"Why does she only speak English and not German?"

I went to a school this morning with my teammate Hici. A woman that works for our club and the schools has done 5 baskeball sessions with a second grade class and this was their last one. So they did a few different games and drills and we played along and helped them out. At the beginning the woman introduced us as professional basketball players and the kids went crazy… It was so funny. It was like they saw us as being famous. Then at the end we all sat in a circle and they asked us a bunch of questions. The questions were in German, so Hici had to translate most of them to me. They asked things like: do we play with guys or just girls, how many points have we scored individually and as a team, when did we start playing, etc. One girl asked why I only speak English and not German. It was funny because she looked at her teacher as she said it…. But I could understand what she was asking, and I answered, "Ich komme aus U.S.A," which means I come from U.S.A... and then it made sense to her. It was fun being able to reply to her and I think I kind of surprised her. Then the woman had Hici and I hand out "Basketball diplomas" to each kid. We alternated reading their names and the total points that they earned in the different categories of shooting, dribbling, and passing. I did pretty well with the names and numbers. I was proud of myself. :) It was really fun and the kids were really cute!

Poster Signing and Another Crazy Game

On Friday night after practice some of our team went to this big department store called Ahrens where there was a big sale and longer hours for the day. We set up a few tables in the athletic wear area and gave out team posters that we signed and had our team calendars for sale. Afterwards I walked downtown a bit with Lori and Sascha. There were tons of people out and the whole town was lit up with cool lights and there were shops and restaurants open late and things going on outside because of the beginning of Advent. It was really fun, and it made me wish that I had fam and friends here to share the experience with.


Yesterday we traveled NW to Chemnitz about 5 hours away. We were losing for most of the game but took the lead in the 3rd or 4th quarter. By the end of the 4th quarter 4 of our players had fouled out. At the end of the 4th we were down by 1 point and Mirka got fouled. She made 1 free throw and then in our next possession she was fouled again and this time made both free throws to put us up by 2 points. With 20 seconds to go, the best player on the other team fought to get open to get the ball and then fought her way to the basket and banked a shot in just in time for the buzzer to tie the game. In over time we were the ones shooting a majority of the free throws unlike during regulation where Chemnitz was always at the line. So we pulled off the win by about 7 points. The entire game seemed pretty unorganized which I'm not really used to and was pretty frustrating for me, but at least we got a win.

On the way to Chemnitz we stopped at a stop that used to be an area where people who were crossing from East to West Germany had to cross the border. It was really interesting and there was a little model image of the border patrol and highway. I think that only people from West Germany could cross the border and it was very strict. One of my teammates who is now 32 remembers crossing there when she was little. She was from Berlin which is in the East, but owned by West Germany and she remembers her dad being very protective of her at the time. It was a pretty interesting and humbling experience to learn about that history.