Welcome to the third installment of my recent relocation to wonderful Teramo, Italy to play professional basketball. Just going to get straight to it this time people, so here we go. Oh yea, my teammate Tommaso (Tommy) had the nerve to say that I write in my dairy every week trying to be funny. A diary has a lock preferably, personal secrets contained inside of them, little drawings and stuff, different color pens or papers and pictures of some sort too. So Tommy, that’s the difference between a blog and a diary ok?
As the days continue to add up, I keep asking myself do I think I can make it here the whole time. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy the pleasure of being by myself all the time. It’s just that I’m suppose to be here till at least the end of April unless we make the playoffs then a little bit longer than that. I just hope I don’t get home sick to the point I want to leave, I’m pretty strong mentally and probably wont get to that point, but you never know right? All this “extra” time to myself is helping me put things in order and have me cleaning up a lot around the place. Because of that, I blew the fuse in my apartment. I didn’t even have a lot of things on at the same time if you ask me but all the power just cut off. I had the drier and washer on, a couple lights on in the place. I was working on my computer (it was charging up) and watching television. I called the team manager so he could help me out which he did eventually. I was in the dark for about 20 minutes before my Italian neighbor came down and helped me out and restarted something outside the building. The next day, I went to the store and bought candles and a lighter just to be safe from now on.
So we had our first “real” road trip as a team last week (9/11-13). It gave me a pretty good idea what to expect for the remainder of the time here. Ok, so let start by saying this. They eat a lot of pasta here, more than normal, way more than we do in the states. I mentioned in the previous entry that they don’t really have or eat breakfast like we do, or for that matter, not the way I like too. So, this is how our road trips went for the most part. We come down for “breakfast” and there’s just croissants and cappuccino (don’t drink coffee) and maybe cereal but I had to ask for that though. We go to practice next and then we go to lunch right afterwards. So for 2 ½ days we went to the same restaurant, had the same exact pasta (shape and all) for lunch and dinner. Since they (locals) don’t eat breakfast, the portions we eat for lunch and dinner are huge! I went crazy after the second day when I realized this was going to be the routine for this trip and the every road trip in the future (hopefully I’m wrong). So for the second time in 4 days I blew a fuse out again, but this time it was in my hotel room while on the road trip, my adapter overheated. I had my computer and phone charging plugged in an intention cord that was connected to the adapter that was in the wall. I had to walk downstairs and have the front desk people help get the power put back on. This just wasn’t my week for electricity I guess.
Three teammates and myself got asked to go to some dinner to represent the team for something on Friday night (9/18/09). I’m used to doing stuff like this ever since I was in college and in the NBA. So when they asked me to go, it wasn’t any big deal or a surprise to me. But I was surprise on how long this dinner lasted thought! It didn’t last1 hour, not 2 hours, not 3 hours, not 4 hours but 4 ½ hours! No dinner should ever last that long; there wasn’t even a translator to help us understand either. The stuff they were talking about was ridiculous from what I was told. After 3 hours into the dinner, this woman started talking about an Italian poet from the late 1800’s that was ugly and short but he banged a bunch of women and took a rib from each side of his body so he could blow himself and he whacked off a lot too. This lady spent so much time studying this guy she wrote a book and gathered information and letters and was there to basically promote her book. Come to find out, all the local people there heard of this guy at some point in their lives and knew the stories. They weren’t going to buy that book, let’s be honest here. This lady wouldn’t stop talking though, for at least 45 minutes. She was so boring even for the locals, the old people (it was all older people in attendance) started falling asleep because they were drinking wine and stuff for hours and they bodies had started shutting down on them. Then when she was done, another lady came up and read 3 love letters from that book, from supposedly 3 different women to that poet guy. The dinner started at 8pm and I didn’t get to my car till 1230am. I was so mad while driving home; never again I’m doing that here.
After another preseason game we played Sunday afternoon (9/20/09, lost by 2pts) we drove back on the team charter bus headed back to Teramo. I was just listening to music, messaging people on my blackberry, just normal stuff. When we got back and as I was starting up my car headed home, I remembered I left my phone on the bus. So I called the team assistant and told him the situation and he said we would take care of it in the morning. So the morning came and I gave him a call and he said the driver didn’t find my phone on the bus. Either the bus driver stole it or he didn’t look hard enough because I was using the phone when I was on the bus. I realized I left it soon as I closed my car door so I know it is there. Now I’m pissed because I just bought that blackberry right before I left the states. I do have my contacts saved on my computer but still I put a lot of info into that phone plus I can’t upload pictures to facebook, myspace (my own site now!). No talking on bbm, aim or yahoo messenger people while I’m out and about now.
So as of right now, I’m out of an outlet adapter, 4 ½ hours of my life, we lost a close game and got my Blackberry Tour taken from me all in one week. I use that phone as my alarm to wake up everyday so I got to find another way now. So in all, my week and a half wasn’t all that great. It left me in a shitty mood on my day off today (9/21/09) thinking about all that just happened to me. Hopefully this week coming up will be better for me. Thanks for reading and letting me bitch about my bad misfortunes, I feel a little better now. Until next time!
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