First Step a Success!!

Yesterday we played our first game of two in attempt to move up in divisions. I was a little nervous for the game, based on the fact that we knew nothing about the team and they were a top team in their conference. I was also nervous because we hadn't played a game in almost a month. However, once the ball went up and we got into the swing of things, the nerves disappeared and we began to play our game. I still believe that we could have played better than we did, and that is only a positive thought and motivation for our game next Sunday. This Sunday, we beat Hofheim, 85-54. Next weekend, we travel to play at their place. Not only will we be playing in their home town, in their gym, there were 3 players from the first team that will be playing as well. Below is our team after our victory..doing this little hoorah thing with the crowd. It was great and I was laughing, cause I just followed everyone else..but still don't really know what I was doing =)

The entire season, I have been wearing jersey number 10. In our division, there is a rule that you can only have a certain amount of numbers, and what numbers those are are regulated as well. As extra motivation to play well and win, Dennis (below) had a number 20 jersey made for me. He gave it to me right before the game as we were going in to change. I was super surprised and very excited! It was a great feeling to be able to put it on and play in it. I know it may seem silly to some, but playing in your number..it's something I can't explain hehe. Anyways, it made me very happy and not that I needed more motivation, but it was a nice, thoughtful touch =). This is just another example of how they take care of me out here. Doing anything, even just the little things to make it all worthwhile. Nothing but big smiles =D

The way to determine if we move up or not, is based on the point difference of the 2 games we play, home and away. So, with our win yesterday, we basically have a 30 point cushion. So, technically, we can lose by 30 points and still move up. However, that is no way that I want to go out at the end of this season. We have made it this far being undefeated, why stop now? We need to go into the game focused and ready, and looking at the scoreboard as zero to zero. Yeah sure there will be a few things that might be different, but that doesn't change our team and how we play and what we are capable of. It has been a great season so far and I would love for it to end on a perfect note.

Frankfurt Trip

I took another day trip, this time to Frankfurt, last week. I went with my German teacher, Cordula, her 3 daughters, and my teammate Hellen. It was a great time. Frankfurt is about an hour away from Heidelberg. It was awesome. The girls were great, and as you can see below, we had a great time! The oldest, Franziska, was very cute. She is learning English in school right now, and would try and speak English with me, and even helped me with my German throughout the trip. Franziska is on the left, Sophia on the right, and Christina is in the front.

Hellen came along with us too! Hellen and her family used to be neighbors with Cordula. That is the connection of how I became her student. Anyways, Hellen has always made sure that I understand things or that I'm in the loop with what's going on. More than that, she has just become a great friend =) I'm happy that she was there, just another fun adventure that we got to share!

And this is Christina..and THE dolphin. We picked up this lovely buddy towards the beginning of our trip. As you can see, he is perfectly inflated and believe it or not, she was very excited to have him. It was the entertainment of the day. He almost made it through the whole day too, which would have been amazing. Unfortunately, we weren't so lucky, this little guy popped just as we were going to dinner. It was slightly funny, but definitely not to Christina. Poor little girl was so tired from the long day and to top it off her friend was "dying" and that just wasn't ok. After about 10 minutes of trying to calm her down, and blowing the dolphin back up, we made it to dinner. Another bad idea was to but a jacket on top of the dolphin to keep him from flying away. By the end of dinner, he was completely deflated. She didn't take it too hard. At my next lesson, Cordula informed me that the dolphin had slept in bed with Christina the last few nights. I believe it is still a current inhabitant of the household =)

And here is the group I went with. This was our midday snack. It was a little restaurant that sat at the edge of the square that was in front of the rathaus, the city hall.



This is a picture of the old, I believe opera house. They still hold concerts in here, because it is said to have a great sound for music. I like this picture because you can see the contrast of the past and the present. right necxt to the old building, you can see a new, definitely modern buiding. It was that close that the difference in architecture shows in the 2 buildings, crazy.

Overall, it was a great trip, filled with tons of laughs and smiles and of course good company. I'm happy that I was able to make the trip and that everyone who was there, was there.

Still Alive!

Hello hello,


Yes, I'm still alive and kicking over here. We'll just head straight into updates. We finished league undefeated and made it a perfect season. Since then, we have been training and waiting to find out when we will play to try and move up divisions. The results are in! We will play this weekend and next weekend. We will play against Hofheim, both at home and at their place. They are one of the tops teams in the other league, so we will face off and winner gets to move up, the other stays. So, that's exciting and I can't wait to play! Love big time games! I'm just so ready to play against another team and once again play with my teammates. Yes, training is fun and all, but any true athlete and competitor can tell you about the joy of competing with your team and beating up on another team =).

More fun and exciting news..I will be coming home soon! Now that we have the dates of our games, we were able to schedule me flight home. I will be flying back to the states May 12. I'm so excited to see my family and friends. It feels like I have been over here for a while, and as much fun as I am having here, I'm ready to be home. Although daily skype calls with my dad and weekend skype calls with the rest of my family and friends are great, I can't wait for the big hugs and smiles =).

I haven't only just been training over here. I'm still taking the time to enjoy my surroundings and the fact that I'm still in Germany =). With the great weather that is spring upon us, my host sister, Aliki, and I went to visit Schwetzingen. Here was a castle and the castle's garden. Here are Aliki and I, but I would also like to point out that it took us like 5 times to take this picture:

Ok, so this was a little waterfall/fountain thing that we thought would be a cute little picture. At some points of the trip it got really hot and I really wanted to jump in. Only problem was that it didn't look to clean..

Here is a shot from where I was standing in the previous pictures. This garden, wasn't your typical garden. One picture doesn't do it justice. This picture is only a small part of the elaborate collection of random paths, fountains, bridges, gardens, mini lakes, trees, open grass, and much more..There were even ducks and swans swimming about in the lakes. We ended up going on a perfect day, the sun was shining, at times a little bit of a breeze. We took our books and found a place by one of the lakes to lay in the sun and read. After about 2 hours of sun and reading, a man came by on a bike and said that it we weren't allowed to sit and hang out there. We both thought it was silly that there was no hanging out there, but we had gotten our time in so all we could do was smile and leave.

On the property, there was a bath house. In order to walk through it, we had to wear these stylish shoe/slipper things. We couldn't stop laughing once we got in. They may look easy to walk in, but these little suckers were so hard to move around in. And, of course, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the bath house, but it was the coolest thing. In the actual "bath" room, it was basically a room with a mini pool, known as the bath. As we walked around, we both couldn't help but wonder how silly it was to have a bath house. One seperate house just for when you felt like cleaning yourself. In this house was the bathing room, a seperate room that had a bed in it, in case you got super tired after your bath. There was another room that looked to be the room you would go in to check yourself out and make sure you cleaned all the cracks and crevices, since there were several full length mirrors.

In the end, Schwetzingen was a great little day trip. I can sit here and try and put together some words and sentences to try and give you a mental picture of what was there, but I don't think I could ever describe the beauty of it all. Not even pictures could capture how big it was and how great a view it was. So, when all of you eventually make your way out to Germany, may I recommend Schwetzingen =). And of course, I would love to be your personal tour guide =)

Ciao Ciao,

Serena

NEUSCHWANSTEIN

Oli and I decided to take a little day trip, and literally were gone all day. We left at about 7:30 in the morning and got back around midnight. We made a trip south to Bavaria, to Neuschwanstein, the castle that the Disneyland castle was inspired by. The trip was a lot of fun, of course =). There were 2 castles that we checked out. The first one, the smaller castle was the castle that King Ludwig lived in while his dream castle, Neuschwanstein, was being built. Our tour guide for the smaller castle really enjoyed his job and was very informative. Sometimes he would make jokes, and I didn’t get it, but Oli later told me that a lot of his jokes were German humor, and I guess I need a little bit more time around German humor lol. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside of either of the castles, but the intricate details that showed up throughout both was amazing. It’s still crazy to me to think how they were able to construct such an intricate, yet sturdy building in those times.

After we were done with the first castle, we grabbed a bite to eat and then walked up to Neuschwanstein. We got lucky on this day, because the weather turned out great. It had been dark and cold and wet before, but it cleared up for our trip =). Neuswchanstein was a cool site to see, but it was hard to take pics from the outside, cause there were no good places to stop and get a good shot of the whole thing. Our guide for this castle wasn’t as good as our first guide, and actually, we spent less time in the bigger castle than the smaller one. We didn’t really like how you weren’t allowed to adventure out a little bit in the big castle, but hey, rules are rules I guess. Trying to get out of the castle was an adventure in itself. We kept walking and following the signs that said exit and it felt like we just kept walking and walking and eventually found ourselves in some random underground tunnel, that of course I had to stop and take a picture of.

Once we found our way out, we made our way back to the car and decided that we would drive to Munich for dinner. There was a “must go” restaurant that Oli wanted to take me to, with typical Bavarian food. Oh! Another exciting thing, I finally drove in Germany, and on the Autobahn! Hehe, needless to say it was a lot of fun and of course we got to Munich in great time =). We ate at the Hofbrauhaus. It is a famous restaurant that has been there for years and continues to display Bavarian traditions, from the food to the beer, the music and the dancing, the people both regulars and visitors. It was such a cool atmosphere to be in. There was a band and they played traditional Bavarian music and these older ladies, so cute, were dancing their little traditional Bavarian dance, it was great! Once we were done with our meal, we went and walked around Munich a little. The good weather continued through the night and walking around was awesome. I would have never imagined myself just taking a day trip to Bavaria, seeing the Bavarian Alps and then ending the day walking the streets at night in Munich. It was such a cool experience and I’m so happy that we got to take the trip.

Overall, the trip included great sights, great weather, great food, great talks, great company and just great experiences. Definitely two thumbs up and a big ol’ smile =D

the smaller castle, i forget what it was called

neuschwanstein from afar

the entrance of neuschwanstein

taking the scenery..so pretty..and love the alps behind me

yay for food and music =)

League Champs!

With a win over Sandhausen, we clinched first placed of our league. Even though we have 4 games left, we are officially the champs. We won 80-42. This has been the first game, outside of our practice games against division 2 opponents, where I felt like we played well the entire game, and dominated the entire game. Everyone on the team was playing hard and things were clicking. Sure, the offense worked and clearly by the score we didn’t have a problem scoring. But what I loved was the defense. We played tough, intense defense which led to easy buckets on the other end. I hope that we can keep up the intensity in the last few games. Sure, we’ve clinched the title, but I share the feelings as my coach, Dennis, expressed, that he wants a perfect season. And why not?? I definitely think that it is do-able. We play Kirchheim this Saturday. They are the second place team and have 3 pretty good scorers. They are the key to the team, so if we can shut them down, then we should have a pretty good shot. I know this will be a tough game for several reasons, at least I hope it will be a good game. Kirchheim is number 2 right now, so a battle between 1 and 2 should always be a good game. Second, we are trying to have a perfect season. I know that if I was playing against a team that could go undefeated, why not make them earn it? But that’s just me ;-).

Just so I can have some pics with this post, I’ll include some from a little adventure I went on with Oli and Toni. Before a training, they took me to see the castle and check out the view of Heidelberg. We went just as the sun was setting, so it was a pretty sweet view. Here are some pics =)

looking across the river, there is a pathway that is called Philosopher's Way..its a famous path that runs along the Neckar River

and this is Heidelberg and the Neckar River
Heidelberg..the sun blocks a lot of it..but you can see some of it =)

the back side of the castle in Heidelberg..i have yet to still go in it..but it looks cool from the outside..lol, kinda..don't worry dad, i'll get some pics from the inside for you ;)

found a new place to just get away..love the view..too bad its freezing to sit out and look over the city lol

Happy Birthday to me =)

Wednesday was my birthday, so my teammate, Toni, and my host sister, Aliki, helped me to make a cake, my favorite cake ever…FUNFETTI!!! It was the last box I had of it and I am sad to say I have no more, but all that is forgotten because I got to have some on my birthday!! So, we woke up Wednesday morning and had breakfast and baked the cake and of course ate, probably most of it ;-) hehe.

Wednesday was also the first day back to training from out little holiday. I had talked to one of my coaches, Oli, and he mentioned a club where every Wednesday night a band, Me and the Heat, plays. I love music, and live music is always fun, so I put it out there to my team that anyone who wanted to come out was more than welcome to. Most of the team came out and it was a lot of fun. We left after training and made our way to the club. The band was great and I think the girls that went had fun. I know my coaches had fun, cause I could see them dancing and singing away to some of the songs they knew. I know I enjoyed myself a lot. It was a really nice and chill way to celebrate my birthday.

isn't it just sooo beautiful!! and smiles of course =)

and the creators =)

me and the heat..they were fun =)

Lisa, Hellen, me, and Katja out at Session

Angie trying to hide, Freidi, Katja, Toni, and Hellen posted at Session

Cologne Pics

Hellen, Pauli, and me enjoying the Karneval action

Betty and Angie came to hang out!! yay yay yay
my first try of currywurst..it was pretty scrumcious! i mean, its no mom's curry, but it'll do ;-)

a couple of my new friends..once Hellen took this pic, I proceeded to sit and have a good 5 minute conversation with them..so very nice =)

disco boys..some more friends..altough they didn't really have a chance to say no..i jumped in front of them and yelled.."picture!" lol

Bonn/Cologne Trip

Last weekend we had the weekend off from ball. I took a trip with one of my teammates, Hellen, to Bonn and Cologne. It was Karneval weekend, so there was going to be lots of fun things going on =). We first went to Bonn. I know a couple of the guys on the Bonn team, EJ and Frazier, so we were going to watch them play. We took a train up to Bonn Friday night and just chilled at Frazier’s house for the night. The next day we walked into downtown Bonn and walked around the shops there. It was nice just to walk and talk and take pictures and just hang out. Saturday night, we went to the game. A friend I met from my tryout in December, Angie, came to the game and sat with us. It was so good to see her and hang out since I hadn’t seen her since the tryout. She is playing ball in Dorsten, which is about an hour and a half north of Bonn, but she was in town for the Karneval and to visit a couple other girls we tried out with. After the game, Bonn won, all of the crowd went on to the floor and formed a massive train, spiraling around the floor. At first, we were sitting in our seats and saying, oh, that’s fun and it’s Karneval, so people were in costumes and just having a great time. Then, Angie suggested that we go into the crowd, and of course, we did J. We first started on the outskirts of the court, then I lead the way to the middle of the court where EJ and Frazier were. It was sooo much fun. When we got into the middle, all of a sudden everyone sat down and the music stopped. Then music started again and everyone got up and jumped around and man, it was so much fun. It was even funnier because we had no idea what was going on and were just going along with what everyone else was doing. Another exciting thing about the game was that I got to see EJ’s mom. I haven’t seen her in a really long time, and she happen to be there the same time I was there, it was great.

Sunday, we made our way to Cologne. We were going to stay with a friend of one of our coaches, Pauli. He was really nice and even let us know where and what we should go see on Sunday, just to look around and enjoy the town. After we put our bags at Pauli’s place, Hellen and I went back into Cologne and there was a parade going. It was a parade with the different schools and kids around. It was a lot of fun to watch them, and it was a good warm up for Monday. On Monday would be the big Karneval parade, a lot bigger. Once the parade was done, we just walked around, where ever we chose to go. Eventually, we found ourselves far away from the train station and where we had seen the parade. We were just talking about any and everything that came to mind. We even had a mini German lesson, going over colors and parts of the body, hehe, it was great. Monday, we got up and had breakfast with Pauli, then got ready to go to the parade. We didn’t bring any costumes, but Pauli had an elk costume, it was fabulous and I couldn’t help but laugh. However, on this day, since it was Karneval, it was the normal thing to be dressed up in a costume, so Hellen and I were the outcasts. Once we got into downtown, the parade was about to start and her and I watched it while Pauli met up with some of his friends. Everyone in the parade had bags and bags of candy and flowers and just a bunch of goodies. As a part of the crowd, you had to yell “KAMILLE” (that spelling is so very wrong!). Anyways, you yell this and the people in the parade throw candy and things into the crowd and it’s a free-for-all to try and get everything. Hellen and I were speaking English, clearly, and we could see people in the crowd staring at us, trying to listen to what we were saying and seeing if they could understand, it was humorous. A couple people even joined the conversation and we made some friends J. Later at night, Angie and Betty, another girl from the tryout, came out to Cologne to hang out with us. It was cool to see them and hang with them for a bit too.

We left Tuesday morning to make our way back to Heidelberg. Tuesday was Heidelberg’s day for a parade and Karneval and I wanted to be able to join in that fun as well! Overall, Hellen and my weekend was great. We got to hang out and just chill. I got to see some friends from home and I made some new friends along the way.

So, I can only post 5 pics with each post..so here are the pics from Bonn:

lol, a little shopping in Bonn anyone??

the beginning of the spiral o' fun =)

Angie and me before we went down to the madness behind us =)

Frazier and me

Me and EJ

Still Undefeated =)

Even though we were down a few of our players, we pulled off another win to stay undefeated in league. We beat Ludwigsburg 49-76. The first half was ugly, we weren't playing in rhythm with each other and didn't start off well. We picked up our intensity in the second half and started playing how we know how to play. I think that it's hard to play our team because every player is a possible threat and can have a big game, which is always nice. Just when you think that you can guard and have shut down one player, another one hits a shot or makes a defensive play that sparks the rest of the team. It's really nice to be a part of. And another important thing, we all have fun doing it. We have fun playing the game and playing with each other. We work hard to get the job done on the court, which makes for fun on the court, but also off the court. Its great =).

We got team shoes, Adidas Pro Models, red and black. Everyone on the team got them, along with their name and number on the back. I thought it was pretty nifty =). My jersey for games and my game shorts have 10 on them, its the only number they had and so that's what I get this year. However, my coaches know that I am number 20 and would like to be that number, so they have hooked me up with "20" on anything that we get with our numbers on them. My shooting shirt with my name on the back has 20 on the front. My track suit has "20" on both the jacket and the pants. And, of course, the shoes that we got, they hooked me up with 20 as well. I know I have said it plenty times before, but I'm really lucky to be where I'm at and my team and coaches take care of me for sure. They only positively contribute to this great opportunity and experience. Love it!

Haha, so this pic is from a couple weeks ago. There is no weight program with the team, outside of training. So, during training, our coaches have us do different strengthening drills, such as sit-ups, back extensions, lunges and such. This picture is our group one practice trying to do push ups at the same time, while our feet were on the back of our teammate. I would just like to say that this was the last try that we made to try and get up. We had tried several times before to get up and it was very unsuccessful lol. Most of the time we couldn't focus because we were laughing so hard. But in the end 3 of the 5 in our group got up before we called it quits. More than anything, it was a fun little team bonding exercise lol.

And this is a picture of my very first snowman!! hehe, mine is the one on the left. Toni, a teammate of mine is on the right. They were pretty small in comparison to a typical snowman, but we had fun making them. i couldn't get the concept of making a round snowball, cause I kept breaking it. And you can clearly see differences with the designs and accesories lol. But all in all it was a lot of fun. 4 days later, they were still there, but almost not lol. The heads were gone and most of the body was melted hehe.

And this is from today! It snowed again, and was snowing while we decided to make another snowman. These were my super cool retro, too big for my hands gloves. They did their job though, we were able to make a snowman without freezing our hands off!

This was our new friend Harry! And that's Toni, lol. I would just like to point out this guys' stylish hair, yeah you guessed it, totally my creation =)

updates!

Hello everyone!

So, I've officially been here for over a month! Whoooo hoooo! And things are still going great! I still love my teammates, still having a great time with my host family, and have met some cool people along the way.

So, since the last time I've written, I've had two games. We've won both =). The first was against Mohringen. We won 66-36. The game was really physical and there were a lot of foul calls, and a lot of no calls. At some points it was just really ugly basketball. Needless to say, I was happy when the game was over. Oh, and I fouled out. I played most of the first half, and basically none of the second half. Our second game was this last Saturday. We played Linkenheim at home. We won 80-65. So, I'm happy to report that we are still undefeated and atop the league. Our next game is against Ludwigsburg, at their place. It is about an hour and a half from here, so another little road trip =).

I have been going to German lessons for a couple weeks now =). I'm working with a family friend of one of my teammates. She is very nice and we clicked from the first time we met. I've had a few sessions so far, and I've picked up a few things along the way =). It is cool cause I have been starting to understand a few words and phrases here and there when my host family talks, or my teammates/coach. The progress has been nice =).

We have next weekend off from ball, so I've been trying to figure out what I will do. It also is the weekend before my birthday, so I think it would be nice to do something other than stay in Heidelberg, not that I don't love it here ;). I have an idea of what I'm going to do, but I'll just wait to share details and pictures after it all happens, hehe.

Well, I think that's it from me for now.

I hope all is well back in the states =)

Smiles and hugs,

Serena

email address

I have received a few emails and IMs about how people have wanted to comment on my blog but have been unable to. They have wanted to contact me and don't know how. I'm new to this, and I know that I one has been able to comment, but regardless, I've come to a solution. To solve this mystery, I've created an email address specifically for this blog. If you want to comment on anything, want me to try about anything, or just want to say hi =), you can email me at: germanbulldog20@hotmail.de

I've included some random pics just cause I can and they are fun =)

Ciao!

One of the 30 different jumping pictures that we took one day.

Little Melina, oh my little shadow =)

Aliki and me on a random night..in the kitchen..most likely making something to eat..

while of course finding the time to sing with our high-tech mikes!

Melina and me

Us girls on my bed..I believe we were watching some show on my lappy and Gabi

came in and of course that called for a photo-op =)

First German meal at home

So, my host mom Gabi decided to make a typical German meal for dinner one night. I was excited to try it out and when walking into the kitchen, I could tell I was going to enjoy it from the different smells! I took pictures of each dish we had, so below are those pictures and a little bit of my views on them lol, guten appetite!

Here is a pic of the meal as a whole..I was so excited to eat it cause everything smelled so good!

This is KNODEL. Now, I don't have a German keyboard, so the spelling and special notations aren't going to be included in these foods lol. So, I don't really know what is in it. I do know that the main ingredient is potatoes, I think. This was pretty good, but it was the best when it was swimming in the sauce from the meat we had with it =)

And this was the meat, SAUERBRAUTEN. This was really good. The meat was really tender and the sauce was delicious, as I said before, I basically had the sauce all of my plate =). I will say this though, the knodel was good and all, but those of you who know me...I wouldn't have complained if the meat and sauce were atop some good ol' sticky rice!! And the vegetable of the meal, ROTKOHL. I think this was basically cooked red cabbage, with some seasoning. It was ok, but I prefer red cabbage raw. Reminds me of my mom's cabbage salad...mmmmmm, the best a day or two after so the dressing has been soaked up by the cabbage =)..lol, sorry for the side note. So, that was my first real German, home-cooked meal. Overall, it was super scrumcious =)

Thank you to all who come here and read and catch up with what I'm doing over here. I hope that everyone is doing well and that the first month of 2009 has been a great one!

CIAO!