Pictures! See text below in previous entry!

Big Flower Dog!

Overlooking Gijon

Relaxing before the wine tour

Beautiful day at the top of Naranco

Fun shot

After our game :)

Coaching the Kids!

Second winery

Wine tasting :)

Big Barrels!

Meredith, Robin, and I in front of the Cathedral in Oviedo

The first winery in La Rioja

Visitors!

Early morning Physical Therapy

Wow, well a lot has happened since I last blogged! For one, my computer died on me so I have not had a computer to use that often. As far as basketball goes we are now 18-0. Last nights game was a Derby against Gijon which is about 30 minutes away. Our coach got ejected out of the team about three minutes into the second half because he was yelling at the scorers table for messing up the 24 second shot clock. He thought that they were cheating. We don´t really have an assistant coach so we were left to coach ourselves for the last half of the game. We ended up winning by 20! Tomorrow we will head to Madrid for the University tournament. If we win on Tuesday we will play again on Wednesday. It should be a good expereince, so I am excited. I have been progressivley putting more pressure on my leg while still walking with crutches, and I should be walking normally starting tomorrow. I have been able to do pool workouts and bike workouts for the last week or so, and that has been nice to do some sort of physical activity! It has definately been a long process, but I don´t want to rush it!

Meredith & I in Gijon

Meredith, Robin, and I in the Igelsia de Santa Maria Naranco

I had five visitors over a period of 9 days, including my roommate from college and my sister and her three friends. We rented a car and had a great time exploring northern Spain. Before my sister Robin and her three friends got here, Meredith and I went to Gijon so she could see the city on the water. Once, all six of us were together, we started out by touring Oviedo, and then we drove to La Rioja which is one of the famous wine vineyard areas of Spain. Marla had set up two wine tours, which were amazing! I had never been on a wine tour before so it was really interesting to see the wine making process, and taste all the different types of wine. One thing that I did not realize is that in Spain, most of the wine makers are female! We got to have lunch with the wine maker of one of the wineries so that was great. From there we stopped in Vitoria, Spain to see one of our friends basketball games, and then moved on to San Sebastian which is right on the border of Spain and France. It was a gorgeous city right on the water. On the way back, we stopped at the Guggeheim museum in Bilbao, and then returned to Oviedo. It was a lot of traveling for a few days, but definately worth it! Once we got back to Oviedo, I tooke them to see Cabo de Penas, which is the Northern most tip of Asturias which huge cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Then we made our way to Cudierllo which was a precious little town tucked away in a hill side. There is only one road, and then to get to the houses there are staircases that weave through the town. We also had one of the best meals there, and they got to try the Asturian Fabada which is a famous bean soup that is delicious! It was great having a car because we could just go anywhere we wanted! After all theh visitors left, I got back into my normal routine of going to Physical Therpay midday, instead of 9am, so we could have the whole day to explore :) My knee is definately making progess each day, I am just doing my best to stay patient!

Happy Superbowl Sunday!

My team warming up outside on a beautiful morning!

Well we just started the second half of the season! We will go in the same order as the first half, but if we played away then we will play the same team at home, and vice versa. We won yesterday evening so we are now 14-0, also meaning that we beat every single team in the league, and so far, one team twice. I have played in a total of four games, and only one healthy. Not exactly what I had planned for my first season overseas, but I am staying positive! This coming Wednesday will be the three week mark from surgery. I am still using crutches, and have gotten pretty used to them. I go to physical therapy every day to strengthen my quad and work on flexibility. I will go and see the same surgeon a week from tomorrow so he can give me an injection of something to help rebuild cartilage. While going to physical therapy I met a school teacher who invited me to come speak in his class about Alaska. The kids are between 3 and 4 years old, so cute! I went there last Friday to meet them and see how the class was set up. I will go back on Thursday to tell the kids a story about Alaska, in Spanish of course. I am looking

Game on 2/5 vs. Burgos in our new gym

forward to it though, and I hope to get a few pictures with the classes. I believe I will be speaking in front of about 60 kids. Speaking of kids, I won with my little kids team yesterday, and we lost to the same team in the beginning of the season, so that shows improvement! The weather here has been getting better each day! Today was 65 degrees out, so I went to the park and read for a little bit. It is supposed to be in the 60's all week, so I hope the weather holds until my visitors come in a few weeks! I love my Spanish class at the University. Basically our teacher just gives paragraphs in English and we have to translate it to Spanish. We do it on our own and then we bring it to class for him to go over. I have my first coming up so I hope I do well! Anyways, I am sure that it is going to be weird to walk again after 4 weeks of not stepping on my right leg, but I am looking forward to it! As you can see in the pic both the mens team and womens team will be playing in our new gym. The new facility also as a great gym with weights, treadmills, and  a Finnish sauna :) I used it on Friday at practice and it was great to sweat, because it is hard for me to do that with out running! Although sometimes I do get a good workout crutching up hills, doing abs, and all other exercises I do with out stepping!!! I have been looking for a place to watch the Superbowl, but no luck yet! It is only at 12:30 here, so I will probably miss it! Everyone else enjoy it for me, and all the junk food I am sure you will all be eating(Meredith)!!!!!

Crutchin is a Habit!!!!!

Yesterday marked one week since my surgery! I am starting to get used to the crutches, which is good because the first few days, my hands were incredibly sore! The weather has been great here, sunny and still no snow! Definitely the mildest winter that I have had between living in Alaska and Boston for the past 21 years of my life! I have been going to Physical Therapy to help keep my quadricep strong. Today I went and bought a dictionary to help Spanish people learn English. I figure that I need to be productive since I have a LOT of free time now days. Thought it might be interesting to get a dictionary to learn it "backwards." I was talking to my physical therapist about the different between South American-Spanish and Spain-Spanish as well as the difference between North American-English and Old English like from England. She is from Argentina and was explaining how is it easier for her to understand North American-English than Old English, yet for Spainards, it is way easier for them to understand Old English. I have heard from my teammates many times that I am hard to understand, but that might just be because I talk too fast :) There are certain letters like the G, J, and Z, that are pronounced differently in South America. I, too, think that it is easier to understand South American Spanish or Mexican-Spanish. My team won our game this past Sunday 69-57 in Aviles. The picture above is during a timeout at this game. It was one of our closer games so it was a big win for us. We are now 12-0 and have one more team to play in the first round of games, which means we are almost halfway through the season! Crazy how time is flying here! Hope all is well with everyone who sees this!!!!

A few pictures!

Before getting into my nice blue dressing for surgery!

Yes, the nurses really asked me to put "Si and No" on my legs just to make sure they did not operate on the wrong one!

Tina and I hanging out before the surgery!

Having some fun with my pretty blue dress :)

Surgery!

I recently got home from my first surgery experience ever! I had to go in on early Wednesday morning for pre-operation testing and then received the surgery Wednesday afternoon which took only about 45 minutes. I was numbed from the hips down, so that was interesting! I was pretty awake for the whole thing too. I thought that the anesthesia hadn't kicked in yet when they started moving around my leg, which I couldn't see because there was a sheet covering it. I told the doctor, um I still have some sensation....and he proceeded to tell me that they were already inside of me going to work! Three of my teammates came to see me before and after the surgery which was really nice of them. I had to stay the night there one night so that the nurses could look after me and all that good stuff :) Turns out that my posterior/external meniscus was torn, so that was removed. It also turned out that my cartilage is still injured so he had to do a mini version of micro-fracture surgery. That involved drilling small holes into the bone, causing it to bleed which is supposed to encourage cartilage growth. As I am writing this, the man who performed the surgery just called me, to make sure I was okay and to see if I had any questions, so that was nice! I have also got a few calls from my little girls team's parents. I won't be able to coach them for a while in practice, although I am going to coach them in the this coming game on Saturday. I will be out longer than I expected, as I cannot even walk or put any pressure on my right leg for 3-4 weeks. I hope the time flies! I do have purple crutches though :) My team won our last game against Salamanca, the second ranked team in out league. Now we play the 3rd ranked team in our league on Sunday in Aviles. I am excited and hope that we win! Weather has been pretty nice here, sunny, but a little on the chilly side. No snow yet though! My roommate from college, Meredith, will be here on February 19th, and then my sister and 3 of her friends on the 22nd of February. I am pretty excited! The picture is of me and my team Lara after coming back from the hospital! Thanks for the sweater mom! :)

Back in Oviedo

After a few long days of traveling I am finally back "home." Just getting back into the routine of practice, coaching my kids team and practice. As a matter of fact, I just got done with coaching the kids and one of them informed me that we were on You Tube. The first guy, who we call Ferdi, is one of the organizers for the Oviedo Club Baloncesto organization. He is talking about the different teams and levels under this Club, and about different coaches. Here is the link:

I had a great time in Mexico with my family and I am missing the warm weather! Although I really cannot complain because it is in the 50's here with no snow! We play the Salamanca, the 2nd place team, on Saturday. They are 8-1. So far we are undefeated at 10-0. I doubt I will be playing because I am waiting to hear about when my arthroscopic surgery will be to repair my meniscus. Definitely has been a frustrating process, but I am learning a lot from it...I finally found a coffee shop today that makes different types of coffees other than cafe con leche! They have lattes, mochas, and things with chocolate:) I will be going there often now! On January 2nd the passed a new law for all of Spain where you cannot smoke indoors. It has been very odd going into restaurants and bars when there is no smoke! I went to a bar the other night that I go to often and I talked to the owner about the change. He says it keeps the place a lot cleaner, but that business has dropped tremendously. I am looking forward to next month because I will have 4 of my girlfriends visiting me including my sister! I am off to dinner, but I am going to get back into updating this for whoever reads it!