Barcelona

Anna and I made it to Barcelona after we almost missed our train and Anna almost took out at least five people with her rolly suitcase. As I am writing this Anna is making baby noises trying to make fun of me because she adores her rolly suitcase and gets offended when I make fun of it. The five and a half hour train ride was non eventful and we found our hostal fairly easily. Anna wanted me to add thanks to her great navigational skills. The hostal is nice with a large kitchen.

Well I just wanted to let everyone know we made the first leg of our trip. I hope to post some pictures tomorrow. Now its time to see the lovely city.

Adios
TJW

I'm Off

Well I finally have some time off and I am headed down to Spain to meet up with Anna and do a little touring of Southern Europe. I actually leave here in a bout 6 hours for about 2 weeks.

My internet access will be sketchy throughout the trip but I will try and pop on and give everyone an update when I get the chance. If not, I just want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Love from across the big pond
Trevor

SVD Dortmund

93-63

We got our final win of the first half of the season in fashionable style. To make a long story short we went into Dortmund and took care business. The game was close for probably the first quarter but then after that we had a 10-20 point lead the whole way stretching it to 30 by the end of the game.

The young guys stepped up again for us. Marko although takes the cake from everybody as he had his best game out here. He played very well and finally with lots of confidence. If we get this kind of contribution from these young guys we are going to be hard to stop in the second half of the season. Marko finished with a game-high 19 points.

After the first half of the season the league breakdown looks like this
1. Munster - 1 loss (to us)
2. Hagen Haspa (2 losses)
3. Luddenscheid (2 losses)
4. TV Werne (3 losses)
5. Paderborn (5 losses)
6. Recklinghausen (5 losses)

After finishing our last two games strong we have set ourselves up for a run at the championship. It should be an exciting second half.

We taped our last game too so I may be able to put a highlight film together and put it on youtube but we will see if my software starts working.

My statline for the game: 19 points (3 dunks), 12 rebounds, 5 assists

Game Day - Dortmund

Today we are playing away at Dortmund (which isn't really that far away). This will be the last game before Christmas and a little much needed vacation time. I most likely won't be able to post the score after the game so if you NEED to know the score check out one of these two websites:

http://www.ruhrnachrichten.de/lokales/welo/wesp/Sport-in-Werne;art945,433228

http://www.wa-online.de/sportwerne.html

I don't leave for Southern Europe until the end of the week so I will post a game analysis on Monday.

A Day at School

Well I just got back from a morning at one of the schools in town.

So I was in the weightroom yesterday jamming out to my tunes when this lady approaches me right before a set of pull-ups. I take off my headphones to start saying I don't speak German but she starts speaking English. What a nice surprise. She asks me if I can come to her class and teach basketball.

Granted I had to get up a few hours before my normal wake-up time but I thought why not. After finally finding the school, then finding the RIGHT school I made it to gym class. The kids were great. They did a great job listening and trying to speak English. The kids were in the ninth grade. It was a fun class, we learned how to do lay-ups and how to pass then played some games.

One thing that I found very interesting was how diverse this group of kids are. I met kids from Turkey, Poland, Lebanon, Russia, ect... The German school system is set up very interesting. When kids finish grade school they test out into three different schools. The top school is called gymnasium followed by realschule and then halpschule. The school I was at was the lowest school.

It felt good to get involved in the community even if it was only for a few hours because my other than basketball life was getting a little monotonous.

Thought for the Day:
Get involved in something no matter how small and step out of your comfort zone. At first in may be hard and uncomfortable but thats all part of the experience. Afterwards you will look back and thing "wow" I really made a big deal out of nothing. A change of pace in life will rejunvenate the mind and body.