Gobble Gobble!

Before I get into the good stuff, let me just recap my trip to France. The trip itself wasen't too bad, as both travel days I slept on the planes/buses the majority of the time. We lost our game by 4. Needless to say it was a tough game that we felt we could have won. We just didn't bring the energy needed the whole game.

We put that behind us, and played a game on Saturday for our Lithuanian League. We won by a lot like usual, and got Sunday off which meant me and Amanda could finally make our Thanksgiving dinner for a couple team-mates!

Me and Amanda have had this planed for awhile, but finished our last minute shopping for it on Saturday (along with going to see the new Harry Potter movie).  Amanda is a huge HP fan, so she was much more excited then I was to see it.

Sunday had finally arrived, and off to cooking we went! Of course I was going to host the event, since my apartment is a bit bigger.. but my oven decided to stop working earlier this week... go figure! So I went to Amanda's figured out how to cook the turkey, and PRAYED it would turn out.

Back to my apartment to get the appetizers and some other food ready. I must say it was a great feeling to be blaring Christmas music, and cooking. I felt like a real suzy home-maker (no apron tho..). Two of our teammates came to celebrate with us, and we finally got all the food in one place, and shared our delicious meal with them. The menu was: Turkey, green bean casserole, twice baked potatoes, corn, rolls, and carrots. We also had deviled eggs and cheese and crackers for appetizers. Dessert was delicious brownies made by Amanda. We of course had to served them Budweiser, to have some sort of North American drink!

The only thing that did not work out so well, was the cranberry sauce.. still not sure on why it didn't but oh well! Happy everything else did!

We spent the rest of the evening playing card games. I have missed playing cards, and it was nice to have someone to play with and others who got equally as intense as I do! All and all it was a great day, and I am truly thankful for everything in my life. Everything in my life has taught me something, and I am grateful to be able to have opportunities that most people do not get to experience.

So now that Thanksgiving is officially done, the Christmas music is on full blast and 24 days till I am home for Christmas! :)

 Our game of spoons...Lots of yelling occurred...

 Me in front of the tree in the mall.. can't wait for Christmas!

 The feast :)

Right before we chowed down!

Until Next time,

Courtnay

Quick Update!

Just a quick update for all my followers out there.. (basically my parents and Leesa)!

We are off to France tomorrow, another hectic traveling schedule. We leave at 4 am, to drive to Vilnius and fly out early in the morning, and after a couple flights we get to France, and another 2 hour bus ride to our destination. On the way back, we leave early on Thursday morning after our game Wednesday night and do not arrive back until 2pm on Thursday. Such a quick travel for just one game, but another new country and city to visit!

We lost our last game in Euroleague against the Prague team. It was a closer game, but again our team did not play well and we just didn't get the job done.  We are hoping to rebound in France and get another win!

The only real excitement... well disappointment that has gone on this week, is me losing my wallet.  Don't worry my credit cards have been cancelled... BUT I freaked out a bit, not being able to find it. I went back to the store I last used it at, and it was no where to be found... not in my apartment, the car, or the gym.. :(. I apparently have the knack for losing things... although I am baffled how I lost my wallet this time.

Thankfully Amanda has let me run a tab on her, and once my new cards get sent over (HOPEFULLY SOON)! I will gladly be paying her back. It is frustrating not having any money, and now having to replace all the things lost in my wallet.. :(

First purchase when my new cards arrive.. a new wallet... I guess that's just how life goes...

I will update everyone soon after our trip to France!

Miss everyone, and I will be home soon! :)

Until next time,

Courtnay

Great Day! :)

So Today has been a great day, so I am even more inclined to actually pry myself away from watching movies or t.v shows online to finally sit down and blog!

So what have I been up to this past week... well I can't say its been too exciting, like other weeks but we did get to go to Istanbul, Turkey for a game. It is nice to travel to a new country every other week, and see the world! We unfortunately lost our game again, but we will rebound for a better game this week.

I did not get to explore Turkey like I did with Spain, as I elected to workout instead of go to the mall (go figure). I do have to say the fitness center in the hotel we stayed at was amazing! There was a full weight room, which I had to myself and jammed out while having a nice long lift. There was also a nice pool, sauna, and cardio room. I was pretty happy with my decision to workout, instead of spending money I don't really have.

I know it probably isin't entertaining to hear about how much I like the fitness center, but it was that note worthy to talk about. When we got back from Turkey on Thursday night, me and Amanda had an encounter with the cops, as we were pulled over for speeding. There are no signs posted anywhere about speed limits, so we didn't really know 50km was the limit... Needless to say we freaked out when we first saw the cop motioning for us to pull over, as we are always told to bribe the cops if you get pulled over. We didn't have to and everything worked out, but still had our hearts beating fast for awhile.

During our off day, me and Amanda went and saw the movie Unstoppable (the train movie). It was good, and always good to get out of are apartments. We also went to this Steak House before the movie, which all of you know my love for steak so we were very happy when we discovered this place. It was a neat experience, as you order the steak you want and then they bring the raw steak out on a hot marble slab and it cooks in front of you, and your free to take it off whenever its the way you like it!

Needless to say that will be a place that we will be going back to! We also have found some other interesting places to try some food. We found an upscale restaurant that we stumbled upon when driving around looking for a new place to try. It was attached to a hotel, and had a nice atmosphere to it. The food was good, but WAY TO SMALL of portions of food. Along with it being on the pricey side, we probably wont be going back there.

One of our favorite places to go is the Sandwich bar. Now this place is amazing, you can order many types of sandwiches and they make it for you on the best bread ever. It is served warm, which makes it that much better, and I usually get a smoothie to go with it. We go there at least once a week, and love it every time. Whats even better is that they have free wi-fi!!!

One of our most visited restaurants, is one of the sponsors of the team- Charlie Pizza. We normally go there after games, and use our 40% off card to get a quick, cheap meal. Me and my stomach do not get along with Lithuanian dairy for some reason, so i have had to expand my options away from Pizza, which is delicious at Charlie's, but its still got some good things for me to have!

We have also found this Burrito place, that we have not tried yet. The reason being that when we saw the sign for this place, we were so happy that we found a place in Lithuanian that makes burritos, as me and Amanda have both been craving a burrito from our respective homes. Naturally we went back to try this place the next time we could, and as we are getting closer to it.. we realize that it is a shack! Not a legit restaurant, but a shack. So at 9:30 at night after a long road trip, we decided that going up to a dark shack looking for "fresh" meat would not be a good idea.
     We will still try this place eventually, but maybe during normal hours of the day! Now all this food talk has got me hungry!

Now the real reason why I am so happy today, is because I received 3 packages today, and also found out my best friend from college (the one and only Jackie Thode- a.k.a my wife) is coming to visit me soon (about 3 weeks). The dates have not been finalized yet, but I AM ECSTATIC!
Now the packages, one was a gift I ordered that finally arrived, and then one package was from my dad and Nicolette- although it was a tad late it was full of fun Halloween goodies. Yes me and Amanda even listened to the 8 year old Monster Mash cd on our way to practice!
The last package was from my amazing SID Lisa from UVM! She sent me two Vermont shirts, and reminded me of my "roots". I am happily wearing one shirt as we speak!

So getting packages from people back home and in Vermont was great, and brightened my day up! I do miss everyone back home, and can't wait for Christmas to come to see everyone!

We have another Euroleague game tomorrow against the team from Prague, but luckily its at home and we did not have to travel this week! So its bed time for me!

Pictures will be coming on the next post...

Until next time,

Courtnay :)

The adventure continues..

I have to apologize for the lack of updates this past week. As most of you know, I have had a concussion this past week, so I haven't had the energy or will power to sit down and blog about life.

After our huge win, we played on Friday in the Lithuanian league and won our game by a lot like we were suppose to. We were scheduled to have one practice Saturday morning, and then off until Monday. I was very excited to have some time off and do some more exploring. Welllllll.. Plans changed as during practice on Saturday I was blindsided by a screen (set by my assistant coach who was practicing with us). I don't really know what hit what, but the combination of my nose and head hit her shoulder is my best guess.
Now... I dont like to make a spectacle of things when I get injured. I usually try and be too tough and walk it off, but there was no hiding this one. I just walked straight off the court. I literally thought I got hit by a bus or something!!! So after I got my nose to stop bleeding, I sat and watch the end of practice, thinking that I should just take it easy for today (yes I was going to try and get back into practice)!

Well once I got home, is when the hit really HIT me (haha). I immediately passed out, and stayed in my bed all day wanting my headache to disappear. This was true on Sunday as well, although I did force myself to get up and go to the Lithuanian zoo.... Lets just say there was not many animals out, and the zoo resembled something you would see in a horror movie, where its creepily quiet and dark.

Me and Amanda still found some fun in it, and enjoyed the few animals that were around.... Here are some pics of the zoo:

 The donkey, that took Amanda about 5 mins to get to look up and not look like he was being tortured!

 A lion, that was in a small cage all by himself.. no wonder he was just sitting there!

 Me being my goofball self, and posing for the camera!

The seal that didn't seem to be enjoying his life. I wouldn't either if I lived in that dirty water!!

On Tuesday morning (4am to be exact) our team met to drive to Vilnius- which is about and hour or so away, to go to the main airport and head off to Spain! It was my first road trip with the team, where we got to stay in a hotel and all that fun stuff! We flew from Vilnius to Amsterdam, we had about 4 hours in Amsterdam, so we got to explore a bit but mostly me and Amanda played cards the entire time. I am happy to find out that Amanda knows how to play Euchre, so I am sure we will teach some others on our team how to play!

We finally arrived in Salamanca, Spain. It was such a nice little city, and had a nice center that we got to explore a little bit before the game. It was also warmer, which was enjoyable :). We played Wednesday, and we lost the game by 20. It was not our teams best performance, we just were not hitting shots and allowed them to dictate the tempo of the game. I did not get to play in the game, as my head was still scrambled. I wonder how I made it through all 4 years at UVM with not missing a game!!!

I have to write about the atmosphere at the game. the arena was packed, and there were screaming fans, to blow horns, to big loud drums! It was a very loud gym!!!! My head did not appreciate this, and I had to sit and watch the game with cotton balls in my ears to drown some of the noise out. 

Here are some pictures of the team in Spain:

 Me and our team trainer Migle in front of some random statue.

 Part of the center.

 The center again.

Most of the team, before we adventured out.

We got back from Spain on Thursday afternoon, and practiced Friday and then had a game Saturday.  We won our game Saturday (it was a Lithuanian league game), but I must explain the gym we played in. It was interesting to say the least.. there was debris falling from the ceiling the whole game, and wasen't cleaned up. Also the gym was so small, that when you sat on the bench your feet were on the court. No it wasn't just a toe or something on the court, your knees and feet were clearly on the court, so the out of bounds was not really a factor!

We had Sunday off, so me and Amanda decided to go SKATING! Well its was more of me dragging Amanda to come. She has avoided skating all throughout her childhood, so I was determined to teach her how to! There is an indoor skating rink in the mall, so we somehow communicated with the people, and figured out how to pay and get the right size of skates. 

Skating brought me back to my younger years, and made me want to be able to skate on the canal in Ottawa, which i have not been able to do since I was a young kid. It was fun to teach Amanda, although I don't know how much she enjoyed the experience, but I still had fun. Im hoping we get to go again soon, Amanda was able to skate on her own at the end of it.. so maybe persuading her wont be so difficult!

Well Sorry for the long post! But it had been awhile, so lots to share! We are off to Istanbul, Turkey for a game this week, and I am happy to say that I have fully recovered, and will be practicing Monday.

Until next time,

Courtnay