Island hoop dreams

June 15-18, 2017

2006, maybe?  I'm trying to think of the last time that I played in an organized basketball game with referees and substitutions.  It might have been back when we had a company team in Seattle, and I used to bring in my friends as ringers, but I honestly can't remember.  So when I decided in early 2017 to start playing in my office's Monday night pick-up games, it had been over 10 years since I played anything resembling proper full-court basketball.

Ever since the Sonics left Seattle (that is, since they were stolen from us by some jerkfaces), I've held a bit of a grudge towards the game.  I simply don't like the Oklahoma City Thunder.  I don't think it's anything personal to the fans or the players, but the only time I follow the NBA these days is to check if OKC lost.  I don't care who wins, as long as OKC doesn't.  I follow the playoffs only to make sure OKC gets knocked out.  I might need some therapy to deal with how much I want them to lose.  I'm trying not to get off track here, but the point is that I haven't really loved the game of basketball over the past 10 years.  I'd catch a few Husky games, but those weren't always a pleasant experience.  Gone were the days of playing and coaching several days per week, pick-up games at the IMA, or various leagues with friends.  It was a lifetime ago when I ordered, by snail mail, a fitness plan to improve my jumping ability, which helped me to be able to nick (not slap) the backboard on a lay-up and to graze (not grab) the rim.  Now I'd be lucky if the wind from my flailing arm managed to move the net on a jump attempt.

During that first pick up game in early 2017, I lasted about 30 seconds.  That's what she said.  Sure, I was in decent shape from running, swimming and the gym, but after running up and down the court a couple times, I couldn't breathe and my legs felt like they were made of stone. But I didn't give up.  After a few weeks of playing very poor basketball, I started playing only medium poor basketball.  I didn't have any of the marginal "quickness" or shooting touch that I like to think I used to have.  Not to mention the overall deterioration of skills.  And when you are a foot shorter and a decade older than everyone else on the court, those things are kind of important.  Anyway, it was still fun, and the guys were nice, so I kept going.  Playing once a week was manageable; anything more would be hard because of the blisters, shoulder pain, and knees still hating me for all the running over the past couple years.  In other words, this made me realize how old I'm getting.

But when "the call" came, I forgot all about it.  One of the organizers of the PwC team asked me if I wanted to join the team that would be playing in the international PwC tournament.  Despite my best attempts in the pick-up games to de-press everyone (is that the opposite of "impress"?), I was needed on the team to travel to Cyprus.  All I heard was "do you want to go to Cyprus?" and I didn't listen to anything else.  They needed a back-up point guard, and since I'm shorter than everyone else on the team, I qualified for the role.  This seems to have been the only requirement. 

The squad

I started taking the weekly pick up games more seriously, and the team even organized a couple practices.  I tried to use some of my coaching experience to implement a few drills and plays, but that only lasted about 2 weeks.  Somehow people lost interest in my clipboard, and I didn't have much credibility, because, well, I sucked.  But it wasn't why they asked me to join the team, so it didn't matter.  I was the team's short guy.  I needed to stay in my lane.

The tournament approached quickly and we were soon on our way to Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus.  I felt like an Olympian.

Off to the Olympics!

Streets of Nicosia

From the beginning, everything was very well organized.  The guys in the Cyprus office did a great job planning the hotels, transport, facilities, and of course the games.  After we arrived and checked into the hotel, we were welcomed by a dinner reception at the PwC Office...with a large outdoor space for the hundreds of tournament participants, supporters and organizers.  There were 13 teams overall, and the US was the favorite (as usual).  Apparently they recruit former college players from around the country to play, and there is so much interest, players are only allowed to play in one tournament.  I didn't realize we had so much basketball talent there.  The players don't know each other before the trip, but since they're all experienced players, it only takes a game or two to find their stride and dominate...or so the rumors went.  I felt that it was my obligation to reach out to all of the Americans, and to convince them that they should let Poland win. I really wanted to hate them, but turns out they were all nice guys and girls (some of the teams were co-ed, which was great).

At the end of dinner, the groups were drawn. And lucky enough, we got the US.  Also joining our group were Italy, Serbia and Slovakia.

My view for the Opening Ceremonies

We played 4 games that first day, and my legs and toes wanted to crawl into a hole and die.  Our team had 11 guys, so we rotated a lot, but it was still tough in my old age. We beat Italy and Slovakia, lost a close one to Serbia (who had an "intern" that could both dunk and shoot NBA-distance 3s with ease - which made me wonder about their hiring practices), and got beat pretty badly by the US team.  But we still managed to qualify for the knock-out round the next day.

That night they took us to a nice traditional restaurant, with food similar to Greek and Turkish (I hope I'm not offending anyone by saying that).  We also got to learn a bit about the history and culture of the island and city.   Cyprus is an EU country, which somehow surprised me, in the Mediterranean Sea.  Most of the island (and city) is Greek Cypriot, and part is Turkish Cypriot.  After some conflict in the 1960s and 70s, they separated and are now split by a militarized zone.  Turkey recognizes the Turkish Cypriot part as a separate country, though the rest of the world doesn't.  Nicosia is in the middle of the island, but there are also some very popular beach towns, such as Limmasol, where they took us for a party on the third night, and Larnaca, where we spent some time on the beach on the last day before the flight home.

Beach time

The heartburn is worth it

On the second day of the tournament we had a big game against Germany.  Most Polish people will tell you that if there is anyone they want to beat, at any contest or activity, it's the Germans (or Russians).  So I could tell that everyone was fired up for this one.  The German team was coached by a guy who used to play in the NBA (though I'd never heard of him), and they had some really big dudes.  They reminded me of the German team in Beer Fest.  We should have beaten them (of course everyone who loses says that), but a couple breaks didn't go our way and we lost a close, very intense and emotional game.  This put us in the losers bracket and seemed to drain our motivation.  Losing an emotional game is tough.  Having to play another one shortly after is even harder.  Unfortunately we caught a very inspired and energized Lithuanian team next, and they simply had more fight than we did.  I can't say that they were better than we are, but they definitely deserved to win (see, I didn't say that we shoulda won).  Our last opponent forfeit because they didn't have enough healthy players to field a team (old accountants after a weekend of games, you know?).  So we finished in 7th place out of 13.  Not bad, but considering we came out on the short end of a couple close games, it wasn't satisfying.

We're pretty good when the other team isn't on the court

I don't know when or where the 2018 tournament will be, nor if I will even be invited, but I'm ready to try again! Not that I think we'll be able to take down the US (or Cyprus, which came in second). But the atmosphere and spirit were great.  Save for some shouting with the Germans, everyone was really friendly, we interacted with people from all the countries, and I saw some guys I knew from other offices.  I just need to work on my game.  I remember when I was in high school and college, we always played against older guys, some in their 40s even, who were somehow very clever and sneaky good at basketball, even though they looked "old and slow".  Someday I hope to become that.  Maybe there is some sort of mail-order program for that?

The Cyprus guys put together a video of the event.  I am not in it (they tend to not film guys slouching on the bench), but you can at least see that a great time was had by all. 

This is in Warsaw, but at least there's proof that I play!

Lisboan training

April 23-May 3, 2017

Every year, one of our most looked-forward-to trips is the spring triathlon training camp with WITC.  Igors does an awesome job organizing a week for 10-15 guys and gals to do some training, but also to enjoy a break away from Warsaw.  Past locations included Crete, Fuertaventura and Tuscany.  In 2017, we went to Portugal.  I had always wanted to go to Portugal, and the only thing I really knew about it was what I had heard in Hawaii - a Portuguese man-of-war is like a jellyfish, and Portuguese sausage goes well with eggs and rice.  The camp fell next to the long May weekend, which gave us the perfect excuse to stay in Portugal after the end of camp.  So we could make sure to eat and drink any calories that were burned during the training. 

An added bonus was that the trip was the day after Zosia and I got engaged.  You could say we had an engagementmoon in Portugal. 

The tri-camp in Silves can be summed up pretty simply: daily swims, cycling, sore butts, a couple runs, plus a ton of good food, wine, and fun.  Spending it with a bunch of good friends doesn't hurt either.  Unlike past years, we didn't stay in a sports resort, instead choosing an apartment in a residential area, and using the community's indoor pool.  It was different, but a lot of fun since we had an entire villa to ourselves, including a small common area and outdoor pool for hanging out. AND WE HAD A DRONE!!!  Do you hear me???  I finally got to play with a drone and use it to film the music video.

Ok, so I need to work on my drone flying skills...

So that's enough talking about tri-camp.  Here's the video.

Very hard training session

The Atlantic ocean somewhere

Even Silves has a castle

I promise, we did exercise

After the week-long camp, a few of us headed up to Lisbon. Portugal isn't that big, but it is long (that's what she said).  The train from camp in Silves in the south took about 4 hours to Lisbon, which is in the middle.  Porto is in the north, and that would have been another few hours to get to.  So we'll just save Porto for another visit.

Determining the best neighborhood for a home base is always a challenge when visiting a city for the first time.  We asked a bunch of people for the best area, and most people suggested around the castle.  I didn't even know there was a castle in Lisbon, so that was already something exciting for me.  But as we all know, living next to a castle likely means living on a hill.  And Lisbon's hills are no joke.  The walk to the apartment wasn't that far from the train station, but it was far UP from the train station.  Around every corner in Lisbon is another windy hill to climb up with a fat suitcase full of triathlon gear (windy, as in "wine-dee", not as in "win-dee". So maybe that should be "winding"?).  It seems like you are always going up hill, even when you're going down.

Nice views of the city after climbing the hills

Lisboa

One pleasant surprise about Lisbon was that the prices were not as high as other Western European capital cities (like Paris or Rome or London).  We noticed quite a few abandoned buildings, right next to new, modern developments, so it seems that their economy is still not in an ideal condition.  The architecture is beautiful, with the cobblestone streets and the iconic tiled buildings.  The language is interesting, in that for some reason I thought it was similar to Spanish, but in fact it sounds nothing like it.  It's quite hard for me to understand how they pronounce words, since many letters don't make the sound I'd expect based on the spelling.  The pronunciation also seems a bit more harsh than Spanish (except when spoken by beautiful ladies of course).  I was surprised to read that Portuguese is actually the 6th most common language in the world, thanks mostly to the trillions of people in Brazil.

The downside of a vacation during the holiday weekend is that everything was closed on May 1st.  It's also common practice, as in other southern European countries, for shops and restaurants to be closed for siesta in the afternoons.  So we had to plan around that.  But it didn't seem to affect the drug dealers, as they were standing on every corner of the main walking street at all hours.  At least they were polite.  But if you aren't expecting to be offered drugs by 17 different people within your first hour, it can be a bit shocking.

Speaking of drugs, some of the food was very addictive.  There was great seafood everywhere.  In Silves, my favorite meal was fish from a hut on the side of the road. A pastel de nata (plural: pasteis de nata, obviously) is probably the best thing you'll ever eat in Portugal.  It's an egg custard and you can basically swallow them whole because they are so delicious...a perfect mix of sweet and gooey, with a hint of salty and savory.  We went to the town of Belem, where the pastries were born, created and sold by Catholic priests in the 1800's (inspired by something similar in France).  We waited in line to eat in the famous Pasteis de Belem cafe.  Speaking to the popularity, the cafe seats over 400 people.  By the way, Belem (which they pronounce in a way that sounds like "blame") is the Portuguese word for Bethlehem.  I think it's because Jesus used to eat these pasteis every day after school.  By the way again, I don't know how to pronounce "pasteis".  But I can tell you that they aren't those little stickers that cover your nipples.

I'll take a few dozen of those, please

We had a lot of other good food as well - on our first night, we enjoyed a nice Mozambique restaurant, because obviously Mozambique was a Portuguese colony thanks to Vasco da Gama.  This made me wonder if Mozambique is both the name and the adjective?  Another favorite was the bifana, which I ate for breakfast every day at the cafe next to our Airbnb.  It's simply juicy pork boiled in oil, and placed in a bread roll.  Super healthy.  And even though I don't really love olives, and definitely don't really love sardines, we got used to eating bread, olives and sardine pate, which was served before every meal.

Who needs ice cream when you have bifana?

To drink, obviously port is nice (and a trip to Porto awaits), but they have really nice wines as well.  And towards the end of the trip we discovered ginjinha, a cherry liquor that tasted even better than the Polish wiśniówka.  It's sometimes served in a chocolate shot glass, which you eat after you are finished with the drink. I guess it's a chocolate shot "cup", since it's not actually made from glass.  It's even better when you just put the whole thing in your mouth, chew it a few times, and swish the liquid around before swallowing.  That's not what she said, you sickos.

Wish we had discovered this earlier!

In addition to the food, the sightseeing was splendid.  Obviously you can't go wrong with simply wandering around the city.  The castle is nice, the views from the hills are amazing, and every other street is a work of art.  We did the free Discover Lisbon walking tour, which was definitely worthwhile, as long as you're ready for the hills.  They showed us some of the churches around the city, told some of the history of both the Romans and Moors, and explained that statues of kings on horses usually show how the king died - two horse legs off the ground shows that he died in battle, one leg off means that he died from injuries suffered in battle, and all legs on the ground means he died of boring natural causes.  I guess this is standard everywhere.

Outside of Lisbon was also wonderful.  Sintra is a must.  We were tempted to spend some time at the seaside instead, but the castles in Sintra were more appealing.  The train takes only 40 minutes, then you can take a bus (434) between the main sites for 5.50 Euros.  Gary, Inka and Ania met us there for some castle exploration.  The Moorish castle was amazing.  The old, gray fortress walls flowed around us, which somehow reminded me of Morgan Freeman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.  Pena Palace was completely opposite; loud and colorful, reminding me of Alice in Wonderland, where you'd expect to see fancy people with big white wigs.  But equally impressive.

Feeling Moorish

I spotted Alice

In the end, we saw three different castles, which was more than enough to make me happy.  For some reason I didn't image Portugal to be a place for castles, but I am glad that it is.  And there were so many other nice things about it that we'll definitely have to explore more of the country someday.  One other thing on the to-do list: find out where Hawaiian Portuguese sausages come from.