Border Patrol

Well we lost our second game to the Greek U20’s 42-49. It was a really good game and the girls played really hard, but we just could not pull it out. Greece hit two back-to-back 3 pointers that sealed the win for them.

The next day we set off for Macedonia on the bus with the Greek team. This trip ended up being a lot more interesting than intended. Just to give you a bit of back round information, Greece and Macedonia do not get a long.....at all. It's a long and complicated story, but it has to do with Macedonia stealing their name from the region of Macedonia where Thessaloniki is located.

The bus ride was going just fine until we got to the border. One of our girls is from Bermuda, which is a British colony, however apparently Bermuda is not recognized as being a part of the European Union like the Untied Kingdom. So the Macedonian border patrol did not want to let her through. They said that she needed a Visa to enter the country and that we would have to go back to Thessaloniki to get the Visa. This was going to be a big problem. So after 3 hours of debating and making phone calls, they finally let her through. The Greek staff that we were traveling with got in touch with someone from the Macedonian Federation and had them call the border. We definitely owe them for that one. So 8 hours later we finally arrived in Ohrid, Macedonia…..it was quite the day!

A Husky fan in Thessaloniki

During our morning shoot around there was a young man at the gym who had a University of Washington t-shit on. Since I am originally from Seattle, I recognized it straight away. It is definitely a t-shirt you don’t see everyday, especially not in Europe, so I had to investigate. So after shoot around I went over and spoke with him and found out that University of Washington Men’s Basketball team had come there to play his team last summer and that they had given them all t-shirts as gifts. It was pretty cool and of course I had to document this encounter…..definitely a small world.

1-0 in Greece!

We are now in Thessaloniki, Greece for two test games against the Greek U20’s team. They are also staying in the same hotel as us while we are here, and we will take a bus with them to Macedonia.

Apparently we will be taking the bus with them a lot more than we thought, as we had to ride to the game today with them in the same bus. It really was not that big of a deal, but back home you would never have that happen, it would be absolutely unheard of.

We did however get a huge win 48-38. I think we really surprised them and held our composure the entire game. Great Britain traditionally has not done well against Greece, so even though the game was just a test match and did not really count for anything, it really meant a lot for our team’s moral. I really think that they are starting to get more confidence in themselves and really starting to believe that they can achieve what they have set out to achieve. Believing is half the battle and I really think they are truly starting to believe.

Wimbledon

So after Estonia we had two more days off before heading to Greece and from Greece to Macedonia where the tournament is taking place. We again had fly out of London but this time our flight was leaving at 8:30 am which meant that we were meeting at 6 am. So all of the girls that live in the North of England needed to come down a night early and stay in a hotel next to the airport. So Kelsey, Charlotte and I decided that we would go down early so that we could try and get into Wimbledon.

So we caught the train from Manchester down to London. Then once we got down to London we had to get the tube (London’s underground transportation system) to Victoria Station where we were going to leave our luggage. This turned out to be quite the task. We had four big rolling duffle bags with our backpacks and a box. Not the easiest things to carry around. A broken escalator, and a wrong tube stop later we were finally at Wimbledon. We had to get in “The Queue” (the line) because we did not have any tickets. After two hours of queuing and 14 pounds (about $23.00 US dollars) later we were in!!!!

We did not have tickets to any of the matches, we would have had to queue again if we wanted to do that. So we just wandered around, and we even stumbled into Venus and Serena Williams playing doubles. That was pretty cool. Then we sat on Henman Hill and watched Andy Murray v Stanislas Wawrinka on the big screen. We wandered around some more and went in the Wimbledon shop. Then we decided to head back before the Murray match was over to avoid the crowds. We grabbed some dinner at a pub by the train station and watched the end of the Murray match on tv. It was a nail bitter for sure, but Murray was able to pull it out. Then it was time to head to our hotel. We were definitely knackered (tired in American) but it was well worth it. Definitely a great day!