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