October!

Ciao!

Since my last post, we've started the official season. Our first game we played against a very talented Umbertide team. We lost by about 20 and it was not a good game for us. It was definitely an introduction into the A1 league for a lot of the girls on our team but I know they are now ready for the rest of the season. We played our 2nd game yesterday against Orvieto. My friend Sydney Crafton plays for Orvieto and it was really great to see her over here! Sydney is from Jeff City so I've known her for about 10 years!! She played at JC High School and then went on to play at Mizzou! It was awesome to see Syd and catch up a little bit before the game. It was also great to get a win! Our team came out really  strong and we managed to keep it up all game, holding on for a 15 point win.

Since one of the brackets of the FIVB World Volleyball Championships was held here in Trieste at our main gym, we had to find another gym to practice in for a few weeks. We ended up going to Slovenia 4 nights a week for close to 3 weeks. Being the American I am, I was seriously hoping for some stamps on my passport! I didn't get any stamps on my passport from going to Slovenia, but we did have a preseason tournament in Pula, Croatia and I did manage to get four stamps in my passport for that!! I know you guys are probably thinking that Croatia and Slovenia are far trips, but the gym where we practiced in Sezana, Slovenia was only about 15 minutes away and Pula was only an hour drive. Trieste is very close to the borders of both of those countries!!

My mom is coming on Saturday for about 10 days!! I'm so excited to see her!! I've been gone almost 2 months so it's going to be nice to have a visitor from home! She's also bringing quite a lot of goodies from home for myself and my teammate, Donica and the two American guys on our men's team. While she's here, we have 3 games. I'm also hoping that we'll have a day off squeezed in there and that we'll get to Venice! Venice is only a 2 hour train ride away so it's a quick day trip and I know we both want to go!

Not much else is new here. I had a not-so-quick trip to an Italian emergency room about 2 weeks ago. We had a friendly match and I busted my eyebrow open and needed some stitches to close it up. I got to the ER at 10 PM and didn't leave until 5 AM. I definitely have a greater appreciation for the American healthcare system! Three stitches and 7 hours later, I was on my way with a great story and a little bit of a scar. 

That's all for now! I'll write again after my mom leaves and share the fun things we did while she was here!! Ciao!

It's Been A Little While

So, it's been somewhere between 4 and 5 months since I've blogged and a lot has happened since then! Here's my quick spring/summer recap:

Got home April 7th! Two weeks later, my cousin and I took a road trip out to California for Coachella. We drove along Route 66 part of the way and saw a bunch of really awesome places. Coachella Music Festival happened (possibly best 3 days EVER). My cousin and I drive to Vegas where we meet our moms and continue our road trip back to Missouri. We see the Grand Canyon and a bunch of other landmarks and neat things along the way back. 

I moved back to Chicago in early May and had a great spring with all my friends up there. I got to see a lot of friends and family and people from school that I hadn't seen in almost a year! I goof around for a few weeks before finally starting work as a part time bartender at Kelly's Pub, which is basically on DePaul's campus and is one of our favorite watering holes 😉. All summer I worked at Kelly's a couple of days a week and also moonlighted as a babysitter for 2 families! I also worked basketball camps for Coach Bruno and did some other random jobs. I went to the Beyonce and Jay-Z concert with my good friend Mary where I sang my heart out and loved every second of it! I went to Cubs games Chicago Sky games, went to the beach and in general, just spent a lot of time with my friends, especially my best friend Sam!

I got a puppy!! (That's the most exciting part of my summer!) I really wanted to get a dog when I moved back but since I was going to be staying with my aunt and uncle, I couldn't very well bring a new puppy with me. After I moved to the city when I started working at Kelly's, I still really wanted a dog. One day while babysitting, I started looking up puppies in Chicago and the surrounding states. I found a breeder in Northen Indiana that had French Bulldog puppies. The pictures were to die for so I called the guy and set up an appointment for the next day to drive out there and see the pup. My friend Becca went with me and within 2 minutes of holding the little guy, I knew I couldn't leave there without him. I drove home that day with a 5 week old French Bulldog puppy and never looked back!!!

Oh yeah, and I signed another contract to continue by basketball career, this time playing in Italy! I'm currently in my apartment in Trieste, Italy and today marks 3 weeks since my arrival. Trieste is in the Northeastern part of Italy, extremely close to Slovenia and Croatia, actually only 5 and 10 miles respectively. My club is called Societa Ginnastica Triestina and this will be their first year in the A1 league.

If you remember last year, I really struggled with the decision of whether to continue playing basketball or if it was time to hang up the shoes and move on. I didn't make this decision lightly and talked with a lot of family and friends before deciding to play again. I was extremely unhappy last year in Greece due to a number of reasons but didn't want one bad experience to ruin my basketball career. I thought with a new team, in a new country and with a different set of circumstances, this might be an amazing experience. 

I'm not going to lie and say it's been easy because it hasn't. It's only been 3 weeks but for the most part, things have been going well. I miss my family and friends SO much. I had plans of bringing my new puppy, Luigi 😁, with me but because he was so young, he wasn't able to get all of his shots in order to travel. My sister and my parents are taking care of him but I miss him so much too!

The team and the people involved are great. We have 13 girls on the team, 3 coaches and a bunch of other staff/team managers/board members. There is another American on my team this year and it's been great to have her to talk with and do things with. I'm so extremely glad I'm not the only one on the team like last year. We also have a men's team here in Trieste and they have 2 American guys on their team as well. I'm sure as the season goes on, we will all hang out and do things together.

That's the update on me for now! I promise I'll do a better job of blogging so check back in for updates on my life and our season! Our first official game is October 5th but we have friendly games almost every week and weekend, including some traveling. Last weekend we went to Malè, which is in the mountains. It's a popular destination for skiers in the winter. It was so beautiful.

Well, I have to get ready for my driving lesson! They are trying to teach me how to drive a stick shift car- it's not going so well right now haha. Hopefully today will be better! Thanks for reading!

Ciao!

PS, here are some pics from this summer and from Italy so far!

My mom dared me to climb on this huge metal elk so of course, I did. The video of my getting on is quite hilarious!

Our road trip home included a stop at the Four Corners.

Cheering on the DePaul softball team in the NCAA tournament in Lexington, KY.

My other American teammate, Donica, and me.

The inside of our arena, also called The Palace.

Walking with the team in Malè.

And finally my handsome little devil of a dog, Luigi!

Just to give you some perspective on his size! And that's my cousin Maggie, we road tripped to Cali. 

That's All She Wrote

As I wrote to you guys last time, I mentioned that Wednesdays game might be our last. And indeed it was. We got off to a terribly slow start and couldn't overcome poor shooting and too many turnovers. It was a long and quiet 7-hour bus ride back to Athens, getting us back to the gym at 3 in the morning.

It's been a weird 2 days since we got back. I've been doing lots of stuff with Lykendra but I'm also trying to get all of my stuff ready before I have to leave on Monday. All of my things are packed, with the exception of the clothes and toiletries I will need for the next 2 days. My suitcases and bags are packed to the max and I'm sure they will go over the weight limit but there's nothing I can do to change that! I'm leaving a decent amount of clothes here and I'm even leaving a couple of pairs of shoes! Now if you know me this is a HUGE deal! It hurts me to know that I have to leave shoes behind but I'm sure my mother is rejoicing because she knows just how many pairs of shoes I still have back home!

It's odd to not go over to the gym at night and see the girls and the coaches. It had become part of my everyday routine and now that I'm not doing it, part of me feels empty. I've mentioned this to some of my closest friends and my family but I'm not sure that I want to play again next year. This might come as a shock to a lot of people, but part of me feels ready to move on to the next chapter in my life. I really want to go back to school to get my Masters and stay involved in collegiate athletics by helping student athletes make the transition from being a student-athlete in college to a non-athletic professional after college . Basketball has provided me with some incredible experiences and I've met my best friends thanks to basketball. While there is this big part of me that feels ready to walk away, there's still the competitor in me that isn't ready to hang up her shoes quite yet. To think that Wednesday's game might have been my last basketball game makes me sad. I've got some really big decisions to make coming up.

This season was difficult for me in multiple ways. As hard as it was, it was an amazing life experience that I wouldn't trade for anything, but that doesn't make it any less difficult! I went into this experience extremely naïve about what to expect for it being my first year playing professional basketball overseas. I'm very lucky that I had such a great support system back home in the form of my family and friends. 

I have a lot of incredible opportunities available at my fingertips, which can make my decision about what to do next that much harder! I will definitely have to weigh all of my options and take the pros and cons into consideration when deciding, but I know that whatever happens next is the direction in which my life is supposed to go. I'm a firm believer that 'everything happens for a reason,' whether it be the people that come in and out of your life, the places you live, the jobs you do or do not get, or the triumphs and the tragedies you experience. All of these situations shape us into who we are supposed to be. Of course we have some power to decide what direction we want our life wants to take, but I know that I met some of these people for a reason and I will always cherish the memories and friendships I have with them. 

I'm definitely excited to get home and see all my friends and family back in Chicago. I land on Monday night and already have plans filling up my whole day on Tuesday and part of the day on Wednesday. I'll head back to Missouri on either Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning and then my cousin and I are leaving for our Coachella road trip on Sunday! My life is going to take a 180 degree turn between leaving here on Monday afternoon and getting into Chicago on Monday night but I'm ready for what comes next! 

I won't be writing on here as much and will probably be changing the name of the blog at some point. I plan to sit down in a few weeks and reflect more on this experience and all the life-lessons I learned (that post will most likely be quite long!)

I just want to say thanks to those of you who check in and read this thing. I don't know who you are, even if there are any of you or if it's just my family, but either way, it's been fun to journal about my experiences. There are quite a few things I didn't write about just to save your eyes from the boredom of reading about another botched Greek speaking attempt on my part or my every day boring life but I think I gave you guys a pretty good glimpse into my life over here. I look forward to being back and will gladly share my experiences with anybody first hand if you want to hear more!

I've got some last minute things to take care of- like cleaning my apartment!! (Aren't you proud, mom?) See you all very soon!

March Madness!

I'm currently writing this post while sitting on the bus to what could potentially be my last game here in Greece. Talk about surreal.

As I mentioned in my last post about 2 weeks ago, we are in the play-outs with PAOK with our division 1 standing on the line. We won the first game of the playouts by 17 and we played an all around really solid game. I had what was maybe my most complete game of the season in terms of offense, defense, rebounding, steals, assists, etc. It felt great to play such a solid game and for our team to win on the road at their gym. After that win, we had a week before playing them again at our gym. We got off to a slow start and could never really recover. We made an admirable comeback in the 4th quarter but couldn't get the win. The refs were a little questionable with consistency of fouls calls but I've come to expect sketchy reffing since being here. I'm sure this is something a lot of Americns players abroad can attest to!

So that brings me to today, Tuesday April 1st. We are heading back to Thessaloniki for the 5th game. If we win this game, we stay in the first division and we continue playing with a game on Sunday against Elliniko. If we lose the game tomorrow, our season is over and the team will drop to a lower division next year. It's do or die time for our team!! I really think we can win this game and I fully believe that we deserve to stay in the division.

While all of this basketball is going on, I'm also only 5 days away from coming home! My flight back to the states is on Monday and I'm pretty excited. It's crazy to think how quickly things will change for me upon leaving Athens and returning back to the states. I'll be working basketball camps and miscellaneous basketball events this summer while also trying to get a more reliable job. 

Less than a week after landing back home, my cousin Maggy and I will be taking off for a 2 week adventure driving from Missouri to California and back. Our moms are meeting us in Las Vegas after a week to drive back with us. We will be driving along Route 66 and making stops in some famous small towns on our way to California for the Coachella music festival. After Coachella, Maggy and I will head to Vegas for a night of gambling and debauchery before meeting up with our moms and continuing with the road trip. Once we've conquered Vegas, we're heading to the Grand Canyon for some site seeing and then the remainder of the trip is to be determined. We aren't sure which route we will drive back to Columbia due to possible weather restrictions in Colorado.

I'm really looking forward to this two-part road trip for multiple reasons. First, I love my cousin dearly and am really excited to spend quality time with her in the car and at Coachella. We decided on a whim to go on this trip and I think it'll be a really great experience. When we were younger, our two families along with our other cousins spent a lot of time together and since my cousin and I are so close in age (she's only 8 months younger than me) we were extremely close and played together all the time. Secondly, I haven't been on a road trip like this in probably 10 years. I love the time spent on the road seeing things you wouldn't otherwise see, like small towns and local restaurants, stores, hotels, etc. It will be a great experience to see the Grand Canyon and go to Vegas when it's not a basketball 'business' trip! Thirdly, Coachella is going to be a blast! I went to Lollapalooza in Chicago a couple of years ago with my brother and had the time of my life. I know this is going to be similar, if not more fun!

I've been trying to keep up with both the men's and women's NCAA Tournaments although the time difference proves to be challenging when you have to stay up till 4 just so you can watch your beloved DePaul Lady Blue Demons in the Sweet 16! I honestly don't know why I bothered spending an hour looking up teams records and watching highlights in order to help me fill out my men's bracket because it was ruined the first day (thanks a lot Mercer!!). But I love to see the excitement and joy on the players faces when they manage to pull an upset win or move to the next round! In my opinion, March Madness is the best time of the year!! I'm looking forward to the Final Four games this weekend!

While I'm really excited to be back in the states with my family and friends and the familiarity of my 'home' life, it's going to be hard to leave Athens and all of the people here. I'm not going to sugarcoat this and tell you that I never had problems or tough days that made me want to give up and come home, but I also met some really amazing people and have had some incredible experiences.

Win or lose tomorrow, I'll be leaving in 5 days. I have 5 days to spend with my team and to appreciate their culture and lifestyle. I have 5 days to pack my apartment (!!). I have 5 days left being a pseudo-citizen of Greece. I've come a loooooong way since arriving in Athens on September 20th. I've made a lot of personal growth and done some things I will be proud to say I did. I traveled to some major European cities by myself and managed to figure out living alone for the first time, much less in a foreign country! I learned some Greek and was fully exposed to a new culture and lifestyle. And I did this all while being fortunate enough to play basketball.

I've got 5 days to really make this experience count! Now, it's time for me to get to the back of the bus and continue my Greek lessons from my teammates ;)

See you all very soon!

MARCH!!

Well it's officially the middle of March and I'm officially terrible at keeping this thing updated. You'd think after 6 months I'd have the hang of it! Anyways, here's what's up:

Play-outs/play-offs are about to start! That means it's getting closer and closer to when I get to come home. The way our play-offs are structured is kind of confusing but I'll give you the spark noted version of it. We finished 9th out of 10 teams (yikes) so we will go to the play-outs along with the 3 other bottom teams. We will play PAOK in a best of 5 game series, with the regular season games counting. We are tied with them 1-1 so we will have to win 2 games to move on to the next round. If we win our series against PAOK, we will then move on to play Elliniko, the number 1 team in the league and the team that just won the Greek Cup. (This is also the team my really good friend Lykendra plays for.) The teams that lose their play-out series are automatically sent to play in the 2nd division next year. We REALLY want to stay in the first division so this first series is crucial. 

We had a weekend off a couple of weeks ago so I decided to travel to Barcelona for a quick trip. After getting in to the city on Sunday night, I walked around the Gothic Quarter and looked for a place to have dinner. I know that tapas are the meal of choice in Spain so I checked out a couple of tapas restaurants close to my hotel but the tapas they had that night weren't looking so appetizing to me so I passed on tapas. I happened to glance down a side street and saw a sign for a restaurant that said 'Mi Burrito Y Yo' and upon seeing the word 'burrito' for the first time in 7 months, I thought my Chipotle wishes had been answered! I grabbed a table and started checking out the menu only to see more tapas and paella. No burritos!! What I had failed to realize in my American, high-school-Spanish educated brain, was that 'burrito' in Catalan (the dialect of Spanish spoken in Barcelona) means donkey. The restaurant was called 'My Donkey and I.' You can imagine my disappointment when I learned this. I still ended up having a delicious dinner. I also decided to order some Sangria because I had heard that there was very good wine from this area and wanted to treat myself while on my 36 hour vacation. However, the sangria at this restaurant was wine with 2 lemon slices in the entire serving. Usually, there's a variety of chopped up fruit in sangria. I came away a little disappointed but it was a still a good meal. 

On Monday I had a jam packed day. I visited the Sagrada Familia Basilica, Parc Guell, La Casa Battlo, the FC Barcelona soccer stadium, and took a long bus tour of the city. I won't bore you with all the details of my sightseeing escapades, but I will tell you that Barcelona is an absolutely beautiful city. I loved it and think I'm going to need to go back some day to get a fuller Barcelona experience! I was kind of amazed at how much of my high school Spanish came back to me. I was not confident enough to speak any, but I could read almost all of the signs and could pick up pieces of conversations I heard in passing. My flight was at noon on Tuesday to head back to Athens so I couldn't do anything that morning except grab a coffee at the Starbucks that was conveniently located next to my hotel! All in all it was a fantastic trip and I would definitely recommend Barcelona as a city to travel to!

Not much else is new here in Athens. We are just practicing and playing friendly games to keep fresh before play-outs start. I'm still expecting to be coming home April 7th and to be honest, I have a countdown going on! It's 3 weeks from today so I'm actually trying to pack up my apartment a bit. I don't want to leave all of my packing for the last minute because the play-out/play-off schedule could get kind of crazy. I'm really going to miss the girls on the team and everybody here that has helped make this year as easy for me as possible but I also really miss my family and friends back home!! I can't wait to be back home and catch up with everybody and share all the crazy stories that didn't make this blog!

Oh! I wanna give a HUGE HUGE shout out to my girls back at DePaul! BIG EAST Regular Season Champs, BIG EAST Tournament Champs, Coach Bruno was named BIG EAST Coach of the Year, and all of the personal accolades for the team! I'm incredibly proud of each and every one of those girls for working hard to achieve their goal of being BIG EAST Champs! I'm a proud alum out here! Good luck and make some noise in the NCAA Tournament!

Another big congrats and good luck to the Rock Bridge Girls Basketball team on making it back to the State Final 4 for the 3rd time in a row and are looking to make it 3 State Championships in a row! 

That's all for now- wish us luck this coming weekend in our game against PAOK!

Valentines Day, a visit to an island, and 70 degree weather!

Well we've had two games since I wrote to you last. We played a home game against Ikaros, which we won. Ikaros beat us in the first round and this most recent game was another tough test but we came out on top.

The next game we played was this past Sunday against Ippokratis-Kos. They are located on the island of Kos, which means that we got to travel there! We ended up flying to the island, whichever as only about an hour flight, but not before the idea of taking a ship was tossed around. If we would have taken the ship, it would have been a 13-hour trip and we would have slept on the boat. I must say, I'm very happy our club decided to fly us there! We got up really early on Sunday to fly at 9:30, we got to the island at 10:30, headed to a local cafe for some coffee and sandwiches, hung out for a bit, played our game at 2:30, after the game went to dinner, then headed back to the airport for our flight back to Athens at 7! It was a long day, but it was a good trip, except for the outcome of the game. When we got to the airport in Arhens on Sunday morning, we had some time to kill before our flight was going to take off. We walked around the airport and I spotted some American candy at the Duty Free Shop. They had Snickers, M&M's, Mars Bars, a bunch of other chocolates, and Skittles! A lot of these candies, I hadn't seen since I'd been here. I asked my teammates if they had ever tried Skittles, to which they all replied 'No,' so I decided to buy a bag so they could try them! Most of the girls liked them, although a couple of the girls had pretty funny reactions. It might not seem like much, but it was fun to share with them a little bit of our culture. I think they enjoy experiencing what I know and I wish I could share more with them!

Before we left on Sunday, I got to meet up with a family friend from Columbia that was in Athens for business on Friday night, which also happened to be Valentines Day! Our family friend, Dr. Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes, is originally from Greece. He is a professor at the University of Missouri and was performing elvauations on the colleges here in Athens. His wife and my mom are friends, and I also babysat for their two kids many years ago. It was awesome to be able to meet up with somebody from home and get a little taste of Columbia! His nephew, Spyridon, also joined us for dinner. Spyridon was a student-athlete at Virginia Tech University, where he was a four time NCAA champion in the hammer throw! We had a really great conversation over dinner, which we then carried over to coffee and dessert! Dr. K also brought a little present from home that my mom sent with him. I was so excited to open up my little gift! Since we spent such a long time at dinner, coffee and dessert, Spyridon offered to give me a ride home on his motorcycle. I had never ridden on a motorcycle before and it was an awesome experience! I want to go on more rides!! Overall, I had a fantastic Valentines Day!

We had the day off on Monday after getting home from our game Sunday so Lykendra Johnson and I decided to go to the downtown area for some lunch and some shopping. She had also never been to the Acropolis so I made her go up there! We had a great time walking around up there and then getting burgers for lunch at the Fish Cafe. I don't know if you guys remember, but my mom and I ate there when she was here in November and I had been wanting to go back so I'm glad I could take Lykendra.  Then we shopped all around the Plaka and down to Ermou Street. I found a necklace that I loved and Lykendra found some awesome leather purses! Overall, we had a nice day off. The weather being in the high 60's also helped out! I started sweating a little but on my way up to the top of the Acropolis haha. 

Yesterday it was 75 degrees out. I opened up the windows and doors in my apartment and took a nice afternoon nap with the beautiful breeze! I was thinking of heading down to the beach but I think I'll wait till it gets just a little bit warmer out to do that. Right now, it's 65 and it's supposed to be in the mid 60's for the rest of the week. I hope the weather back home starts warming up soon!

Take care everybody and stay warm!

This picture is of me on the island of Kos. In the background, you can see Turkey! Kos is only about an hour boat ride from Turkey.

Here is a picture of me and Lykendra at the top of the Acropolis

And I got caught being a tourist here haha 

Hello February!

I cannot believe it's already February! Can you? Since it's February, that means that I've already been back here for a month and let me tell ya, the month ofJanuary flew by.

We opened up Febraury with a game on Saturday against Paok and we won! Paok is a good team and we played them a close game when we played at their gym back in November. I'm glad we could get the win for this game. My coach and a couple of teammates were trying to explain to me the play-outs/play-offs system and how many games we needed to win, etc to make the play-offs. I don't understand much about the play-off system but all I know is that we need to keep winning and this game was a big win for us!

Not much else has been going on. I've been dealing with all different kinds of sickness but I'm finally feeling better. My mom and sister put together an awesome care package with lots of goodies in it. I've been trying to pace myself but it's hard!! There is a small pet store that I walk by most days on my way to get food or get on the metro and they have a couple of very cute pups for sale in the window! Every day when I walk past, I'm so tempted to stop in and adopt one of the pups! They are 9 week old chihuahuas. I'm not the biggest fan of the chihuahua breed, but because I see them almost every day, I'm really starting to want one! It would be so fun to have a puppy to play with and train but I'm flexing my will power and not adopting one! That way, I'll be able to get the dog I truly want when I get home this spring!

Our last 'regular season' game is on March 8th and then play-offs/play-outs will start from there. At this point, I have no clue when I'll be home. I'm trying to make the most out of being here. The weather has been pretty chilly the past few days after being about 65 for a week and by chilly I mean 45-55 haha. It's nothing compared to the 'polar vortex' going on back home and I'm not too upset about missing that!!

My mom and I were able to FaceTime on Sunday night so I could watch the Super Bowl. She propped up her iPad and pointed it at the screen so that I could watch the game and the commercials. Even though the game was terrible, it was still fun for me to watch!! It's times like those when family and friends get together that makes it so hard to be away from home. I really enjoyed watching the game and having back and forth commentary with my mom about the plays and commercials. 

That's about it for now! I'm downtown at Starbucks enjoying a coffee and am gonna head out soon to do a little window shopping! There are huge after Christmas sales here so maybe I can snag some good stuff for cheap!

Thanks for checking in!