We arrived in Lisbon, Portugal on Monday and the weather was great, partly cloudy and a temperature of 61 degrees. One of the administrators from Benefica met us as we walked out the airport and escorted us to our bus (double decker with the opposing team’s name on the side so we got plenty of honks in traffic on our way to the hotel). The hotel we stayed at was a 4 star hotel just outside of Lisbon. The only complaint I had was we were outside of Lisbon so it was difficult to get any sightseeing done. Fortunately, there was a strike at the airport and we were forced to stay another day. We changed hotels to a much more satisfying location, one that had multiple areas to explorer.
Day 1:
A majority of the time we spent at the hotel. We had practice later in the evening to loosen up from the flight and go thru some of their plays in preparation for the game. At practice I found out I would not be playing in this game, which is understandable seeing as how they have been winning, so why try and fix something if it isn’t broken. It was kind of a bummer because my shot felt great that night and I was really looking forward to getting an opportunity to play. I’ll live though we have 4 more games.
Day 2:
Again we spent a majority of the time at the hotel. One of the great things about this trip was the food though. We may not have been able to sightsee but the food made up for it. It was phenomenal and more than plenty to go around. We had a morning shoot around at noon and spent the next 6 hrs waiting to leave for our game. The 9pm start time just added to the difficulties of playing away in a game like this. Sitting in your hotel being bored, outside the states you have a limited number of English channels to choose from. My roommate Matt, teammate Derek and I spent a good couple hours on the VH1 channel here. The episode was called “Guess the Year” so we had contests on who could guess the year of the video of the song that was being played. When we arrived at the gym I was expecting there to be a lot people there because one of my teammates read on Eurobasket.com that they were hoping to have a sellout. Needless to say they didn’t make it, the stands were a little over half full at best. We started out the game in typical fashion a little slow but had a lead after the first. The second quarter is when we made a run that led us into halftime with a 9 point lead. At this point the shirt I was wearing was starting to get a little moist under the armpits from cheering LOL. The start of the second half we let Benefica back into the game. They had a guy hit three 3-pointers in a row and went on a run that saw their lead reach 7 at one point. We weathered the storm & the crowd and managed to keep it close to the end. We got the lead back and it changed hands a couple of times before a few mistakes on our side allowed them to get the W. I could really since the frustration of my teammates after the game knowing they played as hard as they did. We really played well enough to win this game and I wish I could have contributed my services to the team but sometimes this is what happens and all you can do is move on, learn from it and bounce back.
Day 3:
The day after the game we had breakfast and a shooting practice before changing hotels. When we arrived in Lisbon we already had an idea that we may be staying an extra day so our President of the club made plans for us to try out this Brazilian restaurant. Our trainer and assistant coach both of Portuguese decent said the chicken at this restaurant was amazing. We spent the 3rd walking around checking the sites. I would have posted some pictures but my camera unfortunately fell out of my jean pocket when I was in a cab (Bummer). On top of that we had to spend Thanksgiving day in a plane but we were blessed to be served Turkey as our in-flight meal.
That’s all I have for you today. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I love and miss you all back home. Until next time………………………………………………….. Love