3 months later

“Hola Leslie! Que tal? Que tal tu viaje y que tal las vacaciones del veranito?!” “(Hello Leslie! How’s it going? How was your flight and how were the vacations of your summer)?!”  Castellano swirled all around me like leaves in the breeze as I walked out of baggage claim and passed several handfuls of people with ravishing olive colored skin tones.  Feeling fabulous and pale, I continued down the line towards my welcome back crew. Charly stood several meters away wearing a smile that danced excitedly across his well tanned face while Vicente (our team president) welcomed me back to Spain with their form of saying hello, a kiss on each cheek.  This whole process is always a bit awkward because I am a hugger and Spaniards are kissers, which often times leads me into situations where I am accidentally kissing the person right smack dab on the lips.  Whenever this happens, however, it just gets laughed away and brushed off to the side since I am a “guiri” (pronounced “gid-ee”), or foreigner for lack of a better term. 

I was back in the Madrid Airport and feeling quite at home.  A little over three months ago, May 22nd to be exact, I was leaving the Madrid Airport, homeward bound for Minnesota, not knowing where I would be playing the following season.  I knew that I wanted to continue my basketball career in Spain but as to which city I wanted to venture off to, I wasn’t quite sure.  After much thought and help from assembling one of those pros and cons lists, I decided that playing another year for Alcobendas was in my best interest for now.

So, I am back to living in my same apartment which is conveniently located in the never dull or quiet, Plaza del Pueblo, and I am back to playing in the same gym.  One major aspect of my life that is not the same, however, are the people that I am living with.  My two absolutely wonderful roommates from last year, Sarah Crooks and Marta Cobian, have started new phases in their lives.  We still manage to keep in touch and I cannot help but think of them often as I go about my daily life here in Alcobendas.  Here are the introductions for this year’s cast...Starting at center, 187cm tall, 24 years old, coming all the way from the charming southern city of Granada, Spain, Claudia Viceira Cobooooooo!  Next we have this year’s starting shooting guard.  Lean and lanky, standing at a height of 170cm,  with an age of 24, all the way from Sophia, Bulgaria, let’s hear it for Elena Yankovaaaaaa! 

Now, from the bottom of my heart, I wish that I could scoop all of you up and place you in my pocket so that you could each experience the live version of these two young women.  In many ways, Claudia is your typical female from Andalucia (southern region of Spain), likewise, she is also a complete 180 from many of her peers.  We have deemed Claudia the “Mother” of our flat for several different reasons.  The number one reason being that last week alone she cleaned the bathroom 3 times.  Number 2 is that she is constantly washing our dishes (against our wishes, mind you) and lastly she cooked up baked chicken and potatoes on Monday and when I came home and inhaled the aromas floating out from the kitchen I thought for sure that my mom had made a surprise visit and was cooking me lunch.  The top of Claudia’s head is a vibrant mass of dark brown curls and her smile spreads a mile wide.  She could keep up with Leroy Van Dyke http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn4jXABztCw without batting an eye, and I am positive that even Mr. Serious Ted Danson from the T.V show, “Becker,” would find himself laughing in her presence.  

I cannot say whether Elena is your stereotypical girl from Bulgaria because she is the first friend I have ever had from this particular country.  What I do know, is that she is as wonderful and sweet as the syrup I put on my pancakes, as calm, cool and collected as Tim Duncan, and definitely smarter than a 5th grader.  Elena spent 2 years in the U.S at a junior college in Kansas where she quickly picked up on American English.  She spent just 4 short months in Spain last season and can already understand almost everything that is thrown at her, not to mention that she can respond as well.  Last night I had the pleasure of saying hello to her mom on skype.  In a very chipper voice her mom said to me, “Hola Chica!”  That was about the extent of our conversation.  Unfortunately, this girl does not know a lick of Bulgarian, expect for my last name which Elena taught me the other day, Knight=Nosh.  So I smiled, waved at the screen and then left the mother daughter combo to continue conversing in their drastically different language.  Bulgarian is not a romance language like Spanish, Italian or French, so it’s all Greek to me. 

My third roommate is Sara Castrillo.  Sara was here last year as well, however, she has dozens of friends here in Madrid so she is almost never at home. 

Besides having new roommates, I have also had a new pre-season experience this year.  Many of you already know this, but for those who might not, I had ankle surgery this past summer.  I had the surgery at the end of June and am recuperating quite well, but still have not reached 100%.  For the past week and a half my days have consisted of going to Valdelasfuentes (a medical center/workout facility) to swim in the pool, use the bikes and get questioned by older women.  See, even though you might not think so, the truth of the matter is that I do not blend in too well here in Spain.  Everyday in the pool there are several older women who are also doing their own exercises and from day one they started taking account of my presence in their pool.  None of these women approached me, but I could tell that they were buying their time and calculating their plan of attack.  Last Wednesday my day at court finally arrived.  One woman broke loose from the pack and slowly swam my way.  She didn’t wast time with small talk but got straight to the point.  What was I doing here, where was I from, what was my name, and then she shared a bit of her own information.  Her name was Carmen, and she too had ankle problems, we would be seeing a lot more of each other.  There was no doubt in my mind that by the same time tomorrow, all of the other women in the whole facility would know who I was and why I was here.  

So far we have had one friendly game against Las Rozas, a team from the lower division.  From the sidelines things did not look too chaotic, but like any pre-season game we have a lot to improve on.  This upcoming weekend we have 3 games, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  I really wish that I could participate in these games because at least two of them will be played against teams in the first division.  Last year we got our tails whipped, 100 to 45. This year, however, not all of the Spanish players will be present due to the Women’s World Basketball Championships.  The USA will play against Australia in an exhibition game on the 15th in Salamanca, just a couple hours north west of Madrid. 

Speaking of World Championships, the basketball world in Spain was pretty bummed out last week when Spain fell to Serbia by a last second long bomb in the quarter finals.  Water, nestea and a few beers sat atop a wooden table next to a platter of cheese, meat, bread and patee.  It was 5 o’clock and practice wasn’t until 8:30pm, so we gathered in a bar to watch the game.  Has anyone read the book, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert?  You know that scene where she is talking about watching a Futbol game in Italy and how the italian man sitting behind her is rattling off a mouthful of profanities mixed in with words of encouragement and praise? Well, unlike Gilbert, I am keeping this e-mail g-rated, so I will let your imaginations paint their own picture as to how you see the following scene when Milio Teodosic buried the 3pter from downtown with 3.1 seconds left to cinch the win.  Picture a spanish bar with a handful of passionate fans all shouting out similar obscenities while using various hand gestures to express their innermost frustrations.  Chaos and heartbreak. 

Later in the week, Spain fell to a very good Argentina team while the USA plowed right over Turkey like an SUV would over a Smartcar.  Many Europeans did not like the USA style of play.  Too much one on one and not enough team basketball.  I would have to agree with this opinion.  Many people also say that Pau Gasol was quite thin when he left to play in the NBA and when he returned he had morphed into ROBOCOP, muscles bulging out of places where they never were before.  I wonder what types of performance enhancing drugs are taken by NBA players and how often they are tested.  In the major leagues there are 162 games in the regular season and we all know that many spot light players have been proved guilty of taking drugs.  There are 82 games in an NBA season with the potential of 21 more games during the playoffs, bringing us to a grand total of 103 games.  Why don’t we hear more about NBA players using performance enhancing drugs?

Anyway, getting back to one more pleasant aspect of this past week, La Noche en Blanco. http://lanocheenblanco2010.esmadrid.com/lneb/en/index La Noche en Blanco or The Night in White was held on Saturday, September 11th.  From early evening into the early hours of Sunday morning, anything and everything was open to the public, for free!  Museums, Theaters, Concerts, exhibits of photography, schools of literature, tours of the stock exchange building, the Palace and much much more.  There was even a massive game of twister in the plaza de colon that stretched 14 meters by 14 meters! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kzxB7FWLxMIn here you have a video of the game with some music.  In the plaza, Dos de Mayo, there was a massive beach ball fight, here you have one chica’s personal video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YyJw9DsuRU.  There were an insane amount of people in the streets and the metros were jam packed, but being the smart guiris that we are, nobody was the victim of a pickpocketer and we all made it safely home.

La Noche en Blanco

Juanma, me, Elena and Claudia.

The team!

That about sums up this past week.  I hope that each and every one of you had fulfilling and satisfying summers and that the Fall has you off to great starts!  Please fill me in on the nitty gritty of your glorious lives, I do love hearing from you;)

 I will leave you all with a few of Leslie’s Loose Ends.

 This past week at practice I told Elena, “I’m going to be Minnesota today” as I put on my Minnesota Gophers practice jersey.  She looked at me and said, “Me too.”  I was quite confused and then I saw the black tank-top that she was wearing had the logo of the Minnesota Lynx! Ha!  I could not believe it.  What is this girl from Bulgaria doing with a MN Lynx practice shirt?!  A friend of a friend had the shirt and gave it to Elena as a present.  It was just crazy how it worked out that unknowingly we doth decided to wear the shirts on the same day and that for some reason I even made a comment about my shirt to Elena, weird. 

 Did you know that in Bulgaria most of their computers and phones have keypads that  are in English, even though their alphabet is 100% different from ours?  Elena said that when people write they just write how the Bulgarian word would sound using the sounds of the english alphabet.  So, the words don’t look at all like they would in Bulgarian, but if you were to sound them out, they would sound just like the Bulgarian word.      

 The Spanish National Anthem has no words, only music.  Claudia told me that there once were words, but after the dictatorship of Franco, there was lots of controversy as to whether or not the words should be kept.  In the end, the words were dismissed and the music remains.  Currently there is a debate taking place whether new words should be installed, but so far nothing has been decided.