and having everyone smile at me and say “Bonjour!” I felt like I was in the movie Beauty and the Beast, “Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour! There goes the baker with his trey like always...!”

My family’s attempts at trying to learn Italian, ha all in good fun, Trevor and Mom;)

Driving up a mountain on our way to a vineyard, my mom was so scared she almost got out and walked.  The roads over here are quite narrow.

Loredana talking about her vineyard with Dad, Cory and Cinthia. 

I acted as the translator when we were at Cinthia’s friends vineyard.  For the most part I was able to close the gap between my family and Loredana as she talked about the history and process of her families vineyard.

Mom and I at the Castles in Bellinzona

Going over to Cinthia’s mom’s house for a merenda (snack) and then leaving to go get ready for my game.  I left my family there with Cinthia’s family...they don’t speak English and my family does not speak Italian, but they were able to communicate! Ha, I was told later that a lot of hand gestures were used;)

  

Hearing Cory yell at me in English during my home game, oh how I miss that;)  Hearing him made me laugh though because I doubted that anybody in the gym could understand him.

  

My family and part of my Swiss family after a home game.

Laughing while listening to my brothers refer to european cars as “golf carts.”  American SUVs are nowhere to be found in Switzerland.  My teammate actually just told me that in Switzerland they are trying to ban SUVs since they are so dangerous when colliding with a smaller car.

  

 My brother Cory and one of the golf carts.

My family in Lugano!

Listening to Cory talk with Lucas (Cinthia’s boyfriend) about the T.V show, Seinfeld.  I am still having a hard time picturing Kramer, George and Jerry speaking Italian;)                            

Dad and I at the top of Mt. San Salvatore.

All in all it was a very memorable 10 days.  I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to travel through Switzerland with my family.

Since my 6 roommates have vacated from my apartment, I have spent my time practicing and getting ready for the playoffs!  We have our first playoff game tomorrow against Troistorrent.  The first round is best of 3 games, so we play away tomorrow and then home on Thursday and if need be, again at their place.  I am planning on winning in two games and moving onto the 2nd round, but they are a very good team and it will not be easy.  

Besides attending practices and workouts, this past week I had the chance to make a dessert called, Totelli.  Tortelli is a traditional dessert that is eaten on Father’s day, which occurred this past Thursday in Switz.  Cinthia’s grandma had made a large amount of batter, which she spooned into little balls and then dropped into a vat of boiling oil.  Once the balls of dough had risen to the top and turned a golden brown we would place them into a bowl, and then it was my job to sprinkle them with sugar.  They were basically like homemade doughnuts, YUM!

Well, I hope that all of you had a refreshing spring break and are enjoying some good NCAA college basketball!  Good luck (Auguri) to the women’s team tomorrow in Notre Dame!

Love, 

Leslie

Castagnas (Chestnuts)

Monday is here already, and Halloween is just around the corner! This past week has been busy...

The last time that I wrote to all of you I was heading off to my first Chestnut Festival. Let me tell you, I have never eaten so many chestnuts in my life! We started off by sampling regular, roasted chestnuts. I had never seen how chestnuts were roasted, but they are literally roasted over "an open fire," wow, after 22 years of my life I finally understand the Christmas song that I hear loads of times every year during the holidays. Next we ate something called, Canonchini. This tasty treat was not made out of chestnuts, but was like a croissant in the shape of a cone and then filled with the type of cream found in my favorite doughnuts, which are Bismarks;) Then we moved onto eating, what I originally thought was going to be wheat pasta, but to my surprise these brown, little noodles were made completely out of chestnuts. On either side of the "noodles" was a puffy dollop of cream. This dish is called, Vermicelli. Last on our list was a coffee cup, but don't judge a book by it's cover because Foldgers was nowhere to be found. The cup was filled with hot chestnuts and was topped off with a swirl of cream. The cream would then melt, which would leave the chestnuts to soak in a bath of sweet liquid. I ate this treat with a spoon, one chestnut and some yummy, warm, sweet liquid per bite/swallow! Sunday night we ventured out to a Mexican restaurant in Como, Italy called Cactus, where we politely devoured Chimichangas!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...

We ran into Willy (our VP) and his wife.

Lucas and I eating Canonchini.

Vermicelli

Moving onto Monday. Well, after a day of indulging in chestnuts and chimichangas I was feeling a little guilty, so I went for a run. That night in practice, however, would prove to be one of our hardest practices yet. Does anybody remember doing the "Beep Test" in elementary school gym class? Well, I thought my days of doing that were over, but to my DELIGHT that is how we started off practice, followed by fast break drills for the remaining hour.

On Tuesday I found myself in Lake Lugano, shopping in a quite massive store called, Manor. Nothing too exciting happened here, except for the fact that every time I venture out to do some shopping I am continually reminded of how UNfashionable I am.

Wednesday was my busiest day. I ran in the morning and was looking forward to showering on my return home only to find out that our water would be turned off for the remainder of the day, surprising...not really. Then we went to the doctor just to get our bumps and bruises checked out, after that was lunch, and then we attended our first Italian class! We are in a class of about 30 students, and everybody hails from different corners of the globe. The teachers wanted to get an idea of where everybody's italian skills were at so we each filled out 3 different sheets of paper. The questions were pretty basic, what's your name, address, where are you from, phone number etc. Then we had to look at a picture and identify everything that we could, street, car, woman, man, flower, window, bus, shoe, etc., and then class was over. Our next meeting is on the 5th of November. 

When class was over, we hustled out to Riva San Vitale, where we helped with something called Mini Basket. During the first hour we worked with little kids ages 8-10 and the second hour with 11-12 year olds. I was really quite surprised when the coach/teacher started the second class off by reading all their stats from the last game! I mean, these kids are in 3rd grade and this guy was making a big deal about their stats! When I was in 3rd grade I think I was more interested in coming up with names for our plays than I was in my STATS.  After helping with these two practices we went to our own practice. Practice was going really well and then I had to go and step on someone's foot and sprain my ankle:(

So, on Thursday I found myself at the physical therapist and Friday as well, but I was not about to let a little ankle sprain keep me cooped up in the apartment all day! On Thursday, my friend Cinthia picked me up and we drove up into the mountain where her grandmother lives. The plan was for me to help her grandmother make lunch. 

The kitchen was long and narrow, which made passing each other somewhat difficult. What was on the menu you ask? Gnocchi! Gnocchi is made out of potatoes. You boil the potatoes, peel them, put them in this little mixer where you turn the handle and the potatoes get smooshed out the bottom into little strings, then you add two egg yokes, some flour, kneed it all into a big ball, cut off little pieces, roll them out into long little snakes, cut them up into inch long pieces, toss them into some boiling water and then take a slotted spoon and extract them when they are done. Many of you have probably eaten this dish before, but I personally never knew how it was made. At lunch I felt like the guy in the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" because I was full, and the grandmother asked if I wanted some more, and before I could even really answer, her aged hands shot out across the table like the tongue of a frog, snatched up my plate and started filling it with more food! I felt that it would be impolite to ask her to stop so I just let her do her thing;)

Rosilde, Cinthia and I sitting at lunch.

Making the gnocchi!

Narrow walking paths near Cinthia's house.

Beautiful house next to Cinthia's house.

On Saturday, P, Keisha and I drove about 2 hours away to a nice town in Italy called, Parma. The center was quite large and what I loved most about it was that only busses and bicycles were aloud inside, otherwise everybody was on foot.  The variety of people who were riding bicycles gave me quite a shock.  From teens to seventy somethings, everybody was using their bikes.  Furthermore, the seventy somethings were not wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, no, they were decked out in their Sunday Best! Every older woman that passed us on a bicycle was wearing a long skirt, nice shoes, some sort of blazer, their purchased items were in their basket, and their hair always managed to look perfect as can be!

Ok, I'll wrap this up with our game that we had yesterday. Yesterday we played Troistorrent, pronounced Trah-tor-ohn. This team is located on the French side of Switzerland, so it was about a 4 1/2 hour bus ride. Once again, the landscape was stunning. Some trees are still hanging onto their colors, but many have started to turn brown. The mountains reminded me of the backs of buffalos; large, brown, furry looking humps that rise up and down across the terrain. We passed a down right beautiful lake called, Lake Maggiore, that just seemed to sparkle something fierce in the autumn sunshine. There was a little island in the middle of the lake, Isola Bella, and it was just big enough for one hotel. We crossed over a famous pass called Passo De Sempione. At this point we were at 2,200m. I saw several people out hiking with their poles. I haven't the foggiest idea as to where they were going, they seemed to be in the middle of no where, surrounded by mountains, but I found myself wising that I was out there with them. At some point I will get the chance to do the same! We passed many cows, horses, goats and sheep. There were a couple of distinct views that reminded me of pictures that I have seen in books, where you see the mountain, a tunnel, a house or lodge built right into the side of the mountain, smoke swirling up into the sky from a chimney, and rickety, little, wooden fences that stretch over the grass containing the livestock.

Teammates, Claudia, Lisa, Me, Judit, Julia and Samantha

Troistorrent.

Their gym.

We ended up losing the game by 20pts. Sitting and watching from the bench is not my cup of tea. They were a good team, but I think by the time the end of the season rolls around and our point guard is healthy, there is no doubt in my mind that we will be able to hold our own.

Take care everyone!
Leslie

Lost in Lugano

Hello everyone~

Well, we had our first conference game yesterday. We played a team called Sdent Nyon. Our coach was nervous before the game because Sdent Nyon's starting five were all foreigners, which means that they were probably recruited to play on the team and that they would be pretty good. Our team lost to this team twice last year, each time by just a few points. He was also worried that we were going to get out rebounded because they were taller than us in every position. Our president always claims that there is no pressure on this year's coach to win another championship, but in my opinion I think that my coach still feels a lot of pressure to go out and win. This last week in practice our coach was definitely more tense than usual.

Before the game started I met one of the Americans on the other team, she was from North Carolina and when I told her that I went to Minnesota she said "Oh, my friend Vince Grier played there." Everyday I am reminded of what a small world we live in. The game went pretty well, we were leading the whole first half accept for maybe a couple minutes. #10, the girl I was guarding, played for the Swiss National team, which was to my advantage because as a team we had gone to watch two of their games. The game itself wasn't too dirty but whenever we would try to set a pick and roll I had a really difficult time rolling because my defender would pretty much just hold me, not allowing me to hardly move.

Here I am with Marta Broggini, one of my Italian teammates.

Our fan base wasn't too bad, it was definitely nothing compared to U of M games, but I would say that it was better than any really good high school basketball crowd. The gym isn't too big in the first place so even though there aren't as many people there it still feels pretty packed. In the end we won by a margin of about 20pts. I don't know what my stats were, I think the guy on the loud speaker said that I had 25pts, but if you go to this website, http://www.rivabasket.ch/new/stampaelenco.html and search around a bit I think you should be able to find newspaper articles, stats, our schedule and things of this sort. I highly doubt that this website gets updated as quickly as gophersports does so you might have to check it every couple of days to see if the results are up yet. The newspaper articles are all in Italian, but you can copy and paste them into the site, freetranslation.com and it will translate the article into English for you.

Next weekend we play at Fribourg, which will be about a 4 hour bus ride. I am curious to see how difficult it will be to play away because we will drive the 4 hours, get off the bus, play, and then drive home. No more fancy hotels with sleep number beds for me;)

Other than the game I did have one adventure this past week. On Wednesday I decided to go and explore the town of Lugano. Lugano is about a 15-20 minute drive from where I live, if you take the highway. Neither of my two teammates wanted to go so I drove off into the unknown by myself. Once I got to Lugano I miraculously found a parking garage, thank goodness because there is no street parking available. Lake Lugano is similar to Lake Calhoun in the fact that many people go there to walk around the lakes, eat food, shop and bask in the sun while reading a book, likewise, it is also quite different because the Lake is much larger, there are mountains all around, the landscaping is gorgeous and it is a tourist town so you will see people from all around the world there. The shopping is also very upscale and expensive.

Beautiful Lugano.

Anyway, I park the car and trek off in the direction of the Lake. It was a beautiful day, I met a couple nice people from Florida, browsed through the tourist shops and then called it a day. I drove out of the parking garage (which I thought was free) put my ticket in the machine and nothing happened. The little arm that is supposed to go up and let me out did not move. I tried several more times and then got out of the car and asked the gentleman behind me for some assistance. He asked me if I had paid, and I said "uhhhhh, I have to pay!?" Bless his heart, he brought me to the little booth where I needed to pay and helped me get everything taken care of. Meanwhile, cars have started to line up behind us, I felt so bad and was so flustered for making them all wait, surprisingly no one was honking or yelling things at me in Italian (now that I am playing in Spain, I can only imagine the uproar that my error would have created). 

Then the real adventure started. The roads in Lugano are like one big maze. Maybe not for the every day resident that lives there, but for a first timer, man I was all turned around. It seemed like I asked everybody in the city of Lugano where I was supposed to go, older women, guys on bicycles, people in their cars, and a girl on a scooter. See, in Switzerland they have road signs but after you see one sign you might not see another sign for quite some time, which makes you second guess yourself and wonder if you are still on the right path. Well, the girl on the scooter lead me through traffic and dropped me off at a sign for Chiasso, and then I was finally on my way. The drive there took me 20 minutes, the drive home took me an hour, and it was a really good thing that I gave myself enough time because I left at 5pm, got home at 6 and got picked up for practice at 6:30. At least next time I will know where to go!

Alright, that's about all from me this week. Oh, one more quick detail. We had a pre-game meal as a team before our game. Any guesses as to where we ate?? How about a mental institution/drug rehabilitation facility! I was keeping my eyes open for any American Stars that might have snuck away for rehab in Switzerland, but to my dismay I came away empty handed. The food was not too bad, we ate these things called Spitzels (or something like that). They were kind of like french fries, but at the same time very different, I guess they are a typical food in Switzerland.

Ok, signing off for now.  I hope everyone has a nice, relaxing Sunday.
ciao, Leslie

Living Quarters

Hi everyone!

What types of questions do you ask yourself during the day? Perhaps questions like, “what should I make for dinner?” or “I wonder if there’s anything good on T.V tonight?” Pretty normal, everyday types of questions if you ask me. The question, however, that I have been asking myself this past week has been “When is the sawing and hammering going to STOP?! And more importantly, when are those Italian men going to STOP singing?!!” If I didn’t mention this before, I will mention it now. The building that I live in is more or less a factory with a couple apartments in it. The only other person besides Keisha and I that lives here is a man named, Luchano, and he works in the factory downstairs. So, there seems to be a constant stream of construction going on and it usually starts before 8am!

Top left window is my bedroom.  Picture big, noisy army trucks coming in and out of this garage...

My bedroom.

The living room.

And the kitchen.

This past week we had two games. Our first game was on Thursday, in a town called Locarno, about 50 km from where we live. This game was not a conference game, but was for something called the Swiss Cup. There are 4 or 5 games total in this little tournament and we will play one game per month. The team we played is in the 2nd league in Switzerland and my team plays in the 1st league, so we beat them by about 40pts or so. The other teams that we will play for the Cup will not be of such a low quality. 

Yesterday we had our first conference road game. We played in the French side of Switzerland in Fribourg. The whole team, president, vp, coach, two assistants, two moms and two dads all piled into the bus. The bus we took was pretty nice and it had a large, flat screen TV. The drive to Fribourg was GORGEOUS! Right next to the bus the cliffs were reaching up towards the sky and waterfalls were flowing down the mountain sides like white ribbon on Christmas presents.  Now that Fall is upon us, the trees are changing colors and the mountains are taking on yellow and red hues. The houses were built right into the mountain side and the cows were grazing freely on the greenest grass I have ever seen. I am really not exaggerating. To me, the grass looked absolutely perfect.  Gazing at the hillsides I thought of an incredibly soft, furry, green, thick blanket that was spread out over the earth. The little towns that we drove through were wonderfully quaint with their old brick houses, intricate little designs on the windows and people sitting outside enjoying the sunshine while drinking coffee and talking with friends. We saw a dozen churches and drove through numerous tunnels. The longest tunnel we drove through was 17 km! It is called the Gottardo Tunnel and it is the only tunnel that leads from the East to the West so there is constantly a lot of traffic. The mountains surrounding us were 4,000m, not all of them had snow caps, most of them were covered with lush vegetation, but the mountains in the distance looked very majestic and were covered in snow.

A view of a lake and some mountains as I was looking out from the bus window.

 As the mountains change...

Now, before EVERY game that I play I always take a nap, but this time I was experiencing this internal battle in my mind because if I let myself fall asleep I just knew that I was going to be missing out on seeing this amazingly beautiful landscape! Well, I did finally force myself to fall asleep, which I was glad that I did because it was about to be a long, hard game.

The team we played only had one American, some of you might remember her from Michigan State...Myisha Bannister. She played the post, but really did not play much at all. They had a few really good players and it proved to be another physical game. The refs did a fairly good job calling the game, but they were the most impersonal refs I have ever seen and it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that I couldn’t communicate with them. They were just very distant, stubborn and I got the impression that they were very stuck up. Not once did they ever go get the ball when it went out of bounds. I must have chased down 50 balls last night and returned them to the ref and not once did they ever say thank you! I don’t want to bash the French but from what I’ve heard they are capable of acting in a very pompous manner. They also called 3 seconds in the lane on me at least 3 times and I swear they were just watching me and jumping at the bit to call it. Not to mention that their traveling calls are really starting to get on my nerves, for some reason they think that an up and under with a step through is a travel and furthermore, they are not open to discussion.

I was just relieved when the game was finally over and we could drive home happy. We watched three movies on the bus, Evan Almighty, Because I said So and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Evan Almighty we watched in Italian with English subtitles, the opposite with the next movie and MBFGW we watched in italian with no subtitles. I am able to understand more and more of the language every day.

Today we went and watched two men’s teams play. For those of you who know Mitch Henke, we watched his Santa Clara point guard, Brody Angley, lead his team to victory. The fans at these games are constantly using their blow horns, even in the middle of free throws. The other night I was sure that there was a dog in our gym and it turns out that this man was just really good at barking.

On a different note, the food this past week was pretty interesting. I ate onion soup for the first time, and it was definitely nothing like French Onion soup. Along with the soup they served us hotdogs, but without the bun. They gave each of us 1 and a half hotdogs, cut the long way. I just had to laugh because what in the world were they doing with the other half of the 2nd hotdog?! I also had the most delicious chocolate covered piece of fruit! I have no idea what the fruit was, but it was orange and looked like there were a lot of seeds in it and it still had the leaves coming out the top. I asked the lady what it was but unfortunately I was unable to understand what she was saying.

Alright, I hope everyone is having a great weekend and keep those updates coming!;)

Love, Leslie