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