Happy February

I can't believe that we are already one month into the new year and I have a little more than 2 months here in Turkey until I head back to the states where perhaps more basketball might be awaiting me. I've had so many great experiences and plan to have many more but I'm anxious to get home too. But before I do that my parents are planning a visit in a couple of weeks. They will fly over and watch a game in Istanbul and then fly back down to Adana and watch another game. I'm very excited to see them and have them see Turkey. Although I'm able to see and talk to them through my computer, the actual thing will be much better I'm sure.

I think I left off on the last blog about my ankle. It's slowly getting much better. I'm able to practice the entire time without much pain. The tendonitis and the swelling is what is taking the longest. I'm going to therapy pretty much everyday. In therapy they do some stem treatment, some laser treatment, compression, and ice. All I have to do for this is lie down and let them work on my ankle for about an hour. I'm getting some good reading in though so I don't get too bored. In the past couple of weeks I've finished some very good reads, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and "A Long Way Gone." The latter is a memoir about the author who grew up in Sierre Leone during a civil war and was forced to become a soldier at 12 years of age. It's horrific the things he had to do because of the brainwashing that occurs. It makes me realize how lucky I am.

We just had our first of two games against the Croatian team for the Euro Cup round of 16. We lost by 3 points which means if we want to move on then we must win by at least 4 point in Croatia. That will be a tough assignment but we believe that we can do it if we play to our potential. We've already made history by playing in the round of 16 but we want to advance further. We had a lot of support for this game as the gym was packed with Turkish flags. The newspapers were calling our team "Europe's Queens." Pretty exciting stuff! Anyways, we leave Wednesday for the game on Thursday and then must return and head right back into Turkish league play.