“It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.” – Yogi Berra

I’m having kind of a tough time settling in here…which also means I’m having a hard time articulating what’s going through my mind. I know I haven’t been writing much, and I just keep thinking about the two sayings, “No new is good news,” and “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all;” I think I could argue a case for either right now.

Things are coming along a little better than they were last week at least. I’ll tell you one thing – this league is no joke, and I have a LOT of work ahead of me. The good news is that now that I'm over here I have the time to put in the work I need to in order to succeed at this level. Even though my August 6^th departure date seemed really early to me (and it was, since a lot of my American friends who play overseas are just now starting to arrive in Europe)– I’m glad the team brought me out here so soon. It gives me some extra time to focus and work on the things I know I need to improve on personally, and gives the team the opportunity to practice together for a little over a month before our first game. Since a lot of us are new, this time is really important for us to learn how to play with one another and start to become a cohesive unit.

We had our first scrimmage on Friday night, which we ended up losing by about ten points. The game is just as fast as it was in Switzerland (probably a little bit faster), with girls that are stronger, more experienced, and taller. Since it was the first time our team got to play with five people (we’ve been playing 3-on-3 or 4-on-4 during practices while we wait for our final two teammates to arrive from the other teams they play on), I saw some really good things. I really like how our team defense looked (our help rotation was pretty good) and I really liked when I got to lob the ball up to our other five player for an easy bucket on offense. I did pick up a solid seven fouls…oops!, so I am going to need to readjust to that European style of play again.

In other news, it’s been really, REALLY hot here. It’s been a solid 92 degrees the past week, only both the gym and my apartment don’t have any air conditioning. On average, I’d say I’ve been sweating through four t-shirts a day, which is pretty miserable. Needless to say I’ve been spending a lot of time in the tub with ice.

That’s all for right now; we have another scrimmage on Tuesday night against a team that’s in our league, which will be a good indicator of the season up ahead. Wish us luck!