Greek life, lately

What an eventful filled couple of days I have had since I last posted! We had another preseason tournament, our coach got fired, I’m starting to find my way around a little bit better, I figured out how to work the hot water in my apartment (!), and we all went together to dinner as a team! Let me break this down a little bit more.

This past weekend we had another preseason tournament. This time, the games were held at the gym of another team. On Saturday, we played the host team and lost by a lot. It was brutal. Nobody played well and we couldn’t hit a shot to save our lives. We played again on Sunday and personally I thought we played better. We still lost, but the margin wasn’t quite as large and our shooting and defense was a little better. After the game Sunday in the locker room, the general manager of our team told us that he and the president of the club would be taking us to dinner on Monday night instead of having training. I was really looking forward to this because I hadn’t gotten to spend much time with my teammates outside of practice and I thought this would be a good chance to get to know them a little better.

Usually during the day I watch a movie or a T.V. show that I have on my computer or iPad in the morning and then head out around noon for lunch. I walk to the main street, Agiou Dimitriou, and try to find a place where they speak a little bit of English. While I am VERY glad that a lot of people speak English, it also surprises me when so many people do. I am in their native country expecting them to speak my language. However, I’m NOT complaining about them speaking English J Anyways, on Monday I had lunch and then decided to head to one of the internet café’s around 6 so that I could use their internet to check my phone, but mainly to download the series finale of Breaking Bad (HOLY EFF). The coaches told us that dinner would be at 9:30 and I thought since the restaurant was right next door to the internet café, I would kick it for a few hours with my cappuccino and internet connection and then walk over to dinner.

9:25 rolls around and I decide that it’s a good time to head over to the restaurant where I’m sure some of my teammates are waiting. I walked next door to find nobody from my team. I tried to ask the owners of the restaurant what time they were coming but since they didn’t speak much English, they didn’t understand what I was trying to say. I waited and waited and waited for the team to show up. After about 30 minutes and 10 games of solitaire on my phone, I realized that I was not in the right spot. Since I don’t have any numbers yet in my Greek phone, I couldn’t call or text anybody to ask where I should go. One of the men affiliated with the team called the restaurant when they realized that I was temporarily missing and came to pick me up.

It took us awhile to finally find the restaurant because the streets are so confusing and there are lots of one-way streets here. When we finally got to the restaurant, the girls had already all eaten and were sipping on cocktails. They ordered me one immediately and I was served some large plates of various meats and a delicious salad. The restaurant was awesome! It was on the top of a hill overlooking all of Athens and a huge port for boats. I could see the Acropolis right in the middle of everything and the girls also pointed our some other notable places. The music was good and the environment was so live. Even though I’m really frustrated that I missed so much of dinner with my teammates, we still had a great time together. It was fun to laugh with them and be with them outside of basketball. There are some major goofballs on the team and it was fun to hang out with them. And they are all trying to teach me some Greek! I can successfully count to 5, I know how to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and I know how to say ‘goodbye.’ While it’s not much, I still feel pretty accomplished!

While at dinner, I was informed that our coach had been fired. This came as a pretty big shock to me seeing as that I had only been there one week and I have never had any real coaching changes in my life. I had the same head high school coach for 4 years and the same head college coach for 4 years. Some assistants came and went but for the most part, everything was very steady. This is a professional business and things like this do happen, but I never thought it would happen to us, or the week before our first regular season game. They are searching for a new coach for us and in the meantime, one of our assistants stepped up and ran our practice last night. I thought it was a really good practice, a lot more intense and focused than the couple of practices we had last week. I’ll be curious to learn who our new coach will be.

That should be all for now! My sisters have officially booked their flights to come visit (WOOHOO) and I think my mom is in the process of booking hers (DOUBLE WOOHOO). Since the government back home has shut down, if anybody wants to come visit Greece, I will welcome all guests with open arms! J Although you’ll probably need to bring an air mattress or stay in a hotel haha!

I also want to say thanks to everybody that has reached out and contacted me since I’ve been gone. I know it’s only been a week, but your kind thoughts and words manage to put a big smile on my face and remind me how blessed I am to have such wonderful people in my life. I’m a really lucky girl.

Geia sas! (That’s goodbye in Greek! And it’s pronounced like yay-sas)