Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Parents Weekend

First of all, want to congratulate the SF Giants for bringing a championship to the Bay Area, I made one of the guys on the younger team stay up until 5 am to watch the final game with me; he doesn't like baseball, but he has ESPN America so I don't feel bad for him.

We got ourselves a win this weekend as well against Rasta Vetcha in front of a sub par home crowd (local home soccer match). We did however have the support of some pretty intimidating cheerleaders and, most importantly my parents, who came out to visit this weekend. I am positive that no one has ever traveled further to see a Herten Lions Basketball game, so I was glad we got to put on a good show for them.

 This picture gives you a good idea of what celebrating Halloween in Germany is like: not very much fun and a little scary. If I were a little kid I would be terrified of these girls jumping around and forming pyramids on the court.


As you can see my Dad stayed with his game day tradition of the purple Williams Underarmor, but it was significantly easier to pick him out of the crowd now that my team's colors are red and black.


I wasn't able to shoot or do a full practice until Friday, but with the help of a few massages and some interesting tape jobs, ( I got that kinesio tape from Japan that was so popular in the Olympics) I was able to play on Saturday. I shot surprisingly well, had my season-high in points, and most importantly, only had one travel call. I didn't start, but obviously still managed to get in foul trouble and so was limited in the second half, but it felt very good to get back out there again.


We do a little dance after wins to thank the fans, it is basically just us doing the wave over and over again.

One of the best things about having my parents in town was that I didn't have to worry about being the most obvious foreigner in the room. This point was made clear when we went out to dinner the first night: my mom tried to order something is English, which obviously didn't work, but then instead of using her hands to point, or asking me how to say it in German, she switched to Spanish. The waiter was now even more confused, but secretly I was very happy. We also got to do some serious sightseeing in their short visit.  On Saturday before the game we drove to Köln (pronounced Cologne) and saw the amazing Roman Cathedral there.

It was definitely one of the most impressive feats of architecture in the world, but what was even more amazing was that despite the decimation of Köln during the war, the Catherdral was literally untouched.  The Köln Dom has the largest facade of any church in the world, which I guess makes sense because it took over 600 years to build (1248-1880).

On Sunday we took the three hour trek south down to Heidelberg which is easily the most beautiful city I have seen. It was a great time to visit because all of the leaves are changing color now (it looks exactly like New England) and we had great weather. One of my teammates told me that during the American invasion in WWII, the Americans picked Heidelburg for their headquarters because of its beauty, saving the city, and its buildings, from bombing raids.





 We took a tram to the top of the mountain and got an amazing view of the city.
 Part way up the mountain was the Heidelberg Castle. These guys really knew how to do it right with their castles.


This is where they kept all of their wine. Judging by the size of the container, and the fact that we saw three of them, it is clear that these guys were having a good time.

Our last stop was Frankfurt. The city was less touristy than the others and was mostly focused on the financial sector. We did however see some cools sights in the Old Town and got ourselves some real live German Bratwurst.




Though their trip was short, it was great to see my parents and I am already looking forward to getting home for xmas.

Earlier in the week, a couple of the guys and I had to go to a Career Fair event for High School students in the city. In all the career fairs I have been to, there has never been a professional athlete booth, but I have learned not to be surprised by anything out here. When we arrived, we saw all the normal booths for jobs like banking and teaching, and then we saw our station: they had set up a basketball hoop and key in the middle of the fair. They told us that we were supposed to give the kids advice on following their dreams and what it takes to be successful and all that, but we ended up giving more tips on proper shooting form and being begged to dunk for two hours.


We have a three o'clock game in Berlin on Saturday and for some reason we are making the 5 hour drive Saturday morning. Because we are traveling in vans and Coach is paranoid about hitting traffic, we are leaving at 5 am. Our legs should be fresh and ready to go by tip-off...





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