Don't get your hopes up. The title of this probably makes it seem like I had this crazy cool trip to Turkey. Not the case.
We got back from practice on Wednesday and were settling in for the night when I get a phone call asking if I wanted to go to Turkey the next day. I really didn't have a choice because of something to do with my working Visa. At first I wasn't too thrilled. Then I started thinking, hey.. I get to go see Turkey.. I bet they have a Starbucks! Then I hear what time they are picking me up (two of the staff members) and I IMMEDIATELY went back to not being excited. 7 am they would be outside. I know, I know..to most of you that's a piece of cake. To me that sounds like at least 3 hours of sleep I'm missing out on, and if you know me you know I value my sleep.
Regardless, I woke up the next day at around 6. Feeling a little more excited that I would get to have some coffee. It was only about an hour long trip and we pull up to the first checkpoint near the border. Then we are getting out of the car and watching the car go back towards the way we just came. Wait.. What? Apparently he was driving a car under his wife's name so we couldn't drive it across into Turkey. So then I'm standing here thinking, "okay so where are we going to rent a car from?" And even "he's going to go back to Haskovo and get his car?" wrong and wrong. Yes, we walked across the border from Bulgaria to Turkey. It wasn't a little walk. We ended up going through all of the customs checkpoints fine though. We strolled right into Turkey where we hung out for a long time until we were told we could come back. Long story short I got to eat some Burger King, drink Turkish coffee, and walk from one country to another. By the end of the day, however, I was ready to be back at my place and would have rather ran 1000 lines at practice than do that again. The next day the staff would ask me "hey Jess you want to go to Turkey?" my response every time, "no."
The rest of the week was normal with the same routines of practice, eating, sleeping. Yesterday (Saturday) a few of us traveled a few hours to watch a Bulgarian men's team play. It was a great atmosphere and some pretty entertaining basketball. I'm finding that the basketball over here is less power and strength but more craftiness and clever. We watched two games and on all four teams there were Americans. It was very cool hearing English out on the floor! After every time the home team made a good play or did something to the crowd's liking, the fans would chant "Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!" I definitely joined in on that on more than one occasion.
Now it's Sunday, we don't have practice, and all of the stores are closed. My roommate and I are stuck between being bored and not feeling like getting ourselves up to even try to go anywhere. We get a channel on our TV that is ESPN America so I usually turn it on the evening to catch some NFL games. Sunday mornings is also when I wake up and check to see how the Griff football team did because I can never stay up til 3 or 4 am when their games are happening. Give me a newspaper and a cup of coffee and boom I'm my parents (old).
Hopefully everything is going great back home. Even though I'm over here I still am excited for the holidays coming up. We are trying to find out if we can get some pumpkins and decorate them. Apparently some people over here celebrate Halloween so it could happen!!
Thanks for reading.
Until next time,
Jess
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Routine
I've been getting some trouble from a certain someone from back home about not putting a new post up this past week. We have kind of gotten into a routine of getting up for practice in the morning.. Eating lunch.. Taking a nap.. Going to evening practice.. Eating dinner.. Going to bed. So as far as the blogging world is concerned there isn't much new and extraordinary happening.
I think I'm still getting used to the idea that this is what I do for a living. I don't have classes to go to in the mornings or papers to write or presentations to prepare. I literally eat sleep and play basketball. And it's incredible. I almost can't fathom that what I've wanted to do for so long I'm doing right now. The only thing that would make this better was if I had my family here. As loud and as crazy as my nephews are I wouldn't trade that for the world. I don't know how anyone close to their family could do this without the technology we have today. I've been able to see and carry on conversations with them like they are in the room.
Practices are still as tough as ever. My roommate and I seriously can't remember a time where we literally didn't know if our legs would work when we started running down the court. The good news about that is when it comes time for games to start we will definitely be in good shape. That is if we can stay away from the ice cream stand that's about 30 feet away from the entrance to the gym. This ice cream is so good. Don't ask me what the names of them are. I do know chocolate ice cream when I see it and it is delicious.
Oh and today we saw our favorite old "Barack Obama" man in the gym during practice. Apparently he is our biggest fan. Today's conversation had Michael Jackson in it. He seemed to like that judging by his smiling and laughing.
I'll try to post one of these every week. So Mom please stop nagging me about writing more blogs , now you know there won't be one every day, haha. Love you all.
Until next time,
Jess
Friday, September 7, 2012
First free weekend
It's finally here. No I'm not talking about the regular season. I'm talking about two.. Yes two days off without running miles upon miles and doing some REALLY tough drills I have never even heard of before. A lot of these drills that we do I keep thinking would be fun to introduce to some of the teams I'm associated with back in the states. They are very different but it definitely makes your legs feel like jello.. Which seems to be a reoccurring theme here.
Despite the fact that we have two days off.. We still are required to go to the mineral water pool tomorrow at 9:30 am. This place is pretty cool because it has a sauna, a jacuzzi, a massage place, and the mineral pools are hot water so it feels pretty good on our jello legs. Then on Sunday we are going hiking up one of these mountains I've been seeing in the distance. We were told to wear our "hard shoes". Unlucky for me I left my hard shoes back home.. Whatever hard shoes are.
My American teammates and I are starting to get used to people trying to speak to us in Bulgarian even though we tell them right away we speak English. I'm sure the puzzled look on my face gives that away before we even say anything. We had a run in with an older man outside of the gym the other day who wouldn't accept the fact that we had no idea what he was saying. He eventually just started saying Barack Obama.. So we just started saying random things back. He seemingly understood "Barney" and "Orange juice" as acceptable responses to "Barack Obama.".
It's crazy for me to be over here and see the influence that America has on the entire world. People here are walking around with lakers jerseys on and listening to tupac and eminem in their cars. I don't think I ever realized that being in my little bubble in Missouri. Of course like I've said before they really emphasize Dallas, Texas and California and New York City. I think to myself um excuse me there are other great places in the U.S.. like Missouri.. And Ohio.
Some of the coaching staff speak little to no English.. And I always catch myself saying things in conversation like "ah come on" or "no way" to them thinking that certainly they at least know THOSE phrases. Blank stares. It's fun teaching each other new phrases everyday though and laughing at the attempts. One of the guys here told me he felt embarrassed because his English was not so good. I told him he was doing fine because I can't speak a lick of Bulgarian!! His response was that English was universal and Bulgarian is for such a small area. Touché.
Oh and one more thing. Highlight of my day today was making a trick shot at the end of practice for an ice cream cone. Sweet sweet victory.
Bulgarian word of the day: Haskovo = хасково
Until next time,
Jess
Despite the fact that we have two days off.. We still are required to go to the mineral water pool tomorrow at 9:30 am. This place is pretty cool because it has a sauna, a jacuzzi, a massage place, and the mineral pools are hot water so it feels pretty good on our jello legs. Then on Sunday we are going hiking up one of these mountains I've been seeing in the distance. We were told to wear our "hard shoes". Unlucky for me I left my hard shoes back home.. Whatever hard shoes are.
My American teammates and I are starting to get used to people trying to speak to us in Bulgarian even though we tell them right away we speak English. I'm sure the puzzled look on my face gives that away before we even say anything. We had a run in with an older man outside of the gym the other day who wouldn't accept the fact that we had no idea what he was saying. He eventually just started saying Barack Obama.. So we just started saying random things back. He seemingly understood "Barney" and "Orange juice" as acceptable responses to "Barack Obama.".
It's crazy for me to be over here and see the influence that America has on the entire world. People here are walking around with lakers jerseys on and listening to tupac and eminem in their cars. I don't think I ever realized that being in my little bubble in Missouri. Of course like I've said before they really emphasize Dallas, Texas and California and New York City. I think to myself um excuse me there are other great places in the U.S.. like Missouri.. And Ohio.
Some of the coaching staff speak little to no English.. And I always catch myself saying things in conversation like "ah come on" or "no way" to them thinking that certainly they at least know THOSE phrases. Blank stares. It's fun teaching each other new phrases everyday though and laughing at the attempts. One of the guys here told me he felt embarrassed because his English was not so good. I told him he was doing fine because I can't speak a lick of Bulgarian!! His response was that English was universal and Bulgarian is for such a small area. Touché.
Oh and one more thing. Highlight of my day today was making a trick shot at the end of practice for an ice cream cone. Sweet sweet victory.
Bulgarian word of the day: Haskovo = хасково
Until next time,
Jess
Monday, September 3, 2012
Preseason has begun
Today was our third day of preseason. Let me tell you it is rough! They do things very different over here. For example, stretching is done for about 30 minutes it seems like. I'm not talking about touch your toes and butterfly stretching either. We stretched muscles I don't think I've ever stretched before. Which is probably why I've been forced to roll out of bed like an old lady. We have 3 days of 2-a-days and 3 of just one practice days. They informed us today that there are 10 days left of the running in the mornings, which seems okay compared to our six week running schedule at Western. Our first day of practice there were a significant amount of people from the town in the gym watching. This is the first year this city or "town" has had a women's team so I think people are interested in how we look. The town is small.. Everybody knows everybody.. It kind of reminds me of st. Joe except here I don't think some of the locals are too thrilled about the americanskis on their turf.
The stares we get walking through the town haven't subsided yet. We actually are used to it now. Hopefully they become more friendly stares the longer we are here. I am living with another american from Indiana and she's great. Our "flat" is very nice so we feel lucky to have the things that we do. They don't have dryers for our clothes so we have just been laying our clothes around the kitchen and living room until we get a clothes rack. We laughed cause we imagined what a local would say about Americans if they walked in and saw that.
We've been finding more and more stores that have things very close to what were used to back home in the u.s.... diet coke and dark chocolate candy bars.. Which obviously is essential. The milk here is delicious and they take pride in the freshness of their fruit, veggies, and dairy products. I'm taking pride in it now too!
Tomorrow we should be getting Internet in our apartment and cable so we are excited about that. We have our second practice of the day coming up at five so we are trying to prepare ourselves for another tough one! Until next time!
Jess
The stares we get walking through the town haven't subsided yet. We actually are used to it now. Hopefully they become more friendly stares the longer we are here. I am living with another american from Indiana and she's great. Our "flat" is very nice so we feel lucky to have the things that we do. They don't have dryers for our clothes so we have just been laying our clothes around the kitchen and living room until we get a clothes rack. We laughed cause we imagined what a local would say about Americans if they walked in and saw that.
We've been finding more and more stores that have things very close to what were used to back home in the u.s.... diet coke and dark chocolate candy bars.. Which obviously is essential. The milk here is delicious and they take pride in the freshness of their fruit, veggies, and dairy products. I'm taking pride in it now too!
Tomorrow we should be getting Internet in our apartment and cable so we are excited about that. We have our second practice of the day coming up at five so we are trying to prepare ourselves for another tough one! Until next time!
Jess
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