Better late than never??

Yes I know I haven't updated since before Christmas and I am sorry for this. You ask why? Well its been a busy past few weeks. Since getting back to Iceland we have had 4 games (3 away and 1 at home) and I have taken over coaching an 8th grade girls team. The 8th grade team practices 4 times a week, which keeps me pretty busy. I am usually running from my practice to theirs every evening.

So to go back a few weeks...

I got back to Iceland on January 6th after spending about 20 days at home. My time at home went by way to fast but it was great to spend some quality time with my family and friends. My travels back to Iceland went as smooth as possible even with all the new international flight rules and extra security. I got back to Iceland at about 7am on the 6th. My plan was to go to my apartment and take a nap for a few hours and then get up and run a few errands before I went to practice. Well that plan didn't go so well when I completely slept through my alarm and didn't wake up till almost 5pm and had practice at 6. Lets just say I was lucky to wake up as I could have easily slept right through practice. Since then I have adjusted a little bit back to the time change but still not going to bed before about 2am. The good thing is I don't have to get up early and I usually sleep till about 10:45, so its really not to bad.

Like I mentioned earlier we have played 4 games since being back. We won the first game against Valur by about 20 points and I finished the game with a quadruple double. I had 25 points, 15 rebounds, 11 assists and 10 steals. The next game was against Njardvik, who had beat us earlier in OT, we won this game by almost 30! I finished the game with a triple double and had a first of my career by scoring 40 points. I also had 10 rebounds and 13 assists. After that we played away at Snaefell, which is a 3 hour bus drive and a trip I have been on too many times already. Lets just say its not one of my favorites places to travel to. But either way we were still able to pull out a 20 point win. Once again I finished the game with a triple double. To finish out the 4 games we traveled to Keflavik who we lost to earlier in the season by one. Lets just say this was our worst game of the 4 and we ended up losing. Our next game is tomorrow (Wednesday) and then we play again on Sunday in the Subway Cup semifinals.

In other news we added another player to our roster, she is from Denmark but played College basketball in the States at Dayton University. This has been a really nice addition to our team and I have really enjoyed playing with her.

Well that's an update on the Basketball aspect since I have been back in Iceland. I will post another update shortly with everything else that has been going on. I will leave you with a few pictures of the recent games...

Until next time have a great day and take care!

Welcoming the new player (Kiki Lund)

40 point game..

I got my bags packed..

The countdown is down to 65 hours, less than 3 days, and about 3,900 minutes! My bags are packed and waiting by the door. Before I leave I do have some unfinished business to take care of. We have a game on Wednesday against Hamar. A team we lost to over a month ago by 1 on a last second play. So it's going to be a pretty tough game and would be nice to get a win before the Holiday break!

I had a pretty fun and exciting weekend, starting with the All-Star game on Saturday. The game was at 1pm and all the Americans that were playing in the game were joking that it was only like 7am back home, so it was too early to play haha. Even with the earliness of the game, we still had a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the team I was on and I think we all had fun playing with each other! During half time of the game was a 3-point contest. Unfortunately after I had a great first round (16 out of 20), my second round of the contest wasn't so great, Oh well! During the second half of the All-Star I tried to make it a little more fun by attempting behind the back passes and such. Thank goodness my team had about a 20 point lead so when some of those passes didn't work out to well it wasn't a big deal. In the end, my team won 103-85 and I was awarded the MVP with 29 points, 13 boards and 10 assists. After the game I was informed that the person who makes the basket to break the 100 point mark is suppose to by a case for the team. Well I was that person who hit this basket and although I was all for buying the case they said I didn't have to since it was the All-Star game. I guess I lucked out even though I totally would have done it!

After the All-Star game I stayed around the gym to watch the Men's game before heading home to get a much needed nap before the evening festivities. Most of the American players got together on Saturday night and had a semi American party to celebrate the all-star weekend as well as our last weekend in Iceland before heading home for the Holidays! Needless to say it was a good thing we had Sunday off!

As for this week I am just trying to get everything taken care of before I leave on Thursday. Like I said I have my bags packed and everything like that. But I have a few other things to get done before I leave. Like I need to eat or get rid of some of the food in my fridge as I can't leave it in there for 3 weeks without it going bad. I also need to catch up on all my laundry so I don't leave any dirty clothes behind. Good news is my new Visa came in the mail so I don't have to worry about that anymore! Other than those things just a few little things here and there I need to get done that will hopefully allow the 65 hours to pass by faster! I am not sure when the next time I will update. I will try to get one in while I am home for the holidays but if not it won't be till January so have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

All Star Game

Winning team..

MVP

3-point Contest

Saturday night..

5 hours of daylight...

Well its 1:30 here in Iceland and due to the 50MPH gusts of wind outside I have choose to remain indoors today. Probably a good idea considering when I went to work out earlier I can honestly say without any exaggeration that the wind picked me up and moved me a little. It looked like a scene straight out of Winnie the Pooh, old school ones of course, and I think the exact name of the episode was the Blustery Day. Aside from that the days are getting much shorter here. I think the sun came up at 11:10am today and will set at approximately 3:30pm. Oh well I guess it could be worse and there could be no daylight at all.

This past week has been a pretty busy one, which has been nice as it has flown by for me! I spend the beginning of the week doing some Christmas shopping. Both Monday and Tuesday one of my teammates and I spent the days walking the malls and the main shopping street of downtown Reykjavik. I knocked out a big chunk of my list with many authentic Icelandic things, hopefully they will be big hits! On Wednesday we had a game in Stykkisholmur which is about 3 hours north of where I live. I am pretty sure we were in the backyard of Santa Clause but I didn't have any luck finding him. The good news is we found a win there which is what we wanted! I was one steal away from having a triple double as I finished the game with 32 points, 16 rebounds, 9 steals, and 5 assists. I think the 16 rebounds might be a career high for me, considering I never have been much of a rebounder until now.

This weekend is the men's and women's All-Star games along with a 3-point contest and a few other fun things. I was choose to participate in both the All-Star game and the 3-point contest, so I am looking forward to that and think it will be a fun weekend. It's also my last weekend until I go home for Christmas Break so that makes it exciting as well.

In 6 days almost to the hour I will be heading back to the States, although it will be 7 days when I actually get home to Springfield. And like the last time I wrote I am really looking forward to it. I did some serious packing yesterday and aside from the few things I have left to throw in the last minute I have practically everything I need packed.

Well I think that is all for now, just wanted to give a quick update. Until next time have a great weekend and take care!

Game against Snaefell..

Team Picture

Game against Snaefell..

14,400 Minutes and counting..

I will be coming home for Christmas break in a week and a half, or in other words ten days, or 24o hours, or 14,400 minutes... Well you get my point. I am excited for my trip home, to spend time with my family, hang out with my friends, and get to watch my Alma Mater's play (Kickapoo High School and Iowa State of course). I am also excited to be able to celebrate my first New Years without having basketball practice the next day, not sure where I will be celebrating at but just as a for warning it could get crazy...

Due to my recent counting down of the days till I head home, the last week went by somewhat slow for me. It didn't help that our midweek game was cancelled which slowed down the week even more for me. We were suppose to play an away game on Wednesday in a town that is about 3 hours to the north, but due to the snow/ice storm that decided to hit that day it was postponed until this week. Hopefully the weather cooperates this time!

This weekend was the first game of the Subway Cup, a lose and your out kind of tournament. We played host to Valur and after a less than impressive first quarter we were able to pull out the win and move on to the next round. Aside from the first quarter I thought we played a really good game, especially against their box and one defense they decided to play. I finished the game with 25 pts, 9 rebs, 6 asts, and 5 steals but more importantly we finished the game with the win!

After the game a couple of the parents planned a surprise mystery trip for the team. We received a list of things we needed to bring with us but had no idea where we were going, which only made the trip more fun. The list included the following: (see if you can guess where we were going before you continue reading)

-Swimsuit

-Make-up

-Comfortable Shoes

-Warm Clothes

-2,000 ISK (about 15 dollars)

-Alcoholic Beverages if desired

-We will leave at 3:45, no exceptions and be home by midnight

So any ideas on where we went? One of the most popular guesses was the Blue Lagoon but once we started driving we realized that was definitely not it as we were going in the opposite direction. First stop was the huge geothermal energy plant east of Reykjavik. We received a guided tour of that plant as well as a science lesson in how the plant exactly works. If you didn't know Geothermal energy is one of the "greenest" forms of energy production and something many other countries should look into. After that we jumped back in the van to continue the trip, we were starting to get a little restless in the car and there might have even been a few beer cans popped open but finally we made it to our next stop... the Riverside Spa in Selfoss. We spent a little over 2 hours at the spa, which was a pretty good deal for only having to pay 2,000 isk for it. It was so nice to relax at the Spa and enjoy some quality time with my teammates. I made my team play the question game while we were sitting in the HUGE hot tub. Questions included what everyone wanted for Christmas, What the traditional Christmas dinner included, and When everyone's birthday was. I think my favorite quote from the questions was during the answers of what people wanted for Christmas. A teammate of mine said she needed some stuff for her kitchen like a toaster and stuff. A few answers later someone said they were asking for a trip to Spain and Spanish school. We were all pretty amazed with this Christmas idea which is where the quote comes from... "Damn that sounds a lot more exciting than a toaster." It was probably one of those stories that you had to be there for but I wanted to share it anyways cause it made me laugh.

After the Spa we knew the next stop had to be food of some sort but we just didn't know where. Then the light bulb came on in one of my teammates heads and she asked the driver (A teammates Dad) if we were going to his families summer house, he quickly stuttered out an answer "umm we, we don't have a summer house". Everyone immediately started cheering as they knew that he did have a summer house and it was where our final destination was. Of course during the whole story above I had no idea what was going on (I am still working on my Icelandic) but I was soon informed, thanks!

We arrived at the summer house and the best way to describe it is kinda funny but as a winter cabin you would find in Wyoming. It was a beautiful log like cabin out in the middle of no where. The best part was when we stepped out of the van to walk inside, the Northern Lights were noticeably displayed across the sky. It was one of those "awe" moments in my life and even though some of my teammates made fun of me for my excitement level, I took every minute of them in.

The rest of the night we enjoyed a delicious dinner followed by an assortment of games. Some of the younger girls on the team tried to play a trick on me, but like most people know I am a pretty big trickster myself and its hard to trick me, which the rookies found out quickly. After that I organized a game of catch phrase, which ended up being a big hit and it was followed by a game of "actionary" before we finally called it a night and headed home. Overall it was a great trip and a lot of fun, there are some great parents out here that take care of us!

Other than that I have spent most of the past week throwing a few things here and there into my suitcase to start packing for home. As well as doing some research for my 13 hour lay over I have in NYC on my way home. I am planning on going down to Times Square and Rockefeller Center during this layover but gotta figure out all the fine details that starts with the train getting there, as well as finding somewhere to store my luggage... Still a few details to iron out but I think it will work out which I am excited about! I have also spent a lot of time lately looking online for Christmas gift ideas and trying to decide if I will wait till I get home to buy anything or if I should just order online. Tough decisions tough decisions. Which reminds me I am planning on doing a little shopping here in Iceland tomorrow, hopefully I can find a few things for a few people on my list.

Well I think that is all for now, I will leave you with some pictures and until next time have a great week, stay warm if you are in the Midwest as I hear there is a huge snow storm coming, and take care!

P.S. Follow me on twitter for more frequent updates Twitter

Group Photo

HUGE touch screen at the Geothermal Plant

The Spa..

Rookies trying to play a trick on me

Setting up Catch Phrase

Giving Thanks...

Happy Thanksgiving, a little belated but better late than never right? Well its been awhile since I have last updated and most of this blame goes to the fact I was entertaining guests for a week in Iceland. Yep you read right I had a couple great friends come out and visit me in the Land of Ice. A couple of my good friends from Iowa State decided to use their Thanksgiving break to come out and spend a week with me. It was so nice to have some friendly faces around and hang out with everyday.

The girls arrived on Friday the 20th at 6:30AM. I decided it would be a good idea to not go to bed that night and instead just stay up until I had to leave at about 6 to head to the airport. It worked out well until about 5:30 when I needed to splash some water on my face to stay awake, but once I started driving to the airport I was wide awake with excitement of their arrival. I actually had no idea that 2 people were coming and was very surprised when I saw both walk out to greet me!

Our adventures for the week started as soon as we were leaving the airport when I tried to pay the short term parking and it wouldn't let me. So after a few tries we had to go back inside and find help and finally we got it all figured out and were able to leave the airport. It was a perfect example of the daily struggles I encounter and we all got a good laugh out of it.

Once we got back to my apartment we all crashed and took a nap for about 4 hours. We then spent the afternoon driving around my town, going to the grocery store and things like that. As for that night my team had planned a big party for all us and then we hit up the downtown night life. Since we were only running on about 4 hours of sleep and the way Icelanders party by 5AM we were all dragging and ready to call it a night. Just when I was about to ask the girls if they wanted to call a cab to head home, I looked around and could only find one. Yep first night in Iceland with my American friends and I lost one. After about 30 minutes of searching the bars up and down the street and looking like a completely idiot she showed back up. I probably sounded like a mom when I told her she can't just run off like that in another Country without a source of communication and with that we called a cab and called it a night.

On Saturday I had practice at 3:30, which we almost over slept for but thank goodness for my default alarm that goes off everyday at 2:30. While I was at practice I let the girls use my car so they could drive around and explore. After practice we all got ready and decided to give an Icelandic Restaurant a try. So we did some research online and decided on one in downtown Reykjavik. I think we made a good choice as well all enjoyed our dinner and left the place stuffed and satisfied. We were unsure on what to do for the rest of the night and at about 11 we just decided to go sit at a bar downtown and have a few drinks. When we got to the first bar it we were 3 of the almost 7 people in the place. Like I have mentioned before, people don't go out over here till about 1:30, so we were about 2 hours early and it definitely showed. But we didn't care we just wanted to relax. We decided we would just have a drink at every bar we came to along the street, this only worked out for about 3 bars and after that is turned into a crazy night that only appropriately ended with me losing my wallet. Yep I got all the way back to my apartment to only realize I lost my wallet so I turned back around and headed back downtown at 7am. After checking every bar that we were in and lastly the pizza place we stopped at not once but twice that night I decided I wasn't going to find it and headed home. It was almost 8am and since my wallet had everything from my Debit cards, credit card, license, visa, etc. I decided to make some phone calls to get some of those things taken care of. I cancelled all my bank cards and got some preliminary information about how to obtain a new visa and with that I finally could relax and go to sleep at 8:45 AM that is.

We decided to take Sunday easy and sleep in. The only thing we really had planned was to go watch Rahshon's basketball game that evening, which he won and played very well. We headed to bed early on Sunday night as we had a big day of sightseeing planned for Monday.

We got up at about 7:30 on Monday morning, which I think that is the earliest I have gotten up since I have been here. It was still pitch black outside and stayed the way till almost 10:30. We decided to take a little sightseeing trip of the southern coast of Iceland. We first drove all the way to a town called Vik. (Look below for pictures) We got to Vik just as the sun was rising which we could have planned any better (even though we didn't plan it) Vik is a town right on the coast with a black sand beach and it was so beautiful to see the sunrise from the beach. Definitely a picture perfect sunrise. There is also some rock like things out in the water that reminds me of Peter Pan every time I see them. I am not sure if anyone else agrees with me but that's ok its my childhood imagination coming out of me.

After Vik we headed back the way we came to catch all the Waterfalls that southern Iceland has to offer, which is a lot (and a lot is an understatement). We stopped at as many as we could and took lots of pictures. We packed a picnic lunch that we enjoyed halfway through the trip and after about 5 stops at waterfalls, 1000 stairs (and thats not an exaggeration, we counted), a couple barb wired fences jumped, and frozen fingers we were ready to head home. The only last stops we made on the way back were to take pictures of the Icelandic horses and sheep, and to stop at the grocery store to pick up something to cook for dinner. Although we did encounter a unexpected stop when the lovely Icelandic police pulled me over for speeding. Losing my wallet was a blessing in disguise because it is practically what got me out of the almost $300 dollar speeding ticket. I would like to make the case that I was only going about 75 MPH, which over here is about 20 MPH over the speed limit, oops.

We finally made it back home at about 4:30. I had practice at 6 and while I was at practice the girls began cooking the big dinner we had planned. We decided to cook our own thanksgiving and I would have to admit we did a pretty damn good job of it. The menu was the following: Mac and Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Stuffing, Corn, Rolls, Layered Salad, and finally a whole chicken (we tried to find a turkey but didn't have any luck). We definitely had leftovers that we enjoyed the rest of the week.

On Tuesday we slept in a little bit and then hit up the Blue Lagoon. I didn't really know what to expect at the Blue Lagoon but I had heard nothing but good stories and if you don't know what it is check out this Link. The Blue Lagoon was definitely everything it had been talked up to be and it was such a cool experience, something I will always remember.

On Wednesday we decided to go to the restaurant I usually eat at for lunch. As usual the food was very good and I think the girls enjoyed having some more Icelandic food. We then did a little shopping before I had to get back home to get ready for my game that evening. Unfortunately the girls didn't get to see the best game as we lost but it was still nice to have them in the stands at the game. My team even surprised them with some t-shirts for the game that they wore proudly.

Thursday was the day they left and I took them to the airport that afternoon. It was a little sad telling them bye as I had really enjoyed their company the past week, but I was so thankful that they came and visited, it really meant a lot! On Thursday night, what I like to call my Host Family (the family that lives above me and who's daughter plays on the team) cooked me a HUGE Thanksgiving dinner. It was so nice of them, not to mention absolutely delicious. I am very lucky and thankful to have such amazing people surrounding me over here and that would do something like this. On a day like Thanksgiving where I was missing being with my family and my friends had just left, they did a great job of filling a piece of that void and I am internally grateful for that.

Aside from all of that the past few days here have been much more relaxing and uneventful. On Saturday I woke up to a very light blanket of snow on the ground that made me smile when I saw it. But when I woke up this morning that light blanket of know turned into a heavy cover of about 3-4 inches, but it still made me smile. Just something about snow that brings a smile to my face, I think it dates back to my childhood of playing in it and loving snow days! We also had a game today against undefeated and top of the league KR that didn't go so well. And I am currently sitting on the couch icing some very sore knees from it and listening to Christmas music (since officially I can start doing that!)

Well this update has quickly turned in a short novel and if I didn't lose any readers yet I probably will soon so I better end it. I hope you enjoy all the pictures below, they are worth all the reading you just did I promise....

They arrived!

All their luggage..

We are about to nap its 8am and we haven't slept yet

Touring the city..

Our cups for the evening

The Americans

Friday Night Group Photo

Saturday night, we met a friend..

Sunday night at Rahshon's game (sorry can get the pic turned)

At the Black Beach

The view that makes me think of Peter Pan

Waterfall

904 stairs..

We trespassed to get to this one...

Picnic

This one was freezing

Horses

I was going a little faster than this...

Blue Lagoon

And then we said Goodbye..

Flurries in the forecast... BRRR

Hello again from Iceland. Its starting to get pretty cold here and the need for a warm winter coat is in full swing. Thank goodness I have a friend coming to visit this Friday and she is bringing me one! I am hoping this week goes by fast because I am ready for my friend to get here. We went to Iowa State together the past 3 years and became really good friends over the years. So I am really pumped she is coming all the way to Iceland during her Thanksgiving break to visit. I already have a list of things for us to do and that doesn't even count the random things we will do spur of the moment.

So back to last week, on Tuesday I went with one of my teammates and her sister and friends to see the LeBron James movie. I was actually really surprised cause the movie was really good, definitely brought back memories of my childhood basketball days and playing AAU. The movie really concentrated on the 3 guys that James grew up with and played AAU with every summer and then went on to play High School ball together as well. This really made me think back to my AAU days and have the rare opportunity to play with the same girls from when I was 9 years old till I was 16. That doesn't happen to often and I was blessed to be able to do that. It was cool to see the real game footage of LeBron's AAU team and see them play in gym, I myself had played in. Anyways not to ruin the whole movie, I recommend you go see it.

On Wednesday we had another game that we ended up losing in OT. I fouled out in the fourth quarter of the game, which really sucked and made me feel like I let down my team. Guess I better be a little more careful from now on with my fouls. On Thursday we had the day off but had to go to the local mall to help set up for a Christmas show (at least I think that's what we were setting up for, I am not really sure) Anyways we had to set up over 300 theater like seats. Lets just says after the 2.5 hours we were all dead tired and it no longer felt like we had the day off. So a couple of my teammates and I rewarded ourselves with our hard work by going to TGI Fridays for dinner. Once again it was amazing! Friday was a pretty uneventful day, as I didn't do a whole lot besides the typical workout, go to lunch and then go to practice. On Saturday we had a workout at the local fitness club at 10am and then had the rest of the day off. After the workout I definitely came back home and took a nap before I went and worked a boys basketball game. Which brings me to a short story about the game. The boys were about 16 years old and I know at that age guys can start to get a little cocky and have some attitude problems but I have never one as bad as one of the guys playing. Lets just say if I was his coach I would have pulled him out of the game sometime during the first half and wouldn't have put him back in. The kid got the ball stolen from him from a much smaller guy and then proceeded to shove him in the back at full speed, strike 1 for him from me. Strike 2 came when he seemed to be SOO tired that he couldn't even play defense but once his team was on offense its like he had all the energy in the world. But strike 3 was by far the worse. It was about 2 minutes left in the game and the other team was winning by almost 20. So this guy gets a steal and what looks like it would be a wide open dunk for him turned into a kid on the other team chasing him down and fouling him by reaching to slap the ball away. It wasn't a dirty foul by any means but this guy definitely thought it was so he shoved the kid to the ground and then reared back like he was going to punch him. Thankfully the ref stepped in and grabbed the guy. The guy was removed from the game but wasn't given a technical which I am still surprised by but I guess that is the least of my worries. I am more worried about the guy and his attitude problems, definitely did not make a good impression on me.

Anyways on Saturday night me and a couple of the Americans (Rahshon Clark formed Iowa State Cyclones and Kristi Smith former player at that other school in Iowa, yes there is a little Iowa State/Iowa rivalry over here as well.) went out in downtown Reykjavik. We stayed out till almost 5 am and then came back to my apartment and crashed. It was a fun night out and the next day the three of us went out to lunch and were able to look back at the night and laugh. Definitely made me feel like I was back in the States, as I always enjoyed going to Village Inn on a Sunday morning after a long night out on Saturday :). The rest of my Sunday I spent relaxing and cleaning my apartment. I was also able to watch the Iowa State women win their first official game vs. Florida Atlantic. Before the game started our Elite 8 banner from last year was dropped inside Hilton Coliseum. Although I wished I would have been able to see it in person, at least I got to catch it online. I still look back on last years season and can't believe everything we accomplished. And every now and then I watch this video and I still get goosebumps from it all! I ended my Sunday by watching the Patriots vs Colts football game. I am a HUGE Peyton Manning fan but was a little worried when I finally had to turn off the game due to not being able to keep my eyes open and the Colts were losing by 14 in the 4th quarter. It definitely made my morning to wake up and find out the Colts came back to win 34-35. I guessed I missed a great ending and a typical Peyton being Peyton leading his team to victory with less than 2 minutes in the game. A prime reason why I love him!

As for today, I think the weekend caught up with me as I slept in way to long, but I am really not complaining. Once I finally got up I went and worked out, then relaxed a little before I headed to practice. After practice I went a ran one of the younger team's practices and then went and watched the first half of our junior teams game. A lot of the girls that play on my team also play on the junior team so its nice to be able to support them in those games. As for now I am laying on my couch watching the Kentucky Men's team play on ESPN 360, and surprisingly they are getting beat by 15 right now by Miami, Ohio. So far I am not TOO impressed with Kentucky freshman John Wall, maybe a little to much hype around this young guy. This could be a good game and a great example of College Basketball.

Well I think that is all I have for now. I hope you all have a great week and until next time have a great week and take care! Also a special congrats to the Iowa State football team as with their win this past weekend the became Bowl Eligible, the first time since 2005. Gotta love Coach Rhoads and what he has done with this program already! Good luck to them this weekend as they travel down to Missouri to take on the Tigers. And I will be honest I have yet to decide who I am cheering for. Once a Cyclone always a Cyclone but I am also Mizzou born and raised!

Most recent game..(not a great pic though)

Got a nice package from my friend Kiley with some Athletic training supplies and

some South Dakota gear that I am definitely supporting!

Writers Block...

I know what you are thinking, "She said she would update twice a week and its almost been two weeks and nothing". I am sorry for this, I have been distracted, busy and also suffered from writers block in there a few times as well. There was about 3 instances I sat down to update and just didn't know what to write about but I am ready to talk now...

Lets see since the last time I updated we had just lost a close game at Hamar and I was coming down with a cold. Well I ended up going to the doctor and being diagnosed with a sinus infection and sent home with some antibiotics. This was a relief to my Coach who was worried I might have come down with the swine flu. Thankfully before I left to come here I took the 10 pill tamiflu vaccination that I had saved from my college days. So hopefully this means I am clear of the swine flu which is going around over here just like it is back home. Because I was sick I spent that weekend curled up in my bed or on my couch just watching movies and recovering. I finally started to feel better by Monday and by Tuesday all I had was a slight cough.

Every week day I have been going to the restaurant I mentioned in my last blog, and so far so good. Although I have no idea what I am eating because it changes everyday and I have yet to find the sign that says what the special of the day is. Honestly I don't think there is a sign so I gave up on trying to figure it out. One day last week I had a very delicious casserole at the restaurant but no idea what it was or what was in it. I also attempted to try some fish one day and after about 10 bites I decided I really didn't like it, but hey at least I gave it a try. Today was a fish day at the restaurant as well but this time I decided to just stick with the soup and salad. Also last week I found the tanning beds here and bought a package. I was impressed to find out that they have some really nice tanning beds, like the huge ones that have air conditioning in them. Lets just say I think I came out ahead in the deal as far as price compared to those beds back home, so I was definitely pretty pumped about this. I have gone 3 times so far and my teammates are already jealous of my tan. Some where in my life I have acquired the ability to tan easy, which is definitely coming in handy.

On Wednesday we had a home game against Valur and if you would look at the stats after the game you would ask how did we win, as we were out rebounded by almost 20 and turned the ball over about 25 times but still won by about 15 points. I had a triple double for the game with 36 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. With the win we are now in third place in the league and still a lot of games to be played.

On Thursday my Coach had 4 tickets to the Premier of 2012, so a couple teammates and myself went and saw the movie. Funny story about this was about halfway through the movie the lights come on and everybody grabbed there jackets and headed out of the theater room. I was confused as this has never happened to me in a movie. My first thought when the lights came on was that there was something wrong with the movie film and they needed to fix it, but when every got up I immediately thought that the movie was over. Since it was a premier and the movie doesn't officially come out till later, I wondered it we only got to watch half of it. But I soon realized that this was just intermission and the movie started back up about 15 minutes later. And in the end I thought the movie was pretty decent, although there were some definite unrealistic parts.

Other than all of that I have just been staying busy with whatever I can find to do. I have gotten on a new schedule where I actually get up before noon here which has been nice. I try and get up around 11 and I go workout, after that I go have lunch at the restaurant, I then run any errands I have, then take a nap before I head to practice. With day light savings time back home I went from being 5 hours ahead of central time to 6 hours, which I am trying to adjust to a little. It doesn't really affect my sleep habits but mainly just the ability to keep in contact with friends back home.

I have one final story that happened last week that was pretty funny. I was doing laundry at the gym like I always do. I had quite of bit of laundry on this day because I decided since I had been sick to wash my sheets and stuff like that, so I needed to do two loads of laundry instead of just one. Well there are two washers at the gym and although I have only used one I figured I could use the other one as well and it couldn't be to hard to figure out. Well unfortunately I was wrong because after an hour and half my clothes were still inside the washer, just sitting there and the door was locked. So I decided I would just turn the washer off and let it sit for a few minutes and hopefully it would give me back my clothes. When I came back in the laundry room the washer had finally unlocked the door but the problem now was that there was water all over the floor. I had some how just flooded the laundry room. So I close the door and start looking for any towels I could find to clean up the mess. My other load of laundry was done and in the dryer so I decided to throw the clothes that had been held hostage in the other washer along with all the towels I had just used and just rewashed them. Finally after about 4 hours, a flooded laundry room, and a few trips back and forth to the gym, all my laundry was clean and dry, what a relief. And come to find out when I went to do my laundry yesterday, the one washer is out of order. So I have come to the conclusion that it really wasn't my fault and that the washer was indeed broke.

Well I think that is all for now. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures to share with you this time, hopefully next time I update I will have more. And until then I hope you have a great week and take care!

Highlighted my hair..

Sunday Nachos..

Beautiful view...