10/18/10

Hey everyone! Today is Monday and I have officially been here a week! Craziness. It feels like it has been way longer but at the same time has gone fast. We have today off from practice because we kicked some booty in our game this weekend. It was a good way to start the season. We are 2-0. We only have 1 game a week which can be a little....well i guess the word is boring?  I am used to playing in Puerto Rico which has a condensed season so we would have games every 3-4 days at least and in playoffs every other day.  It was nice because only having a few practice days in between the games made the weeks go by fast. 

It is fun that we get to travel more as a team and farther away. In PR we all drove ourselves to the games and did not do many things "as a team". Here we fly, bus, wear the same clothes when we travel, and eat together (usually).  Its fun to walk around the airport and people all wonder what team we are. Usually they guess right here in Spain and say "volibol! instead of the "basketball"? we got in the US. 

On our way home from the airport Rachael, Erica, and I all rode with one of the owners of the team. Usually, Rachael is the only one that speaks to people because she knows more Spanish than Erica and I together but I have decided to really take an effort to learn. I surprised myself as to how much I understood when I tried to listen. I am really good with selective hearing and tuning people out. It was motivating to actually be able to hold a conversation and know what the other person was talking about! I am going to take my first spanish "class" this thursday with Mic. (another American girl) The lady that teaches us, is one of the owner's wife and she charges 12 euros a lesson. She will give us books and prints out handouts for us to do throughout the week. Rachael and I are also going to start using more Spanish at home. Practice makes perfect ya?? 

We had a fun little adventure yesterday when we got home from the Islands.  When we first got the apartment we did not have hot water and we were telling our owner that and so when we got home he came up to the apartment to help us figure it out.  I took my first hot shower at home since arriving here. Lucky for us we have showers at the gym and use those after practice haha.  Any ways, we also didn't think we had any pots and pans to cook with and did not buy food at the store for a whole week because we didn't think we could cook anything.  This we also told the owner and he walked right in and showed us we had like 50. We were just looking in the wrong spot, but it was still completely obvious where the pots and pans were.  So we felt dumb...but we got a good laugh out of it and so did he.  Rach wanted to make some rice so she got it ready in a pot and tried to start the burners. Everything here is all gas we have to manually have to turn on, then light the burners with a lighter or a long match which we didn't figure out works WAY better until later......but before that I didn't even realize it did not turn on by itself when we turned the dial.  

Ya, so I am sure many of you can see where this is going by now. 2 girls, used to just turning on the burner and it gets hot. No work or flames involved. Well we turn on the gas and nothing happens. "hmmmmm.....is it broken? What's wrong with it?? I dunno...maybe its out of gas?"  Thats when the lightbulb went on...."ohhh, we have to light it!? ok ok, I get it".  Well in case you have been wondering, yes the gas has been coming out of the burner this whole time....so when rachael put the lighter up to it the whole thing erupted in flames and we both screamed bloody murder. I am sure we woke up the whole place. We were both fine, no burns and our eyebrows  were still intact, but now were were scared to try and light it again. We tried a few more times by using a team effort as I turned the gas on and she quickly tried to stick the lighter into the gas which turned into doing a dance around the kitchen trying to light the damn thing but to scared to do it. We collected out wits and I said I wanted to try. I calmly light the burner, for the first time since the flame eruption and  Rach (who was on the dial turning the gas on) got so nervous when it lit she turned it off!  I turned to her, hands on my hips, but we both started cracking up.  It was hilarious and maybe you had to be there, but both Rach and I decided it was funny enough for me to blog about. It's these fun little moments that make this whole thing such an adventure. 

We went to the store today to buy food now that we have pots and pans......We also got some wine. Cant waaaait to try it! 

 Halloween is coming up and we were SO excited when we figured out the celebrate here too! Time to cut down on food, work out, and get our outfits ready for Halloween. We were thinking of things we could be that would include all 4 Americans......here are some ideas we came up with:  1)Fanta girls. We each dress up as a color and walk around together. 2) Americans? Boring. 3) Ninjas (rach loves ninjas and we could wear spandex which is something we all obviously have a ton of) 4) different super heros. 5) Spice Girls.  Any ideas???? Help us out.

We also realized that the Mercado (supermarket) that is within walking distance to our house, is also where the major bus station in the city is. On days off Rach and I want to go exploring and see some of the surrounding areas. We are both history dorks and love to explore so its working out really well for us to live together. It is beginning to get colder at night which I love. I can keep my window open and be all bundled up in bed. Plus I got to wear my uggs for the first time in over a year! (Not much need for them in PR and AZ)  Hopefully pictures will be coming soon!

I will keep you posted on more of our adventures in the future because I am sure there will be some silly ones.  :)

Ky