A big HELLO from Athens, Greece!
As I am writing this, I am sitting on the balcony at my apartment. Today is Wednesday September 25, 2013. I officially got to Athens on Friday September 20th so I have had 4 full days in the city and one half day. I want to share my story of living in Greece for 6 months so where else should I start but the beginning.
On Thursday morning I woke up bright and early so that I could catch my flight out of St Louis to Chicago. My flight was delayed almost 3 hours. I was nervous I wouldn’t have much time in Chicago to get a last bite of American food before I left. In order to calm my nerves, I got a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks, haha. Needless to say, I did make it to Chicago with plenty of time to get some good food and even charge my phone and make a few calls before boarding my flight to Paris.
I was totally THAT girl in the airport, crying on my phone to my mom and one of my best friends before leaving. I could see everyone staring at me, but I didn’t care. I was about to embark on the biggest adventure and challenge of my life and I was scared shitless. I was moving to a country where I spoke none of the native language and had to figure out living on my own for the first time, navigating a foreign town and country, and managing to play professional basketball. That’s not a small task. Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful for this experience, but it’s not all rainbows and butterflies when you’re here.
Now, back to the trip. The flight from Chicago to Paris is about 9 hours long so I had plenty of time to sleep and watch movies. Arriving in Paris, I only had about 40 minutes to make it to my gate before my flight to Athens took off. I had to exit security, find my gate on one of the big boards, go through a new batch of security, get my passport stamped, and run to my next gate. And I mean run! I was in a middle seat the entire way from Chicago to Paris and did not get up once. My bladder and my knees were not feeling so well at this point in the trip, but of course I made it to my gate with a few minutes to spare before boarding. This would be my final leg of the journey. Soon, I would be in my new city. The flight to Athens was only 2 hours. I slept most of the way and I woke up briefly to realize that we are on our descent into Athens. However, seeing as there is an 8-hour time difference, to my little body clock, I thought it was still 6 in the morning so I fell back asleep. I awoke with the jolt of touching down on the runway and finally I was ‘home.’ My agent, Vasilis, was at the airport to pick me up. I am so grateful that he was there and that I wasn’t completely on my own yet. After gathering all of my bags (cue the happy dance that they all made it) we piled everything into his car and set off towards my hotel.
The team would be giving me an apartment close to our gym, but it needed to be cleaned and fixed up, so for the mean time, I was going to be staying at a hotel called Marina Alimas, right by the Aegean Sea. We took my things to the hotel, I changed into some shorts and Vasilis took me to lunch. The restaurant had wifi so I could text home and tell my parents and siblings and friends that I had made it. I don’t have cell phone service here so the only time that I can talk to anybody is when I have wifi. It’s challenging but I try to plan my day around when people back home will be up and I go to a spot with wifi at that time. The time difference doesn’t help much either.
My team, Kronos Agiou Dimitrio, was hosting a tournament this past weekend for the teams in our division that are from Athens. There are four teams, including mine, that are located here so we played 3 games. On Friday night, I got to meet my coaches and my teammates and watch them play a game. It was nice to be able to watch them play a little bit before being thrown in. All of the girls speak some English so I can communicate with them pretty well. The two assistant coaches speak English too, so they can translate for me. Our head coach, however, does not speak much English at all. Although he doesn’t speak much English, I can sometimes understand what he wants and what he is yelling about. A lot of the things that he wants us to fix are the same things that Coach Bruno and his staff were preaching at DePaul. After the game on Friday, the head coach and another person affiliated with our program took me to dinner at the restaurant right next to my hotel. Here, one of the guys spoke very good English and I could order with no problem. After dinner, I went back to my hotel where I used Facetime to talk with my mom and one of my friends before going to bed.
On Saturday I woke up around 3 pm after sleeping for 13 hours and I headed next door for lunch and brought along my phone in hopes that I might be able to talk to some family and friends. I again used Facetime, but this time to talk to my sister Liz and her pup, Sam. As I was eating lunch, a stray cat came up to me and started walking in and out of my legs. I bent down to pet it (STUPID!) and it stayed around, begging for more attention my entire lunch. However, that was not the only interesting part about my lunch that day. I let the English speaking man at the restaurant talk me into trying one of their cooked meals for the day. It was chicken with potatoes and I thought it sounded harmless enough. I also ordered a Greek salad because I thought it was appropriate. As he brought out my plate of chicken and potatoes, I couldn’t help but staring at the chicken claw that was sitting on my plate! Yes, you read that right, A CLAW! A literal chicken foot was chilling on my lunch plate. I was shocked and somewhat disgusted but I needed to eat so I pushed the claw to the side and ate around it. What an experience.
After lunch, I wanted to walk along the marina and take pictures on my new camera. With some money I saved from graduation, I decided to buy a new camera to document my travels this year. I was eager to test out my new camera, my sense of direction, and my new surroundings. I headed down towards the marina to walk through and look at all the boats. I saw boats of all shapes and sizes, of all materials, and all uses. There was little fishing boats mixed in with beautiful sailboats, large yachts and catamarans, speedboats and then boats that must belong to some Grecian celebrities. After walking around for a couple of hours, I headed back to my hotel to get ready for our game that night. The coaches wanted me to play some minutes if I was up to it, and I thought that playing might get my mind in a better place. I played only a little bit and our team lost, but it was good to start playing with my teammates. They tried to teach me a few plays before we started but I was so nervous, I forgot most of them anyways. We played the best team in our league, Panathanikos and we lost. We will play them again in our first Cup Game on October 6th.
The next day was more of the same. I got up and went for a walk. This time, I went towards the right where there were some more shops, a beach, and some restaurants. I again took along my camera and couldn’t help but looking like the ultimate tourist by wearing it around my neck and stopping to take pictures every couple hundred feet. It is absolutely beautiful here. If you’ve ever been to Chicago, then you should know about the Lakeshore Drive running and biking path. It pretty much takes you the length of the city. Here, there is something similar. Its path is along the sea and there are many restaurants, beaches, and shops along it. I walked along that path and went where it took me. It was fun to people watch and take in some of the sights. I was shocked at how many people were laying out on the beaches and actually in the water, but I guess the weather is getting ready to get cooler here so people want to get in their last bit of summer. I saw a group of old men playing chess like they do at Oak Street Beach, I saw a boy getting chased by a dog, I saw lots of bikers, and LOTS of Speedos. The Speedos were an interesting sight and it seemed like everywhere I turned I saw one. I didn’t spend much time looking at the beach but instead out over the water or at the shops and restaurants. After I had lunch, I again headed back to my hotel because we had another game that night. I played again, and we lost, again. It’s frustrating to lose, but our coach wasn’t so disappointed. He knows that we will be much better once we practice with each other and our point guard gets back from being hurt.
Monday morning I woke up kind of early and thought I would walk more towards the center of the city. I only stayed on one street because I was worried about getting lost and I cannot read the street signs to tell me how to get back to where I was coming from. That night, instead of practice, we watched film as a team. During film, our coach highlighted to us what we were doing wrong and what he wanted us to do instead. The assistant coach sat next to me and was translating everything he was saying.
On my way back to the hotel after film, the assistant coach told me there was a TGI Fridays not too far from my hotel and dropped me off there for dinner. You have NO idea how happy I was to be eating American food and to be able to order in English. It didn’t matter that I was eating by myself and didn’t have any wifi. I was having a salad with ranch dressing and a cheeseburger with fries. It doesn’t sound like much to those of you back home, but after having chicken for every meal, I was in heaven. On my walk back to my hotel, I stopped at a mini mart and found Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, a magazine in English, Powerade, and beer! You can imagine my excitement at finding these things. It was the best 16 Euros I’ve spent yet. I went back to my hotel, found a bootleg movie site and started watching ‘The Butler’ while eating my ice cream and having a beer.
Tuesday morning I got a call saying that my apartment was ready so I packed up my bags. The general manager of the club picked me up and asked what I wanted to eat for lunch and I said chicken, so they took me to the mall to a KFC. Ha! The KFC here isn’t like the KFC at home, but the gesture that they wanted to make me feel comfortable is what matters the most. We spent quite a few hours at the mall before my apartment was finally ready. I got to my apartment about 5:45 and was able to start officially unpacking my bags! I got all of my stuff into the closet space, although I need some hangers for my dresses, skirts, jeans, and jackets. Unfortunately, my apartment does not have wifi yet so I have to either walk to the gym, which is only a 5-minute walk, or find a restaurant that has wifi. So far, I haven’t found any restaurants with wifi that are close, but the walk to the gym is worth it so that I can talk to friends and family.
Last night was my first official practice with the team. The coach tried to put in about 6 plays and I think I have them down for the most part in my head. Some of them are very similar so I really have to concentrate when running them. The girls usually call out the plays in Greek so they have to call them out in English for now as well.
This morning some workmen came to my apartment about 7:45 am to install what I think is a heater in my bathroom, although I’m really not sure. All I know is that there was a lot of loud banging and drilling going on but I refused to wake up. I had an individual practice with the coach this morning at 11 at our gym. I got up at 10, stopped by a mini mart for a Powerade and a croissant and then headed to the gym. I wanted to get there early enough to use the Internet and check my phone. I finally was able to check Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, my emails, and my iMessages after about 16 hours of being away from Internet. I had quite a few texts from family and friends, and even had some emails from my sisters with their itineraries of when they are coming to visit! That has made this day so much better. After my short individual practice with my coach, I walked back towards my apartment and stumbled upon a small farmers market. However, it wasn’t just home grown foods being sold, but also clothing and things for the house. I bought some grapes and a couple of apples. For lunch today, I had souvlaki, which is what most American’s think of as a gyro. It was chicken gyro meat with tomatoes and a mustard sauce wrapped in a pita. We have practice tonight at 8 so I will probably go over to the gym around 5:30 so that I can use the Internet.
Sorry that this post is so long, but I wanted to fill everybody in on what has been going on here. While it is extremely difficult to be so far away from friends and family, I have been blessed with this great opportunity to continue my dream of playing professional basketball. This is a dream come true for me and I am reminding myself of that every day. My family and friends have all been extremely supportive and I want to thank them so far for their words of encouragement and for waking up somewhat early just so we can Facetime or text before work.
Next time, I promise the post won’t be as long. Right now however, everything is so new to me. I’m sure I will get the hang of this lifestyle soon and I’m looking forward to sharing my adventures with all of you. Thanks for reading, and until next time:
