Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and that you will all have a blessed 2008! I spent my first Christmas away from my family, but Carmen, Chrissy and I were able to make the best of it here in Turkey. We decided to cook an American dinner for our entire team. I made the cornbread (which was a big hit!) and salad, Chrissy made the mashed potatoes and fried chicken, and Carmen made the Koolaid (also a big hit). We also thought it was necessary to sing some Christmas carols for them. I think they were glad when those were over, but we had fun at least! And we had some delicious leftovers for the next couple of days. I missed being in South Bend where my family and my mom's side were all together for the holidays. I was grateful that my parents brought their webcam so that I could see everyone through the computer screen. That made the distance seem that much closer.

Having stayed here through the holidays paid off on the basketball court. We upset the number 2 team in our league, Kayseri! This was a huge win for us. They had beat us a couple of times in the preseason, but we started off the game ahead and never trailed the whole way. We have just two more games until we are half way through the season. It's really flown by as it usually does. Speaking of upsets, Stanford FINALLY beat Tennessee!! It was a long time coming!! I'm so happy for my team (I still say it's my team even though I've graduated) and they will definitely be a force come March!

Ebay lam lar

Which means Happy Holiday. We are actually in the midst of a 4 day holiday in Turkey right now. The team had trouble explaining to us exactly what holiday it was, but supposedly thousands of years ago an important someone sacrificed a lot of lamb and that is what they celebrate today. The sacrifice signifies cleansing. Carmen went walking around today and happened to see someone sacrificing lamb. I'm not too disappointed that I missed that. Yesterday (the first day of the holiday) before practice, the team showed us the traditional dance associated with this holiday. They taught us and soon we were all joining in. In turn, the coach wanted us Americans to show an American dance. So we showed them the "Soulja Boy" dance. For you older generations, this is a hip hop dance. It was a lot of fun and we got to eat a lot of chocolate!

We are off to Burhaniye tomorrow to play them on Sunday. This a couple hours away from Izmir. Hope you all are enjoying the holiday season.

day off!

As promised I posted the pics from Israel, Istanbul, and Russia. knewlin.shutterfly.com.

We lost against Mersin yesterday by one point. It was quite a game. We were down 17 with 7 minutes to go and battled back to lead by 1 point with 6 seconds to go and they scored on a last second basket. Those are always tough, but we'll bounce back. We play Burhaniye this Saturday so we've got a while. We don't have another Euro cup game until January 10th. We were actually the last team to be selected for the second round so we barely snuck in there. But that means we'll be playing the #1 seed, a team from Russia.

Since we don't have a game for another 6 days, coach gave us the day off today. I decided it was time to pamper myself so I got a pedicure and manicure after I slept in until about noon. I have to enjoy it while I can because we are in the weight room at 8:30 tomorrow morning.

Istanbul and Russia

I'm finally back after a long week trip to Istanbul and Russia. And I came back to a few packages and cards too! I got a couple from my parents, one from the Perez family back at Stanford, and a card from the Volks. It felt like Christmas had come early! Thank you soooo much! I'm definitely stocked up on sweets for a while and a few food items that I can't find here will help with cooking. I actually don't cook a whole lot. The team takes us out to dinner usually the nights and mornings before games. And they feed us on the road too. Although I wasn't too excited about the Russian food.

Speaking of Russia, I didn't get to see much of it except the inside of a bus. That was the single most longest trip I have ever taken for one game. After staying in Istanbul after our Sunday game, we left on Wednesday morning and had a three hour flight to Moscow. We then proceeded to take an 11 hour bus ride to Vologda where I game was. After arriving at 2 in the morning we had practice in the morning and then the game at 6 pm. We lost. We had beaten them in Adana and they were definitely out for revenge. We stayed that night in Vologda in our hotel that looked like it could be in a horror film and left at 5:30 in the morning to catch a 6 pm flight out of Moscow to Istanbul. After our flight to Adana it was 2 in the morning and we were pretty beat.

Our stay in Istanbul was much much nicer. We played Istanbul University on Sunday and won. (Always nice!) With our coach in a good mood after the win we spent Monday walking around Istanbul. We went into a beautiful catholic church near this popular outdoor shopping strip. I took pictures of the church from the outside, but we weren't allowed to take any of the inside. Next we went to a Turkish shopping bizarre where I bought a few Turkish items. We had to walk across a bridge where fisherman were lined up casting lines over the side. They would put 7 or 8 hooks on each line and catch that many small fish at a time. It was pretty neat. The trolleys in the shopping strip reminded me of San Francisco and the underground subway system was reminiscent of New York. Carmen felt right at home. There are so many people in Istanbul. It's population is near 17 million and it was definitely crowded like it. The coaches also took us around to some famous mosques and a museum. I don't know much about Turkish history so it was neat to see this. They had an 84 karat diamond on display that was found in the 18th century I believe. It was passed around and sold for a while until its value was discovered. Sorry, no picture of that either.

No rest for us. We are back at it with another Turkish league game tomorrow against Mersin. This is another important game as we are tied for 5th in the standings. I'll be putting up pics soon. I know I've been slacking and still have yet to put up the Israel pics but I promise they will be up within the next day or two.

Off to Istanbul and Russia

Our last game against Montenegro was a success. We won by 17 and they had beat us by 5 at their place so we won that head to head match up. That game was really important for us to get as it guaranteed us a spot in the second round of Euro Cup that starts in January. We still have to play well against Russia because every point matters in determining where we will be seeded in the second round. If this is all very confusing to you, don't worry, it is to me too. :)

We leave tomorrow to play against Istanbul University on Sunday. We'll actually be staying in Istanbul Monday and Tuesday before we leave for Russia on Wednesday so hopefully we'll be able to see a little bit of the city one of those two days. It should be cold in Istanbul, but I'm sure it's paradise to what I hear it is in Russia. I packed a few sweaters and my winter jacket for that trip. I'm sure I will need it.

I miss all of the Christmas lights and decorations right now! If you see a sparkly house, take a picture and send it to me!!

Back from the Holy Land

We've had a couple of games since the last post and unfortunately we lost them both. We played some very good teams and played pretty well but didn't come out on top. First we went to Tel Aviv, Israel. And I had a pleasant surprise! Seb's team, who is also in Euro Cup and was playing an Israeli team, was on our flights to and from Tel Aviv and we also stayed in the same hotel. As always it was great to talk and spend time with her. We weren't able to see the city apart from our bus ride to the airport, but our hotel was located right on a beach so the team and I walked along it. There were some shops nearby, too and one sports store had all University of Washington gear in their front window. Brett was excited to hear that and I took a picture of it for him. I'll post all of those soon. The game wasn't as sweet. We actually played well in the first half as we were up by 12, but they came out on fire in the second half. They are the top team in our pool, so a tough team to beat.

We turned right around and played the top team in the Turkish league yesterday. For those of you who really know women's basketball, this team had Cappie Pondexter and Tammy Sutton-Brown. They also had another Turkish player post who was just as good as Brown. We didn't play badly, we were just out manned. We were actually down 12 at halftime and only lost the game by 11 so we won the second half. We have to look at the positives in a game like that. And for the first time I hit an almost half court buzzer beater! I knew all of those half court shots we shoot for fun would eventually pay off!

After returning from Israel I found that my first package from my parents arrived. Even though I knew most of what was inside it still felt like Christmas. Thanks Mom and Dad! The pistachios are almost gone already. Speaking of Christmas, it looks like I won't be able to come back to the states. The Turkish league plays right through the holidays this year so unfortunately I won't get that break. I hope to talk to family, especially in South Bend this year through the internet and skype.

Well, we are back in action Thursday with Euro Cup to play the Montenegro team that beat us by a few points earlier. It's a really important game for us to win if we want to still be in Euro Cup play after Christmas.