BORKEN

Last Friday at 3.30pm I boarded my flight eastbound to arrive on Saturday around noon at the Düsseldorf airport. I must have been the biggest woman at the airport to cry like a little baby when I had to say "see you later, a.k.a. in a couple of months" to my husband. You might be fooled and think that it gets easier the more you do it, but that's a lie!!! It's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie!

It's so funny, but this time I had such a great seat on my flight to Germany that I was mentally not able to go to sleep, I know, it's a little bizarre... it's just that I totally wanted to enjoy each and every second of that comfortable flight :)

Since I had already been to Europe for a tournament in Italy with the nationalteam one week before, I was able to shake the jetlag real quick and have been ... being up for over 30 hours total throughout the trip, probably helped too ;)

Alright, so our first leg of our training camp is finished:  we are leaving Borken.

It has been a reeeeeeeeeally neat experience... and not only because for a change we all had single rooms. Nothing against you personally, Peti (my usual roomie), I am just saying.... a grown woman appreciates some space sometimes... especially when you travel together for three weeks straight, eat together three times a day, practice twice, have team meetings, watch game film, etc... and all of that DAILY within only 24hours... So to come to your own room at the end of the day is nice and we want to than :)
So thank you, Hotel Lindenhof for providing us with this luxury.

Besides that, the staff worked very hard to make it an all around great experience for all of us. Thanks to Heiner Kiebel and the basketball support staff of the RC-Hoxfeld Basketball Club and the mayor of Borken for meeting up with us for dinner.
Special thanks to Mrs. Lüpke who made sure that each inch of the court had 'the perfect grip'!
And last, but definitely not least... thanks to the 700 people that came to watch us play.

Everybody was definitely a part of our 65-67 win against the Netherlands.
Before this trainingscamp, I-- and most of my teammates-- had never heard of Borken (population of 41.000), but now we'll have many great memories to share about this city in the middle of the "Münsterland".... and hopefully we will be back one day again.

Here are some pictures to remember a great week:

This is us before the game- with Siggi, the German Eagle Mascot... please note how tiny I am in the backrow ;)

Siggi and the Borkener "Black Widows" present us to the crowd

singing the national anthem... well, most of us.

Mit Herz und Hand- Ein Team- Deutschland!

Germany getting ready to play

The "Black Widows" in action

Fighting for the ball

Siggi kept the crowd entertained

DBB Womens Team joined some young players to answer some questions and take a cool picture together

THANK YOU BORKEN!!!!

A strong Borkener crowd gave us great "back support"

NEXT CHAPTER

Weeks have passed since my last entry... weeks that I have taken to:

• recover mentally from a looooong non-typical season (leaving Brno, playing in Kosice for a month and then joining Targoviste for the rest season)
• recover physically from my "Romanian" ankle sprain
• stay away from 'facebook' for a while
• spend some much-needed time with my husband, family & friends
• clean up my house
• get some sun
• and run the typical errands that a housewife has to run :) P.S.: I am not a desperate one yet though...

As for basketball, I was fortunate to sign a great contract with a great team two weeks ago... I will be playing for Ros Casares in Valencia, Spain in the next season.

There I will play in the Euroleague again, reunite with my old teammate from Taranto and Sacramento, Rebekkah Brunson and finally be teammates with my longtime friend Edwige Lawson (we've known each other for 16 years now and have always dreamed of being on the same team, crazy huh?).

After playing in Brno, Kosice and Targoviste during the past winter months, I am definitely ready for sunny South again. I remember playing in Valencia a couple of years ago, and I absolutely loved the city...  So there are many, many great things to be looking forward to.... except the early arrival date on September 6th, which won't give me a chance to go back after the nationalteam's qualifications round.... *Sniff sniff*

Yeeeees, you heard right... I am back with the nationalteam... I'll definitely be writing more about that in upcoming blog.

At the moment, I am in Borken, Germany gearing up for game#2 against the Netherlands. Yesterday we played one homegame here in Borken (we won!) and today we are driving out there to play them in Nijmwegen. GO GERMANY!!!

On that note, I got to run... they got us on a tight schedule here... but I wanted to make sure to touch base with you again, and let you know that you can gear up for some Frohlich Food in the nearest future.

God bless you and ttys,
LINDA