Pavia

So I have been living here for almost two weeks now. Things are still going very well. I like it here more and more as I get more comfortable with the city and the area. Right now it is kind of a grind having two-a-days. I get pretty wiped out, but it isn't too much to handle. An average day for me looks like this....

8:00 am: Wake up and have breakfast
9:00 am: Either conditioning, agility, and abs or weights and a bball workout afterwards.
1:00 pm: Make myself soemthing to eat. Typically pasta with chicken and fruit or if I am too tired to make food I might just have a pizza. After I am done eating I will go online and either talk to friends/family or watch a movie or something.
4:30 or 7:00: Practice. There is a professioinal women's volleyball team here in Pavia and we share a gym with them, so we will either have early or late practice.
10:30 pm: (If I have late practice) Make dinner, eat, go online for a little while, and then go to bed and do it all over the next day.

We haven't had a day off yet so I have not been able to travel anywhere outside of the city. I did get a little tour of Pavia from a teammate one afternoon though. Pavia is a nice city with many old buildings which gives it a great feel of history. I think there is a law that they can not tear down any buildings older than a certain number of years. There's even a castle here. In the center of the city there is an area where cars are not allowed to go so it is a nice place to walk around and go to all the shops and restaurants. There also is a river that runs through the city, but it is not clean enough to swim in. I will start posting some pictures on here as soon as a receive my USB for my camera. There was a mix up when I moved and so I am waiting for a friend to send it to me.

The last team member just arrived yesterday. He is the other American on the team. He has been playing pro bball for over ten years now. So that makes 2 of us Americans, one American with an Italian passport, one Austrian, and the rest are Italians. I like the team and coaches we have. I am enjoying myself....but I do miss people from back home in the States.

Well, I have to get to my next practice.
Talk to you soon.

I Live in Italy Now

Ciao from Italy!

I am moved into my apartment in Pavia, Italy. These first few days I have spent trying to unpack and get settled in. I have met the team and staff members for Pallacanestro Pavia (Pavia Basketball team). Everyone has been very helpful trying to acclimate me to my new city. My teammates seem like a lot of fun and I think I will enjoy the season with them.

But let's back up a little bit first...the plane ride over here...
It was a 17.5 hour total trip between flights and layovers. Besides the long layovers (2-4.5 hours) it was a very smooth trip. I guess I am glad I had the long layovers though just in case something didn't go exactly right. I really wasn't sure where I was going and just asked questions as I went. I am glad I flew through London though so that everything was in English the entire trip. I landed in Milan, Italy hoping that my bags made the trip along with me. I was relieved to see both of my bags made it. As I followed the exit signs out of the airport I was hoping someone was going to be there to pick me up. I have no idea what I would have done if nobody was there. But my assistant coach was waiting for me as soon as I stepped out of the terminal. Again, I was relieved.

As I stepped outside I realized I wasn't in North Dakota anymore...a heat wave was there to welcome me to Italy. The first few days it was above 100 degrees F. I think it hit 40 deg C which is about 104 F my first day here. Oh...and no AC in the apartments here. It is rare to find AC. And all the fans were sold out of every store. So I spent the first couple nights sweating while I slept. I am not complaining at all...I don't tend to let stuff like that bother me. It was almost funny how hot it was. They assured me that this week is the hottest week and it will soon get better. It is tough to eat though when all you are thinking about is how hot it is.

One thing I did notice right away was that there are a TON of pizzerias. I literally have eaten pasta or pizza every day. I also have had some sandwiches as well. The pizza is good. They are large in diameter, but they are thin compared to most American pizzas. But it is enough to get full off of one pizza.

We have started our preseason workouts. This week is mostly conditioning and some agility/ab workouts. Sunday I think we are starting our two-a-days.

Well, that is all for now. If any of you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments section and I will answer them if possible. Thanks.

Talk to you soon.

I am leaving the country today!

Well, I am sitting here at the airport in Fargo waiting for my flight. I take off from Fargo at 5:53 pm central time (Monday, Aug 17th). I fly into Chicago, and then take off for London. I jump onto my third plane there, before arriving in Milan, Italy. Milan is a short drive away from my new home town...Pavia!

The time in Italy is 7 hours later than it is here, so I am taking off from Fargo past midnight in Italy time. Yes...that means that I will be traveling through the night and arrive in Italy Tuesday evening according to my new time table. I am going to try and catch a couple hours of sleep on the plane on my way over there, but I am going to dead tired when I finally arrive. I need to stay awake though until Tuesday night so that I can kick the jet-lag. If I can manage to stay awake until Tuesday night (around 9:00 or so) then I can sleep hard and wake up Wednesday morning hopefully feeling refreshed. We will see how that goes.

I think I have one day to get settled before jumping into basketball practice, but I honestly am not really sure what my schedule will be like once I get there. I guess I will find out soon enough. I am supposed to have internet so I think I will be able to update another blog in a couple days to let everyone know what it is like over there for me.

Talk to you soon.