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

HUGE WIN!

Our team had our first Euro League game yesterday, and we were in tough. We were playing the 4 time defending champions of the league.. so basically the best team in Europe! Nothing like starting with the best!

Now, I cannot go into full detail about the game, but it was one of the better games I have been involved in. We won by 2 on a buzzer beater layup! We were up the whole game and then they rallied back to tie it, and then we made the layup to win the game... It was a HUGE upset, and nobody expected us to compete.. let alone win! Our team rushed the court like we just won a National Championship!

Mind you there team was missing two of their best players, but they still had 2 WNBA players, and some really good Russian national team players, and our team does not have any WNBA players.. but we played as a team and prevailed! We got rewarded with a day off today, so that was nice. We have a Lithuanian league game tomorrow, so another chance to play! :)

 The Dog Pile that ensued after we won the game!

Me playing in the game, a nice action shot. 

Here is a link to the story about our game, you can scroll to the end of the page and watch the video of the layup!

http://www.basketnews.lt/news-33752-bimbaite-ir-vici-aistes-parklupde-daugkartines-eurolygos-cempiones-video-foto-komentarai.html

Well thats all for now,  hope everyone is well back in North America!

Until next time,

Courtnay

Differences

So,

I figured i'd write a little bit about the differences between Lithuania and North America. Although the difference are not big, some of them are quite funny.  One of the ones I have been meaning to write about is the fact that when you walk into a mall or a grocery store here, it is not so easy as you'd think!
Two situations occur... One you either have to enter on the left through automated doors, and then instead of walking straight through the next set of doors, you have to walk to the right and enter where you in North America would be exiting... weird! Of course there are obstacles in your way.. like 5 atm's so it just doesn't make any sense! The second thing that could occur, would be the sliding doors open up as you approach, but only open a bit making it hard for two people to fit through at the same time. Again it just doesn't make any sense.

Another difference is the way that sex appeal is displayed. We were at a team dinner at our trainers house, and we got a gift for her husband who was cooking for us. We gave him a set of shot glasses... normal enough, except they were shaped like nude women. I was shocked that we were giving a married man something like that. I would expect that at a college party, or a bachelor party. He loved the shot glasses, and explained to me that this was totally normal.

Also there are many what I would call racy photos around the city, even in our weight room we have pictures of girls or guys that you would NEVER see in North America unless your reading a magazine from the top shelf! Also I have seen multiple shirts that have naked women on them in clothing stores. I do not think that would be okay in North America.

Another difference, is the fact that when driving you have to stop ANYTIME for pedestrians, whether there is a crosswalk or not. As your driving you have to slam on the breaks as someone comes sauntering across 4 lanes of traffic. Now yielding to pedestrians is not something we don't do in North America, but we also do not take it to this level. We have been warned many times from the girls, that the cops in Kaunas will pull you over and ticket you for not doing it.

That brings me to my next point. With this warning about being pulled over for not stopping for pedestrians, we were also warned about the police. We were told that if we ever got pulled over to call our team manager, because all they want is a bribe. So if we ever get pulled over, I will be sure to pull some money out to give to the cop, so no trouble occurs. Could you imagine handing over money to a police man in North America??!?!!

One difference, which really isn't that big of a deal, but for some reason bothers me every time is the amount of receipts you get after a purchase!! I literally get 3 or 4 receipts every time I go to any type of store... Again not that big of a deal, but has become one of my pet peeves. Also when you get change back from the cashier, they do not hand it to you.. they religiously put it on a plastic table thing for you to take along with your pile of receipts.

5...3...2

 

5 3 2.. Let me tell you..... this drill has been the death of me and Amanda the past couple days. We have had to do this drill at the end of the practice the past couple days, and it has provided some frustrating times, but also a good blog opportunity. The drill itself is not to difficult, two players take alternating shots and you have to hit 5 middle shots, then 3 threes and then 2 fouls shots. You have to hit them all in a row, so 10 shots in a row.  Of course anytime there is partner stuff Amanda and I go together. The first time we had to do this drill it took us 45 mins to finish. (I am not lying….or exaggerating!) Our partnership was the last to leave, and everyone was already in the locker room changed and ready to leave. They all laughed a little at us for taking so long.

Now I know Amanda and I are good shooters, but it was a case of us not being on the same page. I would hit my shots, and she would miss and then she would hit her shots and then I would miss. It was just not working out to our advantage. We have since done this drill about 3 more times.. and yes the same result, us being the last pair to finish. I find it a bit funny now that I look back on it, but needless to say Amanda and I were frustrated while doing it.

Now that I have shared my fond memories of 5 3 2, let me tell you about my weekend. On Saturday I went to my first movie here in Lithuania. Yes the movie was in English, but it had Lithuanian subtitiles. I saw the social network movie, and I quite enjoyed it but the fact that we have movies being made about facebook shows just how much society is reliant on technology. We have a movie making money off how a internet site was made, I wonder what my kids will grow up with, that I will think is ridiculous!

Sunday, Amanda and I went to the center to walk around. The shops were closed because it was Sunday, but it was nice to go see it, and we got to eat at a nice restaurant (even though the service was SOOO slow). We will be adventuring down there when we have a day off during the week, for some serious shopping.

We then spent the day in my apartment, where we started off by baking cookie and brownies. Now we had some difficulties…..like the directions for the cookies being in German… not Lithuanian…and the cookie sheet not fitting in the over, OR having to put cardboard in the oven (? Who knew that was normal for brownies)? The cookies did not turn out so well, but still eatable. The brownies turned out great and we shared them with our team the next day.

While these goodies were cooking, we started carving out pumpkins! Now I don’t remember the last time I actually carved a pumpkin, let alone was able to celebrate Halloween. Amanda was VERY excited to start, so she was in beast mode the whole time we were carving. I on the other hand was not as excited, but still had a lot of fun carving my pumpkin and I am happy with the way it ended up. (note- Halloween in Lithuania is Nov 1st, and is a somber day.. no costumes, but instead go to church and pray).

We also had big daddy playing in the background, so I was happy about watching this movie, as it truly is one of the funnier movies I have seen!

We ended the evening with cooking a nice meal for us, and then we had to end our lovely weekend and get ready for the week ahead of us.  I know this is a long blog, so props to those who have read the entire thing! 

Now here are some pictures of this lovely weekend!

 

Me on a bridge with the view behind me.

 Me posing with a bench in the center

 Amanda and I drive by this everyday, so we had to take a photo.. I think we will go towards Kaunas.. were we live

 Me being me, and being silly. I do love this photo!

 A random statue, but nice view behind it.

 A statue in the center.

 I was not impressed with taking all the insides out of the pumpkin... Forgot how long it takes!

 Amanda And I with our pumpkins! I think we did a great job.

 A great Saturday evening! A puzzle, and some American beer along with listening to the Texas football game! Doesn't get much better then this!

 A view of the city.

 Waaaaaay to excited to start baking.

 The center.. It reminds me so much of Church St in Burlington, just longer!

 Kitchen full of goodies!!

I saved this picture for last for a reason. This is the BIGGEST bottle of alcohol I have ever seen! I thought we take drinking seriously... apparently in Europe this is OK to sell???? 

Well That is a nice recap of my adventures so far... Here are a couple links to some videos of the photo shoot, so you can see some behind the scenes of that day.

http://tv.delfi.lt/video/Q5ZAXWYz/

http://www.basketnews.lt/news-33418-lmkl-rinks-zaviausia-krepsininke-foto-video.html

Until next time,

Courtnay