Trips to Turkey and Hungary

The last month has flown by as we have begun playing our regular season in the Ukraine Super League and the Eurocup. We are currently 6-1 on the season. We are 3-1 in the Ukraine League and 3-0 and in first place in our group in Eurocup. Playing games twice a week really makes time go by as we travel more often and practice less. We play the Ukraine games on the weekends and the Eurocup games on either Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

In this first round of Eurocup we play each of the 5 other teams twice, which makes ten games, and the top 3 teams advance to the next round after Christmas.

We began the Eurocup slate with a game on the road in Ankara, Turkey. We played a great all around team game and won by 24. The city seemed pretty modern and lively from what we were able to see. One of the best parts of this trip was flying through Istanbul on the way and being able to get some Starbucks. I brought Erin home some packs of the coffee which she enjoyed. A happy (almost) wife is a happy life is what I am told.

Our next Eurocup game was at home against a solid squad from Russia. We won by 2 points in a close back and forth battle. This was a big win for the club as it was the first home Eurocup game in club history. The Russian team featured Brandon Paul who I played many games against at Illinois and also a big man who was a bit older who played for the Detroit Pistons for a few years.  I was glad we were able to get the win for the fans. I was able to hit a 3 pointer at the buzzer to end the 3rd quarter which got the crowd and our team going to get the win.

This past week we traveled to Hungary for a game against Alba. In this match we jumped on them right away and got up by about 15 points and never really looked back. We won the game by 13 points and I was able to hit 4 three pointers in the contest. The city we played in seemed quite small but the city we stayed in was really quant and nice on Lake Balaton. The view from the hotel over the lake was one to see.  It reminded me of a lake town in Minnesota. To get to Hungary we traveled through Vienna, Austria which seemed like a great city. We even passed a Nike factory outlet on the way that everyone was hoping the bus would stop for….no such luck.

Our games in Ukraine are quite adventurous and excrusiating as we have many long bus rides on back roads. The roads are bumpier than a Scrabble board for the blind. (yes it did take the whole 6 hour bus ride for me to think of that analogy). Some of the gyms we play in are very small. Our gym in Yuzhny is relatively new and a very nice modern complex with a great court. The gym we played in last night reminded me of the gym in the movie Hoosiers when Shooter walks on the court. It’s a great experience though.

Tomorrow we head to Thessaloniki, Greece for a Eurocup match on Wednesday. This is a big game for us as they are 2-1 in our group. It would be a great way to put some separation between us and the rest of the group.

Not much is new in Yuzhny. We have explored Odessa a bit more and found a great Japenese Steakhouse this past week. I am very glad and thankful to have Erin here with me on this journey. She has been doing great here making some new friends and cooking and working out a lot. Today it was really nice out and about 70 degrees so we took a walk on the beach. A couple of days ago while we were on the road she was on the beach with one of the wives and her daughter and they ran into a washed up dead dolphin on the beach. Something you don’t see everyday..

We are looking forward to my parents coming over to visit at the beginning of December. It will be great being able to see them as we miss our families a lot.

Good night from Ukraine. Below are some recent photos.

Matt

 

Erin and I in front of a war monument on the drive from Yuzhne to Odessa

Downtown Ankara, Turkey. They had Mcdonalds, Starbucks, Buger King and Sbarro. Nice American touch on the city

View of Lake Balaton in Hungary

Lithuania

The past few weeks we have been training and playing pre season games in Kaunas, Lithuania and a few surrounding cities. It has been a cool experience seeing a part of the world I never would have imagined going. Practices have been going well as we continue to improve each day and figure each other out the more we get to play together. We have won every game but one so far this pre season. The game we lost to was against a quality team that plays in the Euroleague from Riga, Latvia. It was a very close game as we lost by one point in the end. In a recent game against a team from Lithuania I shot the ball well making 6 three pointers as we won by 14 points. I’m excited to get the real season going and start competing in the Ukrainian Superleague and the Eurocup competition in which we will travel all around Europe.

Life off the court has been relaxing as we spend most of the time in the Best Western Hotel which has been our home for 12 days now. The three other americans and myself have gone to three movies so far while we have been here. We saw 2 Guns, Elysium and Riddick. We are lucky that they show movies in English here! I thought Elysium was a good one while the other two were pretty average at best. We are talking about going bowling at the mall as well one of these days soon. We head back to Ukraine on the 16th so our days here in Lithuania are coming to an end and it will be back to our home in Yuzhne. I am told we should get our apartments when we get back so I am looking forward to see where we’ll be living for the next 8 months or so.

Erin will be arriving in Ukraine in a little over a week. Cannot wait to see her and start our new adventure together over here in a different place. Not to mention some of her great cooking which I have obviously been missing and craving!

I have been knocking out a lot of time by watching shows and reading. I am currently reading Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson. It has been good read so far about his career and philosophies in coaching the Bulls and Lakers. I recently finished the series The Wire. I highly suggest this show as it is incredibly well done about the streets, police and politics of inner city Baltimore. The show tackles many issues about real life. I also started to watch the show The League which is a comedy series about a group of guys in a fantasy football league. It is perfect timing to watch this show as I am currently in two fantasy leagues in which I am proudly 0-2…Thanks Cam Newton.

This morning we had time off so I went with one of my teammates, Paul Delaney who played at UAB and has been playing overseas for a few years now, to an old concentration camp and political prison turned museum named Ninth Fort. It was about a ten minute cab ride outside the town and a real interesting experience. We didn’t have time to go inside the vaults to where they kept the prisoners but we walked around outside the grounds and got some good photos. They have a huge monument they built in the 1980’s to remember all the victims. The monument is over 32 meters tall and has some incredible features of faces and other details. There was also a field where over 50,000 victims were buried. This was definitely like something I had never seen before and I’m glad we were able to go check it out while we were here. Ill post some photos below of the day.

Hope the Hawks can beat State Saturday. Need it. Interesting site my friend showed me.

http://www.winsipedia.com/iowa/vs/iowa-state

Nice try clones

-Matt

chains and shells from guns

monument

me in front of monument

prison

plaque stating “way of death”

monument

plaque stating 50,000 buried

plaque honoring jewish victims where 30,000 buried

sign by wall where they mass murdered victims

area of mass murder

 

 

 

New Season

Time for a new season. This year I am playing for Khimik basketball club in Ukraine. We will be playing in the Ukrainian Superleague as well as Eurocup competition. Eurocup competition means we will be traveling all over Europe playing against some of the top teams over here. The groups for Eurocup have not been released yet so we don’t know exactly who we will play in the first round or where we will travel. They are supposed to be released in October I believe. I’m looking forward to being able to play twice a week this year and see more of Europe at the same time.
I’ve enjoyed my new team and coaches so far. We had 2 and a half weeks of training camp in Liepaja, Latvia where we did outdoor running as well as practice and weight sessions. The city is on the coast of the Baltic Sea. We also played two friendly games against local teams in which we won.
After that we traveled to Ukraine to our hometown in Yuzhne. Here we had a week of practices and preparation. Yuzhne is a very small town of about 25,000 people on the coast of the Black Sea. We are about 40 minutes away from Odessa which is a very large tourist city around 1.3 million people.
This past Friday we traveled to Kaunas, Lithuania for 2 weeks of games and practices. The city seems very nice and has strong history from World War 2 with one of the largest concentration camps. Will be interesting to walk around on our days off. The mall is large and modern with English movies! Looking forward to hopefully catching a couple while we are here.
We had our first game here last night against a Russian team in which we won by 12. Our team is coming together but still have a lot of work to do. We play next tomorrow night against a strong Lithuania team.

Erin hopefully gets here around September 20 or so. Looking forward to having her here and exploring our new home together. Miss her. We are going to try to combine blogs this year so we will alternate and hopefully do a better job of staying on top of it this season.
Hope all is well back in the states.

The photos below are from liepaja, our beach in Yuzhne and our gym. Our gym is very modern looking on the outside and I’m told its the best floor in all of Ukraine.

Matt

Buzzer Beater At Valencia

Well hello there. I know it has been a while since I posted on here. I’m like Pete Rose going into the hall of fame…long over due… Anyways.. We had a huge win on Saturday on the road at Valencia. We won on a buzzer beater with .7 seconds left on an out of bounds play. I am including the link to the game with highlights so you can check it out if you would like to. It was nice we were able to knock them off at the buzzer because they did the same to us at home in the second game of the year a few months back. On Saturday I played pretty well scoring 21 points, which all came in the second half. I was disappointed I missed a couple of free throws down the stretch but think that made it all that much better when I saw the final shot go in to win. We are 8-11 now sitting right in the middle of the league with a few other teams. We have won back to back road games which is a nice accomplishment and play a team this Sunday at home whom we beat earlier in the season. The team has a couple familiar faces in Robbie Hummel from Purdue and William Bufford from Ohio State. It is always nice to see some guys you know and catch up with them. Hopefully I can give Robbie some payback for his boilermakers beating the hawks a few nights ago in West Lafayette.

Not much is new here in Spain off of the court. Erin’s parents Dion and Lana visited over Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun having them here and eating a nice turkey feast after we finally found a bird we wanted. My family visited over the Christmas and New Years period as well which was great to see them and spend some quality time with them. They took Erin to Barcelona for a few days while I had practice so they got to see the main attractions. 

Erin and I stayed a night in Madrid a couple weekends ago after we beat a team on a Saturday night just outside of the city. We didn’t do a whole lot besides eat and go to a Starbucks…the little things in life. There is a chance we might get some days off this following week as we don’t play for 14 days and we are planning on going to Paris for 3 nights if we do. Its only a two hour flight from our airport. Ill have to make sure to blog after that if it does happen. Erin’s birthday is Tuesday as well so a trip to Paris could be a good way to celebrate the ol ball and chain turning 24. Dont tell her I said that..

Hope all is well across the pond and that everyone is having a nice start to the new year. 

Here is the link for our game highlights http://www.acb.com/redaccion.php?id=91055

Adios

A Close Win at Home

We won our second game on Sunday. We beat Laguna Aro and are now 2-2 in the middle of the pack of our league. On Saturday we head back to Barcelona to play another team Joventut that is just outside the city. They are also 2-2, so it would be a good road win if we are able to get it. Games like this we need to win if we want to get to the mid season tournament, the Kings Cup, or the playoffs at the end of the year. Both tournaments take the top 8 teams of our league which has 18 teams. On Sunday I didn’t shoot the ball well and didn’t finish with a high evaluation but was ecstatic we were able to pull out the win. We were down by 7 at the half and came back to win by 2. They had a chance to win or tie at the buzzer but missed on multiple shots around the basket. I finished with 9 points on the afternoon. I am told that I lead the league in free throws made so far and near the top in fouls received. 

We haven’t done a whole lot lately at home besides watch movies and shows. Erin has been cooking some great meals. We’ve gone on a few walks around our neighborhood which is very hilly and full of great views of the golf course and surrounded by mountains in the distance. Today we went to the mall after practice with one of my teammates, David, and his wife, Tiwi. While we were there we decided to experience something new and get our feet cleaned by fish. We put our feet in a small tank and little fish covered our feet and eat away at the dead skin and calluses. It felt like a thousand vibrations on your feet and tickled at first but we got used to it. We also went to a nice Spanish restaurant near our home with David and Tiwi where we at a huge pan of paella. It was delicious. I am posting a picture of it. 

We are looking forward to Erin’s parents coming to visit in less than a month. They are arriving in mid november and spending Thanksgiving with us. It will be great to have some visitors here. At this time I think the items I miss the most from Iowa are normal traffic lights (I’m tired of roundabouts already), timmy flynns (shirt is on at the moment), english movie theaters and a burrito spot (I would kill some pancheros or chipotle if I had the chance!)

 

Adios mi amigos

 

Last 2 games

Hello everyone.  I have been behind on my blogs lately and needed to catch up. Since my last blog we have played two more games. Last Sunday we played at home against Valencia and last night we were in Barcelona playing against FC Barcelona. Both games we came out on the losing end of. The first one against Valencia was a heart breaker. We were up the entire game and even by 9 with around 5 minutes to go. We found ourselves down one and with the ball in the final seconds when one of my teammates, Bernie Rodriguez was fouled going to the hoop. He made both clutch free throws to put us up by 1 with 7 seconds to play. Valencia called a timeout and drew up a nice play which resulted in a bucket at the buzzer to beat us by one. It would have been a big win for us against one of the top teams in our league, but wasn’t supposed to be on that day. We can beat them down the road at their place though. I played well finishing with 17 points and a high valuation, which is a statistic they use here that incorporates a bunch of stats into how effective and valuable you are on the court. The loss put us at 1-1 heading into the next game at Barcelona. 

We flew into Barcelona Saturday night and got to see a little bit of the city but not a bunch. We went on a team walk Sunday morning before the game since we didn’t have a shoot around and were able to take in a small portion of the city. I wasn’t able to see any of the famous or major points of interest but hopefully i will later. I am told Barcelona is one of the greatest cities in the world. The arena was old and small but set up in a way that I liked. It reminded me somewhat of the Barn in Minneapolis where Minnesota plays. I was surprised FC Barcelona doesn’t have a bigger arena as they are one of the top teams in all of Europe and possibly the world as they beat the Mavericks last Tuesday night in an exhibition game. Their arena is right next to FC Barcelona’s Futbol stadium which was impressive to see from the outside. It reminded me of an NFL stadium. It would be great to take in a match there someday. I am posting a picture of the stadium I took last night to the end of this post.  The game didn’t go so well. Barcelona is a very deep squad with some of the highest paid players in all of Europe. We were down only 5 at the end of the first quarter but then went into half time down 17. We cut it to 12 early in the third but could never get any closer. It was a great experience though playing against the defending league champions and seeing what the top team is all about. I finished with 8 points and another high valuation which was a positive. I didn’t shoot the ball well though, so hopefully I can change that next game. One of Barcelona’s players is an American from Rock Island who played at Indian HIlls JC and then Cincinnati name Pete Mickeal. After the game i caught up with him and talked about Iowa and the midwest for a quick second. He seemed like a good guy.

Today was a day off so we slept in since I didn’t get home until 4 in the morning. We went the grocery store today and are having some of the guys and their girls over for dinner tonight. Huge win for the Hawks on Saturday. I wasn’t able to watch it but followed along on twitter and ESPN.com. I couldn’t believe we pulled that one off. I am told that basketball practices have begun and the team looks great. I was able to talk to Coach on the phone for about a half hour the other night. It was great to catch up with him and talk about my experiences here as well as the team back at Iowa. We are excited for the season to start and to watch some games. Iowa sporting events always give us something to look forward to over here! Erin and I have been having a Harry Potter marathon and are on the sixth movie tonight. I have also been catching up on Homeland and Dexter. Both shows are pretty intense and give me something to do on the road trips. I am trying to learn more spanish but it has been more difficult than I imagined. They speak so fast over here it is difficult to pick up on words but I am sure it will get easier. The weather is still great but has cooled off to the 70’s the last few days. Not as cold as good ol Iowa. I do miss an Iowa Fall though! 

Until next time..Adios!

First Regular Season Game

Buenos Dias,

It is Monday morning which means that it is our day off, so I figured I should get caught up with the blog. We had our first regular season game yesterday in Seville against Cajasol. Seville is located in the southwest corner of Spain about a 5 hour drive from Murcia. They are a team that made the playoffs last year, but have a few younger guys playing this year. They are still expected to be a quality team in our league, which is promising for us as we beat them 93-77.  It was a great way to start the season by getting a road win, which is never easy to do in this league. I started and played around 26 minutes sitting most of the fourth quarter as we had the game in hand. I played a well all around game and finished with a team high 18 points and even took a charge right before I was taken out at the end (think i took around 3 or 4 in my whole college career…Coach Speraw would be proud).

Getting the win made the 6 and a half hour bus ride home a lot more enjoyable. The bus ride was longer due to the storms we experienced a few days ago here in Spain. I am told it was the worst rain storm in 40 years! The rain caused severe flooding and even took out a bridge that we needed to take from Murcia to Seville. The pictures on the news were pretty devestating as cars were floating down roads that had been turned into rivers. I was told there were deaths from the storm, so we wore black bands on our uniforms yesterday to honor the victims. They don’t have drainage systems like we have back in the States so that is why one bad rain storm caused so much damage. It was a bad storm but nothing crazy compared to what we see every month back in Iowa. Pretty amazing that it only rains about ten times a year here and already we’ve seen the worst rain storm in four decades.  The rain and wind even caused this big canopy that covered our back yard to break in half and collapse, so we don’t have much of a backyard for the time being.

This afternoon Erin and I are heading to the beach with a few other teammates and their wives/girlfriends.  It is a nice and clear day here today so it should be relaxing at the beach. It is great having her here going on this journey together. She seems to be really enjoying it and gets a long real well with the other girls. She is cooking a lot which is a great thing for me. Coming home after a game or practice to a home cooked meal is a nice feeling! Happy she is here.

Big win on Saturday for the Hawks. I wasn’t able to watch any of the game but followed on the tracker. I am happy they were able to bounce back and get a win after last week. Anything can happen in the league! I stayed up late last night when I got home to watch the Ryder Cup. It was pretty painful to watch the Americans collapse the way they did. But the Europeans hit all the clutch shots and putts at the right time to sway it in their favor. My dad was there with some of his buddies for the weekend and one of them is from Europe, so I am sure they had fun listening to him gloat in his strong english accent. I am told they even caught one of the champagne corks from the bottles the Europeans were popping after they won (not sure if they were serious though?).

Excited we were able to get off to a good start to the season and hope we can continue it next Sunday at home against Valencia, who is one of the top teams in the league. Some of the games are streamed on ACB.com but i am not sure if next weeks is or not. Hope all is well back in the states and Iowa. Not gonna lie I miss seeing corn and bean fields, but I guess the Spanish mountains will have to do for now. Take care!

Matt

First Pre-Season Games

Hola,

We have played three preseason games since the last time I posted. We played Valencia last Tuesday night in the village where we had training camp about 40 minutes away. It was in a pretty small gym but the crowd was very enthusiastic and loud. They were all cheering for us as it was considered a home match for us. Valencia beat Barcelona a few nights before playing us and I believe we lost to them by 17.  We were in the game for the most part and cut the lead to 6 in the last quarter but let the lead get away at the end with free throws. I started and finished the game scoring 8 points. I hit 2 threes in a row at the beginning, which was a nice feeling. During these pre season games ten of us play pretty equal minutes. It will be interesting to see how that changes as we play more games and enter the regular season. This was Valencia’s fourth preseason game and our first and I think that showed.  I believe we can compete with them though which is a good thing as I’m told they are a top five team in the league.

This past weekend we played in a mini tournament in Guadalajara, which is a city just east of Madrid about 4 hours away from Murcia. On Friday, we played an ACB team from Madrid named Estudiantes. We didn’t play well on either end of the court in this game and lost by 9. I had 5 points and didn’t shoot the ball well in this game. I was able to get some good looks which is a positive but wasn’t connecting on enough of them. This was a game we should have won if we would have played an average game. Nobody for us seemed to play well and it was a disappointing loss as we also lost the opportunity to play against Real Madrid in the finals on Sunday (one of the top 2 teams in our league).

Yesterday, we played in the 3rd place game against Obradoiro. This game we came out ready to play and hung on to win by 2. We had the lead up to 16 but with turnovers and a technical foul late in the game we let the lead slip away. With a minute to go in the game we were down by 1 with the shot clock running out. The ball was rotated to me on the wing and I hit a 3 as the shot clock buzzer sounded to put us up 2.  They scored a 2 on the next possession and we got the ball back with 23 seconds left. We ran a pick and roll play and were able to make a 2 in the lane with 4 seconds to go to win by 2. It was a lot of fun to get our first win and drive home in a better mood. I finished the game with 7 points. Robbie Hummel and William Buford played for Obradoiro, but only William played and had 2 points I believe. It was nice talking to them and seeing some familiar guys. They seem to be enjoying their situations as well.

Overall, I believe I have been playing well on both ends of the court as I try to adjust to the different style and game over here. It has been fun getting to know the guys more on and off the court and create the chemistry needed to win. I have started 2 of the 3 games, which is a positive as a hope to get a lot of playing time and help my squad in any way possible to get wins.

I finished the first season of Homeland and suggest it to anyone interested in TV shows. My good friend and former Iowa basketball manager Dan Cincinnati suggested it to me and he  was right on. Im in the middle of Dexter now. I was disappointed by the outcome of the Iowa State game on Saturday. Hope our offense can figure it out soon as UNI is a good team (just ask Wisconsin). I still believe in the squad and think we’ll change this season around in a down Big Ten conference. I just saw on Twitter that Coach McCaffery and Coach Hoiberg have offered a Davenport kid that hasn’t played a high school game yet. Must be a good talent!

Hope all is well with everyone.

Adios!

My New Home

Good morning. It is about 930 here in Murcia which means it is 230 in the morning back in Iowa.  I thought it would be a good time to get another post in as we have the day off today. The last week or so has just been filled with practices and lifting sessions at our home arena here in Murcia. They have been going well. The practices aren’t as long as what I am used to with Coach McCaffery at Iowa so for me they aren’t a killer. They usually last around 2 hours.  I like them though as we do a lot of drills broken down in 2 on 2 or 3 on 4 sprinkled in with some kind of shooting drill between each one.  The last few days we have started to do more 5 on 5 and put in about 10 plays to start running and get used to.  On Friday we played 3 quarters of a scrimmage against each other and I played well scoring 14 points and defending the ball well.  It has been a bit of an adjustment playing out here as the players have a different style to them and the communication factor while on the court, especially defense, is still difficult to get past but most of the guys speak pretty good english and I’m still growing my spanish. The guys are all good guys and compete hard so it is fun to be around on a daily basis. We do a ton of stretching before and after practice, which is something I really like. I am doing YOGA every day on my own at my house with the help of a DVD I got while training in LA over the summer. It’s a quick 40 minute workout that I strongly believe will be beneficial to my game and help prevent future injuries (cue knock on wood).  We have our first pre season game Tuesday night in the same gym we had training camp in by the mountains.  I believe we play Valencia which is a real solid team in the ACB League, so it will be a tough first test for us right out of the gates.

One of the mornings last week we drove about 40 minutes down to the beach for a workout on the sand. It was fun to do something different than the court or weight room for a workout. We ran and did different stability exercises as people watched us. I was quickly reminded I wasn’t in America because as we ran down the beach we encountered a few topless sunbathers along the shore, but believe me none of the guys or myself looked…

We moved into our homes this past week and I really like mine. I am right on the golf course and can look out of my bedroom window and see a green and flag about 30 yards away. It is a 3 bedroom and 3 bath duplex in Altorreal, Murcia so it is great for visitors! Altorreal is about 5 minutes north of the city and about 12 minutes from our gym.  I like it because it is more quiet up here than in the city and we have a supermarket right across the street that has just about anything we could need. There are 4 malls within 10 minutes of where we live and they are all very modern and clean. I was impressed by all of them and found an American restaurant in one of them yesterday called Hollywood Fosters. It will be a good place to go get a burger and fries fix in once in a while(the closest thing to Shorts anyway). We also have a community pool right across from where we live. It took a while to get the wifi installed but I got it in on Friday which made things a lot more easier for communication and keeping myself busy. I was able to stay up and watch the Iowa game last night. I was pretty nervous and yelling at the television by myself but was extremely happy and relieved they were able to pull it out and get the win over NIU. I was going to try to stay up and catch some of the Michigan game but i fell asleep on the couch (glad I didn’t, ouch big blue). Excited for the NFL to start up this week now!

Ive been trying to cook all my meals at my place but my cooking range is pretty limited presently. In the morning i always have some cereal with some fruit ( which is really good out here). I really need my fiancee, Erin, to get here so we can try out some different things and expand my cooking knowledge! I miss her a lot and she gets here September 18th, so a couple weeks from now.  Excited for her to get here and experience this journey with her.

I have been watching a lot of TV series in my spare time.  Think it is a good way to make time go by faster when your alone and it is entertaining.  I have started the series LOST and  am going to start a new one called Homeland I heard is really good. Of course I sprinkle in some Family Guy once in a while. Things like this and the Iowa game help me feel more at home. I do miss home though  all my friends, family and dogs. Hope they are doing well!

Last few days in Mountains

Back again. We are down to the home stretch of training camp in the mountains as we have one more weights session and practice tonight followed by weights and pool conditioning in the morning.  After that we will head back to Murcia for a day off and a few more weeks training camp practices I believe. Tuesday was an interesting day as we took part in a cycling class at a local gym for conditioning. This class was a pretty wild experience for me as a I would describe it as a mix between Cosmic Bowling, the upstairs dance floor at the Summit bar in Iowa City and the Tour De France.  Our instructor was a small blonde woman who had more energy than my mother (which is a lot of energy for anybody who hasn’t seen her teach a water aerobics class, epic!) and also was part time DJ and strobe light operator throughout the workout.  She would whistle loudly and shout things in spanish, but I had no clue what she was saying or attempting to say so I just followed everyone else and did what they did.  Was an interesting and quality conditioning workout. After the spinning workout we went to a local pool outside for some running that is easier on our bodies. This was a good time and a bit refreshing but of course I got sun burnt… One of the players on the younger team that is here with us who is from Montenegro said, “I thought I was white until I saw you”…ouch. Still a proud red neck Iowan though.  ANF!

Today we got the morning off to relax and sleep in a bit. I went for a walk up a mountain side close by to see the view and get an up close sight of this gigantic statue of Jesus Christ you can see all the way down in the village. The statue is named “Sagrado Corazón de Jesús” (holy Heart of Jesus) monument, by Nicolás Martínez (1954).I was very happy I decided to get up and do it because the views on the way up and at the top were breath taking. I’m going to try and take my family up here when they are here if we have time because the views are like something I have never seen before. The hike up the mountain took  20 minutes from our hotel and was a nice little workout in the morning sun. I am going to post a few pictures on the bottom of this blog from it. The interesting thing was on the way up the mountain there were smaller statues depicting the crusifixion of Jesus every   hundred yards (or METERS i should say) all culminating at the top with the gigantic statue of Jesus arisen overlooking all the villages below.  I thought it was a pretty cool experience and I’m glad I wasn’t attacked by a mountain lion as i was by myself…whoops mom.

I’m excited to get back to Murcia and get in my home for the next 9 months and get a car. The language barrier is difficult in practice as our head coach doesn’t speak too much english so the assistants and some of the other players help out as much as possible.  Just makes simple drills, such as layups, difficult to understand at first but hopefully my vocabulary and listening skills grow in Spanish. Hope all is well in Iowa and the States!

View of villages below. This is what the statue of Jesus overlooks.

 This is a view of the hotel we are at. I was about halfway up the hike here.

 Up close shot of Statue. Can see this statue for miles.