Tio Pepe (Uncle Pepe)

As he spoke about the season and described it’s ups and downs, my high school coach used to say, “the season is a Marathon.”  Well, Alcobendas just crossed the finish line and they did so with smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes.

Our last game of the season was an away game, played in the south of Spain in a town called Jerez against a team called Chajeba.  Strong rays of sunshine beat down on all surfaces left uncovered.  The thermometer read 26 degrees celsius, about 80 degrees fahrenheit and it is only April.  The hotel was a ten minute walk from the gym which meant that I was already sweating by the time we arrived; who needs warm-ups? 

After last weeks theatrics, a game would not be a game without something a bit odd happening, right?  So, we are all in position for the tip-off when suddenly, every player on the opposing team drops to their bums and decides to take a seat right then and there at center court.  Most of them had serious looks on their faces, however, a couple of them cracked a grin.  A few photographers circled around the court, snapping pictures of the scene while the referees just stood there and waited for the girls to get back on their feet.  After about a minute or so the girls got back up, the ball was tossed up into the air and we proceeded to play a normal basketball game.  I later found out that the opposing team’s club had not been paying their players for the past three months and that is why the players decided to sit down on the floor, holding their own little protest before the start of the game.  The media will then put the photos of the protesting players into the newspapers which will then bring the club’s financial problems out into the public.  Perhaps this action will help to bring the club more money, I do not know, I am just glad that I was not having to sit on the floor. 

As the game got underway I no longer felt any sympathy for our poor opponents.  They were clawing, grabbing, holding and pushing their way around the court and the referees were letting them do it.  Crooks and I could barley move from one block to the other while reaching the high-post was nearly impossible.  Oh well, I decided not to work myself up too much since it was our last game and that sometimes forgotten word, “fun,” was going to be had on my part, period.  I personally did not have my best game of the season, but I did have fun and when the buzzer went off Alcobendas had earned a win in a low scoring game, 58-48. 

We should have taken this picture before the game...nice television, too I might add.

When all of the hugs and kisses were given and the tears were dry, we changed shoes and walked back to the hotel.  Before heading out to dinner that night we all gathered in our coaches room to watch a video that our speed and agility coach’s brother had put together for us.  Each player had a section on the video that was full of game clips.  Naturally, the spanish versions of oooooh and aaaaaah could have been heard by anyone else in the hotel that night.  The music that accompanied the video was a mixture of spanish and english while the words that popped up on the screen were all in Spanish.  Officially starting to get hungry, we headed out the door around 10:30pm in search for a place to eat dinner. 

Dinner was a mixture of a handful of different tapas.  The southern regions of Spain are home to a different food palette than the northern regions of Spain, which was great for the guiris (tourists, Crooks and myself) because we got the opportunity to try a few new dishes.  The dishes included, croquetas de jamon y pollo (like mozzarella sticks but filled with chicken, ham and a flour paste instead of cheese), Chocos (calamari fried), Puntilitas (small calamari), tortilla de camarones (thin egg and flour tortilla filled with little shrimp, you eat the whole shrimp without taking it out of it’s shell), Adobo (fish in a special sauce and then fried) and lastly there was neck meat of a cow, oh and of course there was plenty of Tinto de Verano (one part red wine, one part carbonated lemonade) to help us wash it all down. 

Charly and La Capitana, Sara. 

The only set of parents that made the long trek down to Jerez were those of Maria Espin and towards the end of dinner, Isabel (Maria’s mom), decided to bust out her video camera.  Once the camera made its appearance my teammates started to chant, “que hable la capi, que hable la capi!” which calls for our team captains to give a little speech.  After Ana and Sara gave their off the cuff speeches, the girls proceeded to repeat the same chant for several other people, including the guiris, “que hablen las guiris!”  Crooks went first and made a nice, short and sweet spanish speech that conveyed her thoughts and feelings about the season.  Then the camera focused in on me and I was requested to share my thoughts and feelings as well. 

Maria then went on to hand each player a piece of paper.  Maria had written each one of her teammates a personal message about what she thought about them as a player and as a person.  I was rather surprised to be holding my piece of paper and thought to myself that I felt like I was back in high school.  For the most part, I think that as one climbs higher on the professional sports ladder, they will notice the absence of genuine team camaraderie and coaches who truly care about the individual player.  Obviously this is not always the case, however, referring back to my high school coach one more time, he always said that high school sports were the purest form of sport and that once you got passed that, it all just became a business.  I completely agree with him, but I also believe that I was truly blessed this year with the teammates and coaching staff that I had.  Of course the season was not without its ups and downs, but in retrospect, it was truly a wonderful year.  

Now, what do you suppose we proceeded to do once dinner was over? Dance, of course!  From the restaurant, the whole crew to walked to a rather interesting dance club.  I do not remember the name of the club but I do remember the life size elephant statue that was taking up a large portion of the first floor.  The whole club was decorated in streamers and lanterns, typical ornaments used to celebrate the Feria del Caballo (horse fair), which would be taking place the following weekend.  Our group of 15 people quickly claimed a portion of the dance floor where we wasted no time in starting the limbo and a handful of other funny dances.  My favorite part of the night, however, was watching Charly dance with a friend of one of our teammates.  The two dancers stood in the middle of the man-made circle and began twirling, stepping, stomping and weaving their arms in and around each other in a quite impressive fashion.  I had absolutely no idea that Charly could dance like that.  Later, Charly told me that the dance that they had preformed was called, Sevillana and was a close relative of Flamenco.  He then went on to tell me that his mother used to be a dance instructor, giving lessons in the Samba, Sevillana, Flamenco and several others.  Ok, now I understood where his talent derived from.  The highlight of the whole show, however, were his awfully expressive facial expressions.  Crooks and I stood on the outskirts of the circle laughing in amusement and wonder as our coach danced circles around the stage. 

How low can you go?

Around 4:30am Crooks and I were begged by our teammates to sing the National Anthem, which we did a fine job of if I do say so myself.  Although, right as we were in the heart of it a male employee came right up next to us and asked us to leave.  Either we sounded that bad or else it was closing time and they were anxious to be rid of our rambunctious group.  More than half of us decided to turn in for the night while the rest were not yet ready to go home.  The next morning I was informed that they had arrived back to the hotel around 8am, typical spanish. 

Sunday morning in the hotel we had the pleasure of eating breakfast while looking out onto a division one soccer stadium.  There was no game being played but there was a half marathon being run.  One by one the runners entered the stadium and ran the last leg of their race around the track.  Filled with motivation after watching the runners, Crooks and I forgot about our late night and joined Charly and Jose (assistant coach) in a trip to the Gonzalez Byass Vineyard.  The vineyard was founded in 1835 and is quite famous.  Many world renowned people have walked the grounds, including Pablo Picasso, Stephen Spielberg, Margaret Thatcher, kings, queens and many others.  Jose and I climbed on the trolley of the spanish speaking tour while Charly and Crooks walked off with the English tour.  Our guide spoke relatively fast, but with Jose’s help I was able to comprehend most of what was being said.  A few interesting tid bits of the tour were that ... The vineyard has the world’s largest weather vein that is 45 meters long, the largest barrel of wine held 16 thousands liters, in one of the grand rooms the owners leave out a little wine cup for the mice that live amongst the barrels (we actually saw a mouse run out and take a sip!), and a grand total of 400 employees are what it takes to keep it going year in and year out. 

Part of the Vineyard.

Margaret Thatcher.

Vino or Wine

Two guiris with Tio Pepe!

I had never toured a vineyard so massive as this one, it was really quite a neat experience.  After the tour we met back up with the rest of the team, had lunch and then headed towards the train station.  http://www.bodegastiopepe.com/historia.php if you are ever in the area, I would highly recommend checking the place out. 

One more quick story before I wrap things up...This past week I also had the opportunity to tour an old fashioned town called, Alcala de Henares, just 35 km northeast of Madrid.  For all of you literature buffs out there, Alcala de Henares was the birth place of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of the two famous characters Don Quixote and his trusty sidekick Sancho Panza.  Cervantes house is still well preserved after more than 400 years and is open to the public.  Along with touring the house there are a couple other tourist attractions in the town, one of which is the old Alcala University (the best preserved Renaissance University complex in Europe, says my tourist brochure) and the Cathedral-Magistral of Saints Justo and Pastor.  My favorite part about the cathedral had nothing to do with arches, stained glass windows or organs, but had everything to do with, Storks.  Alcala is well known for its population of white storks.  The protection and maintenance of their enormous nests is actually by official policy.  There were several of these massive nests perched atop the cathedral.  My mouth about fell all the way to the floor upon seeing these grand structures that the storks so carefully and meticulously put together. The stork population is also well kept track of, recently showing that there are 90 resident pairs in the area.  Later in the week I was talking with one of our assistant coaches and he informed me that cranes are sometimes needed in order to remove the nests from the tops of old cathedrals since their weight can be too much for the old buildings to support. 

Storks nest

Leslie’s Loose Ends

Yesterday I saw a group of grandmas sitting on a park bench talking away and eating sun flower seeds.  Pretty typical here in Spain.

As a tradition I always treat myself to a pedicure after the basketball season.  I found a store that wanted to charge me 50 euros or 67 US dollars.  Has anyone ever heard of a pedicure costing that much?!

One of Spain’s top bull fighters was gorged in the leg the other day while bull fighting in Mexico. Ouch.

Last week Carrefour (like a super target) was having a sale on basketball jerseys.  Sara Castrillo went to the store during practice (since she is still out with her sprained ankle) and purchased Spanish Pau Gasol jersey’s for all of us!  They were only 3 euros a piece.  I have never been a Laker fan, but since the jersey is of his Spanish team I  can justify my purchase.

Well ladies and gentlemen, this is my last e-mail of the year.  I will continue to live in Spain until the 22nd of May but I am afraid that I will not have the time to let you know how I am doing.  I will be making trips to Malaga, Ponte Vedra, Barcelona and perhaps a few other places that are still up in the air.  Thank you so much for coming along with me during this past year and for all of your e-mails and well wishes.  I thoroughly enjoy hearing from all of you.  Your updates give me comfort and joy as well as the sensation that I am not too far from home.  I wish you all the best as the MN summer gets under way and look forward to reuniting with many of you in the very near future!

Take care everyone,
Love,
Leslie