The note says, "Im full with coffee for Jess!" Sorry my pictures stink.
These girls are so sweet! The night before Cara (Cosi’s sister) had given me this jar of gummies, and they also provided me with a bottle of flat water that I could put in my room (everyone in Europe it seems loves carbonated water…I can drink it no problem but flat just tastes better to me still)….
Yeah the jar was full of candy before I took the picture. I should have taken it before eating most of it...typical...
I ate my breakfast and spent a good amount of time yesterday working on the blog post, checking up on facebook, and of course, watching a you tube video on how to pronounce the letters of the German alphabet….I read my Bible and had time to pray for just about every person I’ve ever met and then spent some time planning my practice for the evening….
Practice went….great! Ha ha, not one kid showed up. But highlights were that Cara had gone with me to practice so that she could show me the way via the train and bus I will take myself in the future. We had fun travelling together as we worked on her English a little and a lot on my German…
Montag Dienstag Mitvoch Donnerstag Frietag Samstag Sonntag Those are, I hope, the days of the week we worked on. I also found out that the word for gate, door, and a soccer goal is all the same. I can say it, but I have no idea how it is spelled…sounds to me sort of like tour but with the “r” being more of an “ah” sound…
Cosi met us at the gym and we waited a few minutes to see if any kids would show up. When none did, we decided to go to my practice for ASV Moabit Berlin- the 2nd league team I am to start playing for. On the way Mike Opitz called and he explained that he had told some of the kids that I might not be there on Tuesday because of all the craziness with my flights…He thinks kids will definitely be there on Friday. He also said he will pick me up today around 11 am to talk about details of the coaching/playing/finances deal…He also mentioned that there is a first league team that I might need to travel to go see. I hope that part is true!
We found the gym in Moabit, Clara was our faithful navigator, having looked up the address on the internet on her phone. Another train ride, another bus ride and we were there. The coach saw me in the hallway and came over and greeted me warmly. Cosi explained to him about my practices with coaching overlapping with his practices. He told me it was no problem at all and that he was happy I was there…Also, there is a tournament this weekend that I can play in.
Practice went really well. I felt pretty good and the girls were very friendly.Timur told me from the start that he would speak German and that two of my teammates could translate for me. It went just fine. There was only one drill where I was pretty confused and it took a few minutes for them to explain it to me extra- but I would like to blame it on my translator who told me we were going to shoot to miss- it made the drill make no sense in my mind ;) ha ha! But I got it quickly enough…
To start practice we spent time doing a plyo circuit with some defensive slides, footwork through cones, jumping, medicine ball work, and short sprints. It really felt good to work out like that. Then we went into some shooting and I shot well.
From there 2 on 2. My partner and I won every game, we had a good pic and roll system going. I felt a little bad for her though because nearly every time the defense played the roller and left me open coming off the screen, so I just kept shooting or going for the layup. I kept thinking this would set it up the next time for her for the score, the defense will adjust…but no. Oh well, by the last game she was kinda laughing about it so I think it’s ok.
We learned some offense in their secondary break. We only had 8 players at practice (Timur the coach had warned me that we’d be low in numbers that night) so we played four on four in the halfcourt with Timur as the all time point guard for both teams, and we played the half court breakdown of the break. This was really fun. We were playing to 6 and my team barely won 6-5. I need to work on my backdoor pass. One thing I have noticed playing in Europe is they go back door way more than we do and they throw the backdoor pass way more than we do. I felt bad because this one guard on the team kept going back door but I kept throwing the ball to someone else because I was uncomfortable with the pass and because I felt like she was right under the basket…but she seemed to expect the ball there. I talked to her about it afterward and explained to her how we would generally not throw that pass but that I will try to figure it out. She was very understanding with me which I was thankful for.
We finished practice with some more partner shooting. We huddled up and the team said some cheer of which I had no clue what they were saying, so I just said “yeah, that!” and the girls laughed.
Timur came up to me afterward and told me again that he would really like for me to play. Marcel is going to come with me to practice on Thursday to talk with TImur to help work out more details as far as me coaching and playing and as far as payment. There is the tournament this weekend and then another one the following weekend in Poland. We would stay two nights in Poland I think, wondering if I’ll see anything/do anything that will count as really Polish and giving me an idea of how Poland is different from Germany. Hope so!
Please keep praying that details work out financially, that maybe there is a real opportunity with a first league team and that it would be a good opportunity for me…Also pray that I can pick up on German quickly…I would like to interact with Guido and Clara more but I think it is language that really limits that. Also, it sounds like there will be a lot of games on Sundays so I’m not sure what the church factor will look like, but there is a possible evening service at one church, and another thought that’s been running through my mind if I stay in this town is to try to start a small Bible study with the Christians that we know during the week… Oh, and the food so far is good Lots of pizza on homemade dough! Yum!
Day Three:
Well I tried to post the day two thing this morning (Wed am9 but it was not working so I am now posting it Wed evening and I have another update...Mike stopped by the house today and filled me in on a few things.
First of all he said that the coach from practice last night thought I did a good job, so that is always pleasing to hear!
Secondly he said that hopefully next week I can go to try out with a first league team...Of course I do not remember the name of the city it is in, but I do know that it is three hours away from here...
Third he told me that he thinks I should for sure go home for Christmas if I can afford it because he says it is important for family to be together for Christmas- especially for Americans. He said that in his experience Americans get "homesick and moody" around november, so they should always go home for a couple weeks for Christmas if they can...let the fundraising begin ;) family, in lieu of Christmas presents I will take money towards a flight!!
All in all, it was a good conversation with Mike. In an hour I will go to the gym in Spandau to work out a little bit. Marcel's team has practice at 8 so I should see him and catch up with more details then. Mike says Marcel knows more and has also been working on getting me an apartment...I had no idea about that!
K that is all for now (ha, as if that was short!!)
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