Kristen's Blog

Another year

2010-09-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

And I'm back. Back to Fenerbahce with a new look to the team this year. Penny Taylor is our only returning foreigner as the club revamped and brought in some big guns in order to make the final four in euroleague play. Of course our goal of winning all the Turkish cups remain the same, but we haven't quite been able to make it to the much eluded final four. Diana Taurasi, our newly signed player will definitely help make that a possibility.

As for me, my goal for this season is to be healthy. I am just starting to come back to the court from my plantar fascia rupture in March. It has been a long, frustrating rehab but I'm hoping that the worst is behind me and I can come back to play for good. Although I was thrilled to win another Turkish title in May, it's just not quite the same having to watch it in street clothes on the sidelines. My status was questionable to play with the Turkish national team as well this summer, and unfortunately I wasn't comfortable playing by then so I opted to rehab instead. They played well in my absence, though, and we secured our spot for the 2011 European Championships in Poland.

Here's to another great year! Go Fener!

Injuries are no fun, but visitors are!

2010-04-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a while since my last post and unfortunately I am not back up and playing like I had anticipated since my plantar fascia injury to my left foot. The pain in that foot took a while to subside and after 2 injections I started practicing 6 weeks later. I played a couple minutes in a 2 games before I was ready to play full speed in our next game. Not 8 minutes in I felt the same pop in my foot. This time the diagnosis was worse. I suffered a tear to the tendon. I have been seeing the doctor regularly for more PRP injections and keeping off of it the best I could. Basically these injections help regenerate the tendon. It isn't really clear when I will be playing again. It will depend on how I'm feeling and what the doctor sees in an MRI I will get after the injections are completed.

Some friends came all the way to visit me in Istanbul and it definitely took my mind off being unhealthy. Alex Andersen and Heidi Thorson, two good friends from Wyoming came to visit, followed by Christy Titchenal and Red Daly from Stanford. Their visits actually overlapped by a couple nights so it was quite the crowd here in my apartment. But we had a fantastic time with many many memories we will share forever. Living overseas has been a wonderful experience but the downside is being so far from family and friends, so when they come to see me it really is an extra special treat. My parents came to visit a month before as well. Although I wasn't able to play and had a harder time hobbling around it was great to have them here as always.

My team has been trucking right along without me. We lost our first game in Turkish league unfortunately in the Turkish cup final, but we are more focused now and ready to claim the more important Turkish league championship. We have 3 more regular season games before we start the playoffs. It's much different to watch your team than to be playing but I'm hopeful that I will make a full recovery from this injury.

Ballin in the new decade

2010-01-22T09:35:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to get a full 10 days for my Christmas break back at home. And by home I mean, wherever my family is! Mom, Dad, Brett, and I spent the holiday in Brett's house in New Jersey. His housemates were with their respective families for the holidays so we had the house to ourselves and plenty of beds to sleep in. We spruced up the house with Christmas decorations and even chopped down a Christmas tree for the very first time! Brett chopped it down, but I took it upon myself to yell "Timberrrr!" Ashleigh's family hosted Christmas dinner and it was absolutely delicious. In fact, most meals were as we made it a point to eat all the food that I normally don't get here in Turkey. I had no reservations about eating to the brim from all that delicousness because I knew I would be back to Istanbul in no time to work it all off. My last night in the states was New Years Eve and Brett and I along with Ashleigh and some of her friends went into NYC to celebrate. We were able to see "the ball" and party well into the morning before I headed back to Turkey the next evening. Lots of memories in my first East Coast Christmas but like we all know...All good things must come to an end.

Our team picked up right where we left off before the break with 3 wins so far. We've completed our Euroleague group play with a second place finish and will begin the playoffs against an Italian team in a little less than 2 weeks. Unfortunately for me, however, in the beginning of my second game back I was injured. I was running down the court and felt a pop in my heal and severely strained my plantar fascia. I haven't been playing and have been rehabbing for 9 days now and anticipate at least a week or two more before I will play again. Injuries are part of the game and I've been pretty lucky with that since leaving Stanford, but I am in good hands and have experience with listening to my body and will be back on the court as healthy as I can be.

My parents will be making a 10 day visit to see me starting this Thursday and I'm looking forward to getting some TLC parent style! Nothin like it:)

On the road

2009-12-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

Since my last post we've played and won five straight away games including trips to Hungary, France, and Poland. Great teams win on the road so we've been happy with how we've been playing and are looking to get even better. Although we've been road weary Nicole and I still try to make the best of our time in the countries we visit. In Hungary, our hotel was located next to the city's most recognized church. It was beautiful and reminded me a bit of Memorial Church at Stanford. It just so happened that the night we arrived a band was scheduled to play so Nicole and I were treated to a neat concert. In France, we met a Gospel Choir group (all one family) called The Singletons from Michigan who were on their European tour. They were kind enough to let us listen to them warm up before a performance and they were very talented. We definitely felt spiritual after listening. Look them up on Itunes! Poland was on the cold side (although not as cold as I'm hearing it is back home in Wyoming.) Our view from our hotel room was of a large body of water. Nicole said it was the ocean and I was smart enough to know that Poland's coast couldn't border and ocean so I said it was a lake. We were later educated that it was the Baltic Sea. :)

Those three games don't hail in comparison to our game against our biggest rival, Galatasaray. It's always a huge game when these teams play so we made our management and president very happy people. Instead of driving our president rented us water taxis to drive us to the game. Partly because of the importance of the game and partly because traffic was crazy during that time because of Bayram. It's a four day Muslim holiday where sheep are sacrificed to honor Allah. But it also means family are with each other which equals even more crowded roads.

Looking forward to a whole week in Istanbul. It will be nice to sleep in my own bed for a few nights at least. And I'm also excited for my short time back in the states for the holidays!

Updates from the Bul

2009-11-14T14:20:00.000-08:00

As much as Istanbul's trying to keep it away, winter is slowly making its presence known here. Although I really can't complain because our "winters" don't include snow or freezing temperatures. But I now have to wear a coat and must stow away my flip flops for the season.:) I did get to see some snow, however, when we made a trip to Brno, Czech Republic for a euroleague game. It was pretty wet snow perfect for making snowballs. Nicole tried many times to hit me with one but I was much too fast for her. Our game didn't end up as planned as we lost by 8 points.

We've had better luck in the Turkish league with a 4-0 record so far. We avenged the President's cup loss to Mersin. Our record in Euroleague is 1-2 but hoping that will change as our two losses have been to the two toughest teams in our pool. If we can win against the rest of the teams and win by more the 8 points to Brno when we play them again we will be second in our pool which is what we want. But of course, one game at a time. Our next trip is to Hungary.

On a fun note, I saw a friend from my hometown who was visiting Istanbul and got to eat dinner with him and a couple of his friends. He was here as part of an architecture class and they have been traveling Europe looking and studying all of Europe's architecture. But it's always fun to see a familiar face and still baffles me to know how small the world really is to have two small town folk reunite in Istanbul.

And we're off!!

2009-10-29T12:07:00.001-07:00

Well it was quite a long pre season (even though I joined the team a month after the Turks started practicing). But it was needed as I'm in shape, healthy, and game ready now. One fun preseason tourney took us to Prague. I had heard it's quite a city and it definitely was very beautiful with lots to see. Our Americans finally finished their WNBA season and joined us just before our first game. We have the same Americans as last year with the exception of Katie Smith. Penny Taylor replaced her who is an Australian and will help our team in different ways than Katie. Neither Penny nor Tammy really had a complete practice with us before we played in the Presidents Cup which is a rematch of the previous year's champs and runner up. We lost that game but we play again in a couple days so we're hoping for a different outcome this time around.

We've played one Turkish league game and one European league game this past week. Our first Turkish league game was a team from Turkey's capital. We started the game with an early 10 point lead and never looked back. We returned to Istanbul and had a couple days to prepare for our first Euroleague game against a strong team from Poland. We played great for the first 3 quarters and almost blew a 20 point lead in the 4th quarter but we held on to win that one as well. If you want to follow those games you can check them out at fibaeurope.com and click on the Euroleague women tab. Our next Euroleague game will be in Brno, Czech Republic on Tuesday. So we are back in the swing of things and there is no sign of things slowing down so I will try to update the blog more frequently since we will be playing two games a week from here on out.

Hope everyone has a very happy Halloween!

Back at it

2009-09-08T05:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back in Istanbul ready to start a brand new year. Basketball year....that is. I've been back for a few days and was thrown into two a days like I never left. I've been training long enough to know that this is the hardest part. Getting back in shape. My body is sore all over, I'm tired, and I have no energy. I have to keep going at it until that wears off and I'm back in shape ready to play again. I haven't done a lot since we ended our national team stint in Latvia which we placed 9th after a couple of hard losses to end the tournament for us. Hopefully next time we will have our full team of healthy players because Turkey definitely is capable of competing against the tougher countries.

When I say I haven't done a lot, I'm talking about basketball, because my summer was jam packed of travel, friends, and family. Not two weeks of being back in the states (one of those in Denver to see friends and teammates) my parents and I took a trip to Lucerne, Switzerland to watch Brett compete in World Cup. I haven't seen many more beautiful places than that. Brett took home the bronze. I flew back separately from my parents into Chicago to spend a week with former Stanford teammates. I got to see a little more of Chicago since last time I was there was New Year's and we obviously didn't spend too much time outside without freezing. It's a pretty cool city. From there my parents picked me up on their way to South Bend, Indiana. My mom's high school reunion created a sort of family reunion for all of us. I'm accustomed to seeing my mom's side of the family only once a year so it was a pleasant stay to see them for a week. We also took a day break and drove up to Michigan to see my cousin Aura get married.

I had been living out of a suitcase for three weeks so I was ready to sleep in my own bed once we got back to Riverton. It was short lived, however. I stayed long enough to see friends, Taryn and Garth, wed in the mountains above Dubois. Brett flew in to be a groomsman in that wedding with his girlfriend, Ashleigh. I took off two days later for Stanford. I have so many great friends, teammates, and adopted families that are around the area so I wanted to make sure I saw them before Turkey. I also spent four days in Phoenix during that time with another couple friends.

Summer is the only time I get back in the states these days, so I make sure to have enough fun and make enough memories to last me until the next summer! But now I'm back to reality and shifting gears as best I can. I'll post some pictures soon and keep everyone updated on the games coming up in a little over a month.

Sampiyon! (Champions)

2009-05-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

It wasn't a 40 point blow out but we won our 3rd game to win the Turkish championships. And I just so happened to be celebrating my birthday as well so it was an extra special day for me! Our Americans took no time at all to get back to the states. They wanted to enjoy the little time they had before they started with their teams for the summer so they left the next day. The rest of the team presented our cup to our club's president as well as walking out on the field during halftime of our club's soccer match. I hadn't been to a "football" match yet so that was pretty cool to see.

I also left the next day on a little vacation of my own the next to Antalya which is in southern Turkey. It's very nice this time of year and I pampered myself for a few days before I had to come back to Istanbul to join the national team in camp. I've been with them for a few days and we just finished a scrimmage against Czech Republic. We won it and we will play them again tomorrow just to get more game time before heading to Latvia where we'll start games on June 7th.

Championship in sight!

2009-05-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been pretty horrible about keeping this thing up to date. To my defense I had about 3 weeks straight of visitors. First my parents came to visit, just in time to see us win the Turkish Cup. It's a 3 day mini tournament right before the playoffs start. We beat Galatasaray in the finals of that tournament. We had the next day off so I stayed with my parents in Kayseri where the tournament was played and we toured Capadoccia which was one of the most unique places I have ever seen. I will post pictures very soon. It's a huge area with bunches of caves built underground and in the sides of mountains and hills. Worth the google visit if you have time to look it up. My parents also saw the first game of the semi finals, again against Galatasaray, and again a win.

The day they left, my old teammate, JJ Hones, from Stanford who is studying abroad in Madrid right now took a weekend visit to Istanbul. She saw the second game of the semi's against Gala, but we lost that one. We still had a lot of fun and she was able to see most of Istanbul as one can see in just a couple days. She left and just a few hours later, another teammate from Stanford, Cissy Pierce came to visit. She just ended her basketball season in Germany and had a few days before her return flight to the states. She saw our final game and win against Gala in order to move to the finals and also toured a little bit of Istanbul. I saw more of Istanbul in just a few day span than I have in the last 2 years!

After Cissy left, I had a couple days to recoup before we played our first game of the finals against Mersin and my old coach from last year. It's a best of 5 series and our first two games were at home. We swept this team during the regular season but they were both close games so we were expecting to play a tough game. However, we easily won our first two games by 25 points and 40 points respectively. Our team was just determined to win and make a statement. (We also have 4 wnba players who the earlier we win the more rest they get before their wnba seasons start, so they had extra motivation.) We play what we are hoping is our last game and the championship game this friday on my birthday in Mersin. Here's to hoping I get that birthday present!!

Home Stretch!

2009-03-12T13:59:00.001-07:00

Two more games remain in the regular season of the Turkish League so playoffs are in site! Most of the time, players are run down and tired as it nears the end of the season, but when playoffs start it is another whole story. There is a sense of excitement as the playoffs are what we've worked hard for all year. If we can win these last two games, we will secure our 1st place in the league meaning all important home court advantage throughout the playoffs. We just played and beat my old coach's team yesterday. They are the 2nd place team so to have led the whole game and come away with a solid win is encouraging for our team even when we didn't play to our best potential. We did however, lose to Samsun, another top 3 team a couple weeks ago which means if we meet up with them in the playoffs, we will start the series at 1-1 as opposed to 1-0 if we had swept them. Just making it a little longer and tougher on ourselves but nothing we aren't capable of.

This time of year is just exciting in general because of tourney time in the states as well. I will try to watch as many games as I can during March Madness. Stanford won outright the Pac-10 championship for I don't even know how many years in a row now claiming Pac-10 player and coach of the year as well. Hoping they continue to dominate in the Pac-10 tourney and NCAA tournament.

I am also looking forward to the arrival of Seb, an old Stanford teammate of mine and Nicole's. She will be here for a couple weeks to visit. Then in a month my parents will be making a visit. Good times ahead!

Catching up

2009-02-22T12:21:00.000-08:00

Sorry that I've been absent for about a month. Time flies when you're having fun right?;) Here are a few happenings in the last month.

In the round of 16 for the Euorleague playoffs, we matched up with a solid team from Poland. Each round is the best of 3 series and we had home court advantage so we hosted the first game. After being down 5 with just a couple minutes to go, we climbed back to force the game to overtime where we won it by a few points. The second game in Poland was close the entire way and we were leading with a couple minutes to go. But after a couple of bad turnovers we lost that game by 3 points. So that forced a 3rd game back in Istanbul where we won in none other than overtime! It was quite the exciting series to say the least. But our reward for advancing to the round of 8 was to match up with a Russian powerhouse team. This team will give Spartak (the all star Russian team we played earlier in the year) a definite run for their money. If you notice a trend of stacked teams from Russia then you are right on. They have big budgets and can therefore attract the best players. Anyways, we went to Ekaterinburg and lost by nearly 30 points. Personally, I had one of my best games of the year so it was a little bittersweet. We came back to Istanbul determined to give them a better game since we knew we were better than what we showed and did exactly that. We were winning by 17 points in the 3rd quarter before they started to show why they are one of the best teams in Europe. We let them back in the game and they took the lead late in the 4th quarter and our attempt at a 3 to force overtime failed. So now we are playing solely in the Turkish league for the rest of the year. Winning the Turkish Championship is our club's most important goal, so they brushed off the loss to the Russian team as long as we continue to win in the Turkish league.

Speaking of Turkish league.....we played our rival, Galatasaray before heading to Russia. This is one of the biggest rivalries in Europe for soccer so we get fans who might not care much about basketball but care about this rivalry so they were there in full force cheering for a win and throwing things on the court like they are expected to do. We expected it to be more of a game, but ended up beating them by nearly 30 points. When we play well like we did, there isn't any team in the league that can beat us. So our management was obviously pleased with the win.

The Galatasaray game was on Valentine's Day, so Nicole and I met up with some friends at a nice restaurant for dinner. It was a special meal for the holiday. We paid a flat rate and they kept serving us 4 or 5 courses of pasta, steak, salad, soup, dessert......and more dessert. And they gave us a gift as we left. It was a two headed shirt. So it's basically one shirt with two head holes for two valentine's to wear. On the shirt it said "Be my valentine." I thought it was pretty cute. We had a big table set up for more people to come but some bailed at the last minute so a couple of Turkish ladies sat with us at the end of our meal. We didn't speak Turkish and they didn't speak English but we seemed to have the best time. I'm not really sure how! Might have been the couple of cosmos we drank:)

Also, after a bit of Turkish drama that I will spare you the details of, our coach quit. But we got a new one the next day and after some adjustment on both parties' behalf we are fairly settled into a new system and new leadership.

That's it for now. I will try to update again sooner than a month from now!:)

P.S. Shoutout to my Cardinal racing to a first place finish in the pac-10!

P.S.S. the picture is of our 2 point loss to the Russian team at home and I've also added a few more pictures to the album "Turkey Round 2" in my pics link.

All-Stars

2009-01-23T14:40:00.000-08:00

After winning our last Turkish league game of the first half of Turkish League the All-Star game was played in a city in Northern Turkey. It is Turkish all-stars vs. Americans or Foreigners. Last year I played on the Foreigner team, but after getting my passport this summer I was on the Turkish side. We hung in with the all powerful mighty Americans for most of the game but lost it by a few points in the end. It was mostly a game for entertainment so we hope we gave the fans something to be excited about. The city did a good job of putting together the other entertainment. We had a famous Turkish singer for the half time show. I felt out of place when all of my Turkish teammates joined in singing and I had no clue what she was saying.

After the short time to relax and have a fun game we were back to Turkish league and won our next two games. The last one was against my former team at my old gym. it was good to see some familiar faces on and off the court. We are starting playoffs for Euroleague this Tuesday. We will face a great team from Poland. It is a best of 3 series with the first game at home, the second game in Poland and if necessary the third game back in Istanbul.

On another note we got a new player after the break. Our team terminated the contract with our French player and added Katie Smith. She is a veteran in the WNBA, olympic gold medalist, WNBA champion and MVP. Needless to say we think we got a pretty good player. I am excited to play with her the rest of the season.

Awesome Vacation

2009-01-05T13:05:00.000-08:00

We lost our last 2 games before we went home for Christmas but I quickly forgot about those on my plane ride back to the states to enjoy a nice 11 day break. And it was as good as it could be. I flew into Chicago where my dad was waiting for me to drive to South Bend, Indiana. My entire mom's side of the family made it in from all over the country to be together for a few days at Christmas. This is pretty rare as there about 30 of us. It was great to relax and catch up with relatives I haven't seen for a while. The only downer was I was battling back from being quite sick before I left Istanbul. And as a X-mas present I think i passed it along to my dad. The weather was also freezing the entire time. My grandparents have said the ice storm that hit after Christmas was the worst they've seen in 40 years. Cars literally couldn't get out of neighborhoods because of the ice on the roads. Luckily we escaped without any incidents.

After the 28th, I met up with my Stanford teammate, Clare, in Chicago where I spent the next five days until returning to Turkey. I saw about 7 friends from Stanford. I couldn't have had a better holiday, I just wish it could have been longer. Lots of great memories from this holiday but now I'm back to reality in Istanbul getting ready to play our last game of the first half of the season against Cankaya.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. Hope 2009 is a great one!

Holidays with the family and more basketball

2008-12-11T12:24:00.000-08:00

My mom and brother were able to visit for a week during the Thanksgiving holiday. It was my mom's second and bro's first trip to my home for the next three years. They did a little more touring together since I had to practice but I was able to spend a little time with them. We also spent a little time with an old family friend, Katie Dunn. Her husband is playing basketball for a team in Konya, Turkey and our schedules worked out where we could hang for a while. The mom and bro saw 2 pretty exciting games while they were here, both which ended in our favor. I will be seeing them and the rest of the Berger clan for the Christmas holiday which is always guaranteed to be a fun time.

On the basketball side, we have been rolling along nicely. We lost to Spartak (the oober good Russian team we lost to earlier) but not by as many points this time. :) We've won the rest of our Euroleague and Turkish league games. Most of the games have been pretty tough but we've managed to pull out victories. After next week's Euroleague game against Italy we'll head into playoffs.

Game of the Year....so far!

2008-11-16T10:38:00.000-08:00

A lot of basketball and a lot of winning since my last post. But no game has been easy, quite exciting actually. Our Euroleague game against a team from France looked scary towards the end. We were down 2 with just a few seconds left when one of our guards made a steal and laid it in. We won that game by 7 in overtime. Our next Euroleague game in Italy was just as close. We started the 4th quarter down 8 points, but intensified our defense and went up by 2 points with a few seconds left. Our last defensive set we got a steal and an "and one" and won that game by 5. Our Euroleague pool is the toughest of all Euroleague pools so to get a win on the road is really huge for us.

And finally we played our biggest rival, Galatasaray yesterday. I'm still coming into grasps with what this rivalry really entails. Stanford and Cal really have nothing on this! You might remember we lost to them in our first game of the year for the President's Cup and we ran into some fan confrontations. It was very mild compared to yesterday. First of all, no Fenerbahce fans are allowed to come into the gym because too many fights would break out. Hundreds of policemen and women still come to the game for security. These fans hate Fenerbahce beyond anything I can tell you. Ironically, I thought the atmosphere was really fun except for a few scary moments. A glass bottle was actually thrown at us and shattered at our bench. Coins and water bottles were thrown. A game usually lasts and hour and a half but because of constant crowd control and cleaning the wet floor from broken water bottles it lasted well over 2 hours. And if you really want to make them mad then beat their team!! We played really well and really inspired and won by 8 points. So of course as soon the final buzzer sounded we were hurried off the court into our locker room where we could celebrate.

We are off to Lithuania on Tuesday to start the second of the the Euroleague pool play. And then I will return to Istanbul and to my mom who will be visiting me! My brother will come 2 days after so I'm definitely looking forward to to having almost the whole family here with me for about a week.

Happy election day!

2008-11-04T12:53:00.000-08:00

As much as this election has been hyped it feels like a holiday today! It is quite a historical election however, so very deserving. People here in Istanbul are aware of the election too. From the teammates, coaches, and friends I have talked to they seem to want Obama.

So we've had a few games since the last post. In Slovakia, we lost the game by 8 just in the last couple minutes. We came back to tie in the 4th quarter and then let them bust a couple of threes. That was a hard one as we definitely should have won. Euro league is tough on the road though, especially in Russia where we played the winner of the league for the past two seasons. To say this team is good would be such an understatement. They have an all-world team and it's not a good idea to get off to a bad start against a team like that. I'm too embarrassed to say how much we lost by so if you want the score you can look it up online:) We came back to win 2 Turkish league games, however. Our first one was against my former team, Botas. They have 4 or 5 of the same players so it was good to see them, but we handled our business and beat them by 20. Our last game was in Mersin against my former coach who switched teams from last year. He is also my national team coach and having played for him for a year I knew that his team would be scrappy and would play hard and smart. It was a close game and came down to the wire but thanks to a key defensive rebound and a couple of free throws we pulled it out and won by 5 points.

It's back to Euroleague play tomorrow. We will play a team from France here in Istanbul. They have yet to win in our pool, but every team is good so we will still have to play tough.

Good Euroleague and Turkish League Starts

2008-10-21T02:09:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday we kicked off the Euroleague season with a win over Teo Vilinius from Lithuania. It wasn't exactly a pretty win but we pulled it out in the 4th quarter and won by eight points. Our complete team (minus our injured point guard) had only been together for a few days at that point. My old teammate from Stanford, Nicole Powell who is also on my team, was still fairly jet lagged but played well for us. It has been great seeing her and playing with her again. I can't believe that was 5 years ago that I last played with her! We have quickly caught up on old times though checking out all the local cuisine and hang out spots together.

We also won our first Turkish league game against Burhaniye pretty handily. They are one of the worst teams in the league so Nicole and one of our other "older" players sat out that game to rest up for our Euroleague game tomorrow against a team from Slovakia. I'm actually in the Vienna airport right now awaiting that flight. I'm still considered young in this profession but Nicole at only 25 is a seasoned veteran so my time will come!

President's Cup

2008-10-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday we played in the President's Cup. It's one game between last year's first and second place teams. We were playing our biggest rival Galatasaray. I am just now understanding how important this rivalry really is. Both of our clubs are big soccer (futbol) teams as well so we get a majority of the these hooligan fans at the game. While we were driving up to the game we mistakenly drove through a mass of Galatasaray fans. We heard things hitting our bus and then I saw something huge headed to the window and the next thing I know two of our windows are shattered. Luckily they are familiar with this sort of thing and have double windows so no harm done.

Unfortunately the game wasn't much better. We never really were on the same page offensively and our defense could also use some work. We were without our best player who is still resting from the WNBA season and will be here soon and our point guard is out for a couple more weeks with a knee injury. We will have plenty more times this season to play them full strength and hopefully things will end in our favor.

We don't have much time however as we play our first Euroleague game on Wednesday against a team from Lithuania.

Back by Popular Demand!

2008-10-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

I am wrapping up what was no doubt the most eventful summer of my life and I will try to give a very short version on my first blog after a long hiatus. But first I wanted to give a shoutout to my cousin Andy Newlin who is getting married today back in Wyoming. I wish I could be there but I've learned a while ago that I will constantly be missing important events like this because of my basketball career. Everything requires sacrifices so I suppose this is mine. I am still however thinking of the family back in Cheyenne and will have excitedly be awaiting the pictures to be sent to me!

After my final game last year in Adana, I flew back to Riverton only to fly to Phoenix two days later to try out for the WNBA team, Phoenix Mercury. Unfortunately I was waived in training camp and was left pondering what I would do then with my summer. I didn't have to wait long for thing to get rolling again, however. After a visit to Stanford visiting friends and watching some of the seniors graduate I made a trip back to Turkey to start the process of getting my Turkish passport. This is a story in and of itself, but basically the national team coach (my coach from my Botas team in Adana last year) and the Turkish federation asked me to join their national team and this required me to get Turkish citizenship. Each country is allowed to naturalize one citizen and since I have no ties to Turkey through my family, I was their one citizen they wanted to "make Turkish." I decided to join the team after realizing the WNBA would not be an option for the summer. During this process, I signed a 3 year contract with Fenerbahce. This Istanbul team won the league last year so I was more than excited to join a successful program and the fact that I am Turkish made me more appealing to the team because I didn't take up one of the spots reserved for another American.

So after a week in Istanbul doing all the tedious things necessary to start the passport process I made it back home for a little bit. During this time I visited my brother in New Jersey where he was training for the Olympics. After just a 2 week visit the national team wanted me back in Turkey to train. So off to Turkey again I go to train for two weeks before making a trip back to Riverton to be a bridesmaid in my friend Laurelle's wedding. I was home only a 5 days before catching a plane back to Turkey to finalize my passport. Now I am just breezing through these trips back and forth but may I remind you that each trip from Denver to Istanbul is about 20 hours. I've never spent so much time in a plane as I did this summer, but I did rack up the frequent flyer miles!! So finishing up the passport process took just a couple days before I hop on yet another plane for Beijing to watch my brother compete in the Olympics.

I'm sure most of you have heard all the amazing stories about Beijing so I won't spend too much time talking about it. It definitely was an unforgettable trip to be immersed in the highest level of sports competition ever. Adding to that the cultural experiences we faced from the people, to the cuisine, to the cab rides.....We made some awesome memories and maybe in 4 years we will do it again in London!

While at the Olympics I missed the first game that the Turkish national team played in their elimination qualifiers for the 2009 European championships. So I flew directly from Beijing to Finland to meet them and play against the Finish team. We played in Finland, Bosnia, Italy, and Poland and finished the qualifying tournament 7-1 and first place in our pool. So we will play in Latvia in June 2009 for the European championships. After our final game in Turkey I came home for a week (notice the long trip again) and now I am back in Istanbul with my Turkish league team gearing up for the season to begin next week.

And that was my summer in a nutshell!! I'm glad to be settled down in one place for a little bit and actually able to unpack my suitcase in my new apartment. I will have pictures from the summer up at my knewlin.shutterfly.com account soon.

Until next time.....

Congrats to STANFORD!!

2008-04-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

My first season overseas is almost coming to a close here in Turkey. Last week my team advanced to the championship game of the Turkish Cup where we lost to Fenerbache. We then had our first playoff game against Kayseri yesterday and lost by 2 points. They scored with 7 seconds to go and we got a good shot off to tie it, but it didn't go down for us. However, one thing that is different as compared to the NCAA tournament is that it is not one and done. The team to win the best out of 3 games will move on to the semi finals. So we will play Kayseri here in Adana on Sunday and if we win we will play them again in Kayseri on Thursday. Depending on how things turn out we could possibly be done on Sunday or we could still be playing for a couple more weeks. So I still can't give a definite answer as to when I will be returning to the states.

I followed my Stanford team all the way to the championship game in the NCAA tournament. They played very well and I was so proud to watch them. When Seb came down for the Turkish cup we even watched the final four game against Connecticut together on my slingbox at 2 in the morning. It was pretty late by the time it was over but neither one of us could have gone to sleep right away because we were both so excited!! I was able to talk to most of the team during this time and I could tell just how much confidence they had. I have no doubt they will be back next year to compete again!

Post Season Play

2008-03-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry to have been slacking a bit on my blogs. A lot of basketball has been happening both here and in the states with the NCAA tournament starting. We just finished at great game against Galatasaray here in Adana winning by 2 points. This is the 2nd ranked team and the same team that beat us by 30 a couple of months ago in Istanbul. it was Seb's team, but she has been injured for a few weeks and unable to play. However, we had to play without Carmen. She hurt her knee a couple of games ago and it has been a rollercoaster journey for her. They first told her she tore her ACL but the diagnosis was changed to a bone bruise. We are all hoping she will be healthy enough to play next week. Regardless, our team played really well without her. This is a huge confident booster heading into post season play next week with the "Turkish Cup."

The Turkish Cup involves the top 8 teams after the first half of the season. The teams that play each other are literally drawn out of a hat at a banquet this Thursday. Then tournament style play with those teams start on Friday. It should be quite interesting. The playoffs start the following week. We are the 5th seed and will be playing the 4th seed, Kayseri. We split with them in the regular season and will play a best of 3 series. It's crazy to think I will be heading home in at least 2 and a half weeks!

My Dad and brother celebrated their birthdays this past week on the 23rd and 24th respectively. Of course my Dad isn't getting any older but my brother is turning into an old man at 26! He is still working hard at rowing and will find out the official roster for the Olympic Crew team in June. My good friend Lauren, however, found out yesterday that she was selected to the USA softball team headed for Beijing. It's very exciting and I am super happy for her. Hopefully I will be able to watch her play when we are over there for my brother.

Unfortunately the Stanford Men's basketball team was outed in the sweet 16 last night by Texas, but my Stanford women's team is on a mission for the national championship. They take on Pittsburgh in the sweet 16 tonight. Go Card!

Mom and Dad's visit

2008-02-28T14:24:00.000-08:00

My parents have already come and gone. The time really flew while they were here but we packed in a lot of touring, basketball, and back scratches while they were here! They arrived late last Saturday night before our Fenerbache game. They were real troopers when it came to jet lag and stayed up for the late practice we had. We gave the top ranked team a run for their money but couldn't pull off the upset in the last couple of minutes. Mother nature wasn't very kind to us in Istanbul when we wanted to tour around as a blizzard hit the weekend we were there. Seb and her roommate Gulsah took us around anyways and saw a lot of the sights around the city. The Blue Mosque and the Grand Bazzar highlighted our tour. The Blue Mosque is similar to the Mosque here in Adana but much older. We were prime targets in the Bazzar for shop owners to hassle with. Seb then took us out to a beautiful dinner overlooking the Bosphorus.

When we got back to Adana our team sports marketing guy was able to take my parents out while I was at practice so they've now seen things that I have yet to see. They saw their second game of ours and we won. They then spent one final day in Istanbul to see some of the sights that were closed the week earlier. i think all in all the trip was memorable for all of us.

In other news, I've signed a training camp contract with the Phoenix Mercury. Getting invited to a camp is the first step so I now I still have to make the final cut. I'm excited for it this year and much more prepared than last year. I think I know more of what to expect and now have a year's experience of playing overseas. More on that at the end of April!

Happy Leap Year!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-13T10:36:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone will have a happy Valentine's Day. I wasn't for sure if they celebrated it here in Turkey but I found out that they do. You wouldn't know it though like you would in the states with hearts, chocolate, roses, and candy being seen everywhere you look. I guess they don't market it like they do in American. I did see a blanket being sold on the streets saying "Seni Seviyorum" (I love you), but that's the only reminder of Valentine's Day so far.

Well, we couldn't pull of another upset win in Euro Cup play against the Croatian team so we are now playing only in Turkey for the last two months. The European travels have been one of the highlights of my experience overseas. I didn't know what to expect out of Croatia but the small town, Gospic, we played in was very beautiful. Mountains surrounded the town and the sky was strangely bright blue. The mountains seemed very close to the city and not some distant spectacle and they were everywhere and not just on one side. I took some pictures and will be putting those up soon. After coming back from Croatia we played Ceyhan, the other team in Adana. We won in overtime. We were down 4 with less than a minute to play and we go two steals and force the overtime. Quite a game for the fans! We play the undefeated number one team in the league on Sunday. My parents are flying in on Saturday to see that game and another game in Adana. They will be here 8 days. My manager and coach was nice enough to let me stay in Istanbul for a day after the game so my parents and I can wander around the city. Seb will be there too to help us out. So I'm definitely looking forward to that.

Happy Heart day to everyone!

Happy February

2008-02-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

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.

All Star Game and Euro Cup game

2008-01-21T12:40:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened in the last week and half. First the all-star game. We had a cocktail with all the selected Turkish and American/foreign players the night before the game. It was just a gathering and they introduced each player and gave her a small trophy. It didn't last long but that night most of the players went out to a club. It was a lot of fun and I hung with Seb and my teammates most of the night. It's a popular place fore Americans to go to because they play American hip hop music. I got to know some of the players in a different setting than a basketball court so it was a lot of fun although very crowded. The game was every bit as fun. All-star games are mainly entertainment for the crowd so the introductions were a lot of fun. Each player stood on this platform that rose from the ground with music playing and colored fire going off all around us. We walked down some steps in spotlight and to music. Everyone got really into it which made it that much better. The game was really relaxed. Not much defense and a lot of offense. Our team knew we had to win though and we did by 21. It would have been great if it ended there but unfortunately I sprained my ankle as I landed on someone's foot coming down with a rebound. I've had trouble with this particular ankle in the past but this by far is the worst sprain I've had to endure. It's been a little over a week now and it's still pretty swollen and tender. I'm getting an MRI on it tomorrow to see if the damage to the ligaments is not too bad. Hopefully I will be ok enough to play on Saturday for our next game. Injuries are something I've always had to deal with since my ACL so this is nothing new. I know my body and what it can and can't handle and I will be on the court in no time at all. I just have to take a little step back before I do.

After my ankle sprain we went to Russia to play in the second game series of the second round of Euro Cup. This was a must win or don't lose by more than 13 game for us if we wanted to advance. I knew that, so with enough tape, adrenaline, and pain killers I was able to play as much as I could. It was worth it because we lost by 10. That was the first game that we celebrated after losing. We were the first 32nd seeded team to ever beat a #1 seed in the 40 years of Euro Cup. Needless to say we were pretty excited. We will be playing a team from Croatia next week in the round of 16. However, my ankle was pretty beat up after playing in that game so I didn't play in the following Sunday's Turkish league game so it could heal faster. The team lost without me but they still played very well. I'm focusing on therapy and just getting this ankle working again as soon as possible.

I'm also in the process of uploading more pictures to my shutterfly account. knewlin.shutterfly.com. Take a look!

Updates!

2008-01-10T12:47:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year! I sure am here in Turkey. New Year's eve was fun for Carmen, Chrissy, and I. Our manager took us out to a restaurant for dinner. There was an American singer and band there to entertain us during dinner and somehow our manager got Chrissy to go up and sing a Turkish song. She knows one in particular from just listening to it so much. So although she doesn't know what she's saying she still knows the words. (That happens visa versa with the Turkish girls who sing American songs but don't know what they are singing about.) Anyways, the crowd loved her and she was fantastic. After dinner we counted down to midnight at Incirlik (Air Force Base).

We played Seb's team in Istanbul a few days later. It was very weird playing against Seb. She even said that she felt like giving me a high five after a free throw so I guess it was weird for her too. We lost by a good amount, but they sure have a great team. We had to shake that loss off because today we played our first Euro Cup game of the second round. They are the 1st seed and we are the 32nd. However, we won!! We all played really well and together and led the whole way. We couldn't get too excited just yet, because we have to play them again next Thursday in Russia and we know that is going to be a different story up there. It will be much tougher. We won by 14 points so if we win or don't lose by more than 14 then we will go on to the round of 16.

Chrissy and I will be leaving Saturday to go to Istanbul to play in an All-Star game. Coaches, media, and fans vote for 12 Americans/foreign players to play against 12 Turkish players in the annual game. Two of our Turkish players were selected for their team and our coach will be coaching the Americans/foreign players. Seb was also selected so I will see her again. This will be very exciting to play on the same team with not only the best in Turkey but some of the best players in the WNBA. It's quite the humbling experience to be named an all-star among some of these players, but we're looking forward to it and it should be a lot of fun. Of course we've got to prove where the best basketball players come from and win the game.

I talked to my old teammate Krista Rappahahn the other day and learned that she just arrived in Sweden to play basketball. She has some down time while she is applying to med schools so she thought she would play half a season before things get crazy. It made me wonder how many of my old Stanford teammates are actually over on this side of the pond to play, go to school, or work and I counted eight not including myself. It's great to hear all of their stories and adventures they are having like me. Can't wait to find out my next adventure!

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-29T10:33:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-20T10:37:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-12-17T11:21:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-15T08:41:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-07T15:51:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-03T02:19:00.000-08:00

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.

Heading to Israel

2007-11-26T13:39:00.000-08:00

We had a Turkish league game against Ceyhan on Sunday and beat them by almost 30 points! This was a huge win because we are even in the standings and now are a game up on them. This team had beaten us a couple of times in the preseason so to come up with such a huge victory is great for our team. We will see just how much we have improved when we take on Fenerbace next Sunday here in Adana. They are the number one team in the league with a couple of WNBA all-stars on their roster so we will definitely have our work cut out for us.

But first we travel to Tel Aviv, Israel on Wednesday to take on the team we played last month for Euro Cup play. There are 4 teams in each pool of Euro Cup and we play each team twice, both home and away. They beat us last time, so we are eager to take them on once again. I'll only be in Israel for a couple of nights, but I'll try to soak in as much of it as I can. I wish we had more time to just see the city, but we are there to play basketball so I'll take what I can get. You can check the stats and results of the Euro cup games at eurobasket.com and the turkish games at tbl.org.

It's almost December, so that means it's finally starting to cool off. On some days, especially in the middle of the day I can still get away with just a t-shirt and shorts, but the mornings and evenings I will be in my sweats. I need to get an umbrella soon too as it has rained a few times. It's pretty comparable to Stanford weather so at least that part hasn't taken much to adjust to.

Hope everyone is recovered from their Thanksgiving meals!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-22T12:29:00.000-08:00

I have so much to be thankful for this year starting with my family and friends and all the people who haven't forgotten about me even though I'm across the world!:) I'm thankful for being in a great situation in Turkey with great teammates. I'm also thankful for the technologies that keep me from getting homesick like video chat, e-mail, skype, etc. I don't know what I would do without that connection to all my loved ones back home. And my mom also told me I should be thankful for my slingbox that I am able to watch American television on. Thanks mom! It wasn't quite the Thanksgiving I am used to over here. I had no turkey, yams, ham, or pumpkin pie and I appreciate all of you that felt it necessary to tell me all the delicious foods you were eating or planning to eat. And even showing me the food over video chat! I made myself so excellent potato soup though.

We also had a Euro cup game against Cheveka, a Russian team. We won! It felt good to get our first Euro Cup victory. It was a great game and everybody played really well. There's nothing like winning when you're not supposed to! We turn around and get back into Turkish league play this Sunday against our cross town rival, Ceyhan.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

New pics

2007-11-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to let you know that I've added more of my pictures from my trip to Istanbul, Serbia, and Montenegro on my page. Knewlin.shutterfly.com to check them out. You'll be able to see how cold but also how beautiful the long trip to Montenegro was.

Also, we won our game today. It was our first home game win in either Turkish or European cup play. The team wasn't as good as the other teams we will be playing but hopefully we'll ride this win into Thursday when we take on a very good team from Russia for Euro Cup play.

Serbia and Montenegro

2007-11-15T15:07:00.000-08:00

I'm finally back after a long week away from Adana. On Saturday we left for Istanbul to play Migros on Sunday. We won this game by about 6 or 7 points. It felt great to finally get a win! We then stayed in Istanbul the next day and practiced. I was able to see Seb for a night. We went to dinner with a couple of her teammates/roommates. It was great to see and catch up with her. There are 6 teams in or around Istanbul so I'm sure I will get to see a lot more of her. And hopefully I can stay with her and see the city as well one of these days. I got to walk around our hotel, but that's about it. Istanbul is definitely more European than Adana. For one, they have a Starbucks! Everyone I talk to says it's a fun place, too so hopefully I will see more of it this winter.

The team bought us all winter jackets in Istanbul before we trekked up to Serbia and boy did we need them. It was so cold! It was a couple hour flight to Serbia and then we actually drove 6 hours to Montenegro where we would play. It was a long drive, but one of the most beautiful as well. We drove through snow and huge mountains. We also saw the evidence of a war ridden country. Although it is no longer dangerous, apartments still had bullet holes all over the outside. Our coach said snipers would shoot at the houses even through the walls. The drive was still very beautiful, however, especially when it got dark. Even growing up in Wyoming, I've never seen so many stars in the sky shine so brightly. It really took my breath away. I took some pictures and will get them up soon.

We ended up losing that game by 5. We started the 4th quarter down 16 so we came back but it just wasn't quite enough. We'll put together 4 good quarters one of these games. Our next chance is in a couple of days when we play another Turkish league team here in Adana.

I'm anxiously awaiting a care package from my parents! Anything from the states is always a treat. Can't wait for that! I wouldn't object to any care packages from anybody.

And congratulations to my Stanford team!!! They upset the #3 Rutgers team on ESPN. I had to watch it live and stayed up until 5:30 in the morning. And it was definitely worth it. I was so proud! It was great to see them in action.

Ataturk Memorial

2007-11-09T14:28:00.000-08:00

After practice tonight we went to a memorial for Mustafa Ataturk. Today was the anniversary of his death. It was an orchestra playing with some opera and a video playing overhead of Ataturk's life. The music was lovely even though I couldn't understand anything they were saying. I suppose it's even hard to understand opera in English anyways.

We had our first Euro Cup game yesterday. We played a very good team from Israel and lost. It's a different atmosphere for me to be on an underdog team, but we keep playing hard and that's what it is most important. I believe you can follow these games or at least the scores at eurobasket.com. Just follow the links to my team (Botas). We leave tomorrow for Istanbul to play Migros on Sunday. This was the only team we beat when we had a preseason tournament in Kayseri a few weeks ago, but I hear they got some new Americans so they might be a different team. Hopefully I will be able to meet up with Seb (a former Stanford teammate who is playing on another team in Istanbul) while I am there. We will eventually be playing her team. We will stay in Istanbul until Tuesday where we will then fly to Yugoslavia to play in another Euro Cup game on Wednesday. We can play all of our Americans in the Turkish league games, but unfortunately only 2 Americans can play in Euro Cup games, so we will be without Lisa and Carmen just like we were for yesterday's game.

Be sure to watch the Stanford women's team on ESPN this Sunday when they take on Rutgers. My parents will record that for me so I will be able to watch it. I will be cheering from afar!

First Game

2007-11-04T08:50:00.000-08:00

We had our first game yesterday against Besiktas here in Adana. They are the 2nd ranked team in the Turkish League. We ended up losing by 13 which was actually pretty good considering how poorly we shot. We were convinced there was a lid on the basket. But everyone who plays basketball knows there will be games like that so we can't worry about it too much. We actually got a pretty good crowd. Not quite as many as Stanford games, but they were just as noisy. They chant the entire game. Maybe someday I'll figure out what they are saying. We play Thursday against an Israel team. When we play a team from Turkey, it is part of the Turkish League and when we play a team from another country, it is part of the European Cup. So it's sort of like two different seasons going on at once. Only a select few teams do this.

After the game I came home and was able to listen to Stanford's exhibition game on the internet. They won handily and it was exciting to hear everyone doing well. They have big tests against great teams coming up and some of them will be on television so my handy slingbox will be put to work.

I'm sure family in South Bend, especially Papa, are unhappy about ND's loss to Navy yesterday. I was actually video chatting with my brother during the game and he turned his computer to the screen so I could see the last few plays. Speaking of chatting, Skype is great if you want to actually talk to me. Just download it and add my skype name (kristennewlin) and you can directly talk to me if your computer has a microphone. And if it has a video camera you can actually see me too.

Happy Birthday Clare!

2007-10-31T13:14:00.000-07:00

I wanted to wish Clare Bear a happy 23rd birthday! Clare's birthdays were always the best because we could celebrate Halloween and her birthday at once! Turkey unfortunately does not recognize this holiday so we were without trick or treaters or scary costumes. If anyone has extra Halloween candy don't hesitate to send it this way!:) We still felt the need to be scared tonight so a lot of the team went to see "Saw 4" in theatres. They movie is in English with Turkish subtitles. If you have a weak stomach, I don't recommend watching it. It was quite bloody and usually not the type of movie I would want to see, but I guess we needed some sort of scare for Halloween.

We open up Turkish league play this Saturday against Besiktas. They are a team from Istanbul and are quite good. They have a couple of post players from the WNBA and a great Turkish post player so they are a big team, too. We went to a dinner last night and watched them play on television against another Turkish team. We are looking forward to starting the season. As I'm looking forward to Stanford starting theirs this Saturday with an exhibition game. I will be following them every step of the way and rooting them on for an NCAA championship. Go Card!

Photo Albums

2007-10-28T07:51:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let you know that I've added a page exclusively for my pictures. I've posted two albums so far. Just go to knewlin.shutterfly.com. I will let you know in my blogs when I update them.

Today has been a pretty lazy day. I slept in, went grocery shopping, cleaned up the apartment a bit, and posted pictures for you to see! It's days like these that I'm glad I have access to American television through my slingbox. I can actually watch, change channels, and record shows directly from my t.v. at home. Great way to keep up with Grey's Anatomy and America's Next Top Model!! I've also discovered podcasts through itunes, thanks to Clare and Brooke! I can download the news and other things to keep me updated on things back in the states.

I'm also trying to figure out meals that I can make with the food they have available in the grocery stores. They have pasta noodles, but no spaghetti sauce or any other sauce that I can cook up. They only have tomato paste. Does anybody have any suggestions on other things that I can make to put on pasta? Or any other way to spice it up? What about simple meals I can easily make? Any suggestions would be welcome. Teshekular!

2007-10-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

I told Titch that I would post another blog today, so as promised here it is. I'm sure you live for this Titch! We just got back from Kayseri where we played four games in four days. Needless, to say I'm a little tired. Our team lost 3 games and won one. We were playing against decent teams, and never lost by more than eight. So although we lost, we hung tough. The game today was against the top team of the tournament. They had won all of their previous games pretty handily, but we actually took them to overtime. I was really proud of our team for fighting and being scrappy. We are much younger than them and this team (Mersin) has very experienced players and a couple WNBA players. Carmen hit a three to send it to overtime with nine seconds left. We are getting better with every game we play. Our team also signed another American post player over the weekend. Her name is Lisa Macchia and she graduated from Boston College in 2006. She had only practiced with us for a day and doesn't know all of our plays yet, but she still played great. So now we are officially done with the "friendly" games of our season. Starting next weekend, we start league play and Euro Cup play.

If you all have been keeping up with the news, I'm sure you've heard about the Iraq-Turkey tensions going on right now. After the dozen Turkish soldiers were killed by the Kurds, the city changed overnight. Cars were driving up and down the streets honking their horns. We see Turkish flags everywhere and banners showing the face of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He was the founder of the Turkish Repulic as well as its first president. All the televisions in the restaurants are on the news. The people here are definitely reacting to what is going on in their country.

I've also been trying to keep up with the So Cal fires. I'd been keeping in touch with my teammate Kish who goes to Pepperdine now and was thrilled to learn that she recently was able to get back on campus. And teshekular (thank you), Nana, for letting me know my cousins in this area are also fine.

2007-10-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

Merhaba (Hi!) everybody! Great to hear that the blog will be useful to a lot of you. I will do my best to keep it updated as much as possible.

Botas is one of four teams that is in or close to Adana, so Carmen, Chrissy and I have befriended the other Americans on the Ceyhan team. Chrissy actually knew one of them (Crystal Smith) from her WNBA training camp this past year in Phoenix. The other two are Kristen Green and Tasha Mills. Kristen and I discovered that we have the same middle name as well! At least we thought that was pretty cool. The six of us went to Incirlik, which is the big American air force base here in Adana. It's only a 10 minute drive. We went out to a bar and were pleased to be able to speak to many Americans. It had been a while since we heard so much english! Of course we are trying to engage ourselves in as much Turkish culture as we can, but it was nice to be able to communicate easily again. Following that we decided to go to a salsa club. I never would have thought my first experience with salsa dancing would have been in Turkey, but it was still a lot of fun.

We had today off from practice so I thought I would do some exploring. I don't know if our apartment is neccessarily in the downton part of Adana, but there are definitely a lot of shops, restaurants, etc. within walking distance. I went into a convenient store and saw some packaged food that looked like chocolate. At least that was what the picture looked like. So I bought it and it was delicious! B.G. our sports marketing guy then took Carmen and I to a huge nearby mosque. I learned that it is actually the second biggest mosque in the middle east. We have driven by it plenty of times and I wanted to see the inside. Before we could enter we had to take our shoes off and Carmen and I had to put on a long sleeved shirt and a scarf to cover our head and neck. They were provided them for us at the door. The inside was absolutely magnificent and beautiful. Arabic writing of the Koran was on the ceiling and huge lights strung down. I took plenty of pictures and as soon as I figure out how to post them on here I will. We saw many people kneeling and praying and B.G. encouraged us to join. Carmen was a little hesitant, but I decided to try it. So trying not to disrupt anyone I quietly knelt, but B.G. quickly tapped my on the shoulder and said that I was facing the wrong direction. You are supposed to be facing east towards Mecca and there were even arrows on the carpet that pointed that way for everyone to follow. Woops! I'm so glad that I was able to see it though and I'm sure I will go again some other time.

I've realized that I haven't even discussed the basketball part of Turkey. I still can't believe that I'm getting paid to play the same game that I grew up playing with my brother and dad in the front yard! We have a very young team. I'm actually one of the oldest. But our coach expects us to compete with all of the WNBA veterans in our league. We have had a few friendly games which means they don't count towards our record. We have done ok, but there is definitely room for improvement. We actually have a "friendly" tournament this week in Keysari. We leave the day after tomorrow so hopefully when I return I will be able to blog about our great games!

2007-10-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finally gotten my act together and decided that this blog would be a great way to let all my friends and family know of my adventures here in Turkey. Although it's a fantastic problem to have so many people interested in how I am doing and what I am doing over here. I'm truly blessed. Of course I will still try to keep up the personal e-mails to you, but hopefully this will cover my experience a little more in depth. And props to Blake for suggesting I do this!

I've been in Turkey for a few weeks now. For the first week and a half, we were about an hour from Adana, right off the Mediterranean Sea. We stayed at the little community of Botas (pronounced Botosh) which is our team name and sponsor. We were able to go down to the beach for an afternoon and it was beautiful. The water was so warm, something I'm not used to from norther California. And it stayed shallow for about 50 meters out. I had to quickly adjust to the food as they were serving us cafeteria food and it was eat that or nothing at all. So either I got used to it pretty quickly or just got so hungry that anything would have tasted deicious. Now that we are in Adana, we can do our own grocery shopping and cooking, but I've tried to make a point of venturing out and trying new foods. My two housemates, Chrissy Givens and Carmen Guzman, thought I was crazy for eating something I had never seen or heard of. But most of the time it has been ok.

Chrissy and Carmen are the other two Americans. They are both my age so we are all experiencing this for the first time. The language barrier is something I've never had a problem with before. But it has actually been quite a fun challenge. For example, our landlord doesn't speak english and I had to tell him that we had no hot water. So I showed him a glass of water, said "Yok" (no) and started fanning myself. And then let the faucet run from the sink and shivered. He then led me outside our apartment door and showed me a switch, and just like that...hot water!

Fortunately, a couple girls on the team speak enough english to communicate with and both of our coaches can speak decent english. My head coach, Ceyhan (prounounced Jeyhon) and Olcek (pronounced Olgey) have been very welcoming as well as the other girls on the team. They have all gone out of their way to make sure I feel at home and have accommodated me in every way that they can. Our team went to a dinner last night, and it's so fascinating how all of us can enjoy each other's company and laugh together without knowing each other's language.

I haven't had much of an opportunity to explore Adana, since I've been a little sick this whole week, but I will be sure to let you all know of that when I feel good enough to wander. I hope this blog will be useful to a lot of you. Thanks for all the support back in the states and I am always in the mood for an e-mail! Talk to you again soon.