Life is a Beautiful Struggle...

You play how you practice, isn’t that what they say? I think that is very true and most teams don’t go through a whole week of perfection on the court. To get better you have to make mistakes and learn from them, so I wouldn’t want to practice perfect anyways. Last Saturday we were back in our home gym for a game against Pabellon Ourense. We won a scrimmage against this team in the pre-season and we knew what to expect. In addition to winning again we needed to focus on playing a good game to be ready for better competition. Pabellon is one of two teams from the city Ourense which is only about an hour away from Santiago. And guess what? Each of those teams has a Swedish girl on the roster. Julia Tornberg is from Lund and told me her old team just played against my old club Asker in a tournament (?) in Sweden!  It is so nice to be able to talk to somebody that understand everything you say and I can speak Norwegian with. I still miss home right now, but I've had this feeling plenty of times before and I know I'll get through it. And Christmas isn't that far away ;)

We came victorious out of the game against Pabellon, but we still didn’t play consistently well for 40 mins. The first half was great and we go off to a comfortable early lead and despite two halfway almost decent last quarters we beat them by 20 points. I had a much better shooting day than previously and in only 14 minutes I had 11 points and was 5/6 from the field. I celebrated with some delicious pizza together with Andrea and two of our English-speaking Spanish teammates.

Our local men’s team had a game at home the next day and it was good to have something fun to watch inside while the rain was pouring outside. The four of us from last night met up again and got some awesome seats, or they weren’t so great after the old guy behind us cheered for the opposing team by blowing into his “17. mai” horn every 30 seconds..  Andrea even him a better spot to sit, but he enjoyed annoying us way too much to move haha. At least Obradoiro won in the end so we could tell him his noise-making was a waste of time. Both pro basketball teams from Santiago were now undefeated!!!

The next week went by slooow… I think this is the first season in 5 years where my team only has one game every week. My body is probably thankful and I get to spend more time with the team’s physiotherapist and get treatment on my plantar faSHIiTis which is what I like to call it. The one half-day we had off I spent together with Mr. Icepack watching movies on my laptop until Andrea came over and I showed her Area Central (the mall I live in).

Megan, Andrea and I  

Finally the weekend rolled around and the wheels on the bus started rolling too when we left for Aviles to match up against ADBA. A better team than any of the ones we faced before and I don’t know if I want to say anymore about what turned out to be our first loss this season. It was a close one until the end and definitely a team we can beat, but at lot of things didn’t go our way… The ball loved to hit the back of the rim way too much and rebounding played a big role as well. Throughout my career I have realized that having a short memory is extremely helpful after games like that so don’t expect to hear anything more about it. The gym and baskets was terrible by the way, reminded me of the old Rykkinhallen that I played in over 10 years ago and I’m sure the ref left his glasses at home on purpose so he could pretend to see fouls that didn’t happen just so he would be able to make out with his whistle ten more times! Sorry, I had to get that anger out of my system, feel much better now… Anyways, I’m sitting on the bus on the way home to Santiago and I think it’s time to attempt to find a comfortable enough position to get some shuteye. 


Thanks for listening! <3