SUMMER 2011

In one word? AMAZING. Besides the overall awesomeness of my job, one of the perks is that I had the summer technically “off”. I got home April 30 and had until mid August to pretty much live it up. As a disclaimer, no I didn’t sit on my butt all summer and drink beer by the pool (at least not for the majority of it). Since my job is physically demanding I was committed to staying in shape and working on my game which I am proud to say that I did religiously. I joined a great gym right by my house (shout out to Planet Fitness….now can I get a discount for next summer?) and picked up a workout buddy in Kristy Rapps, my Fairview friend since kindergarten. I also was lucky enough to have 2 alma maters’ gyms to go back to for some workouts. I snuck into the still-deathly-hot-in-the-summer facilities of Belleville East High School a few times and got to go back to SLU and play pick up with my girls a couple times a week. This was helpful for the 5-on-5 competition and also great because I got to hang out with the team again and pretend like I was still a college hooper, just minus the 6am workouts the next day! :) (Ps- my girls are gonna be GOOD this year. You heard it here first. :) ). Overall I have to say that my workout regimen was a good one and makes me excited and confident to go back over as an improved version of myself!

Ok, enough about workout talk that I’m sure most of you don’t care about. Although I’ve always spent all summer working out, this one was a little different because I got to completely set my own schedule which allowed me to workout whenever I wanted to and pretty much do whatever else I wanted for the rest of the day. I helped coach 2 basketball camps this summer- the always passionate Shimmy Gray-Miller camp at SLU and also the Belleville East summer camp. I also ended up helping out with the East girls at a few more open gyms throughout the summer and had a great time sharing my bball knowledge and working with a great staff and fun group of girls! Now I just hope everything I taught those posts players stays with them throughout the season as they fight for a trip to state! :)

One of my fave SLU campers!!

After being away from family and friends for 8 months and only communicating via internet, it was my mission for the summer to take advantage of my flexible schedule and visit with as many people as possible. Well, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! My first vacation was one that had been years in the making, a pact made with my college roommates, Katie and Liv, that we would one day go on a vacation together on our own terms, minus our SLU travel sweats and bed check times. We settled on a trip to Riviera Maya, Mexico and had the time of our lives at an all-inclusive resort. Sleeping in, laying out by the ocean and pool, eating and drinking anything we wanted at will, and overall mostly non-stop laughs… our “Mexication” was a definite success! It was so great to reconnect with 2 of my closest college friends and it was a huge kickoff to what we want to be an annual roommate reunion vacation. And contrary to popular belief, it only slightly resembled an excursion worthy to be dubbed the Hangover 3- we did all make it back in one piece! :)

*~AKL4LYFE~*

My next vacay was a short getaway with my often-mistaken-as-my-sister-BFF Tyler. Ty’s family has a lakehouse out in the mountains of North Carolina that her and I stayed at for 5 days. This wasn’t as wild of a vacation as Mexico, but it was a trip that was both amazingly relaxing and also jam packed with adventure. We spent a lot of time sunbathing, floating or reading outside, but also managed to go swimming, canoeing, boating, tubing, hiking, running and even white water rafting! Although the rapids weren’t life-threatening it was still something I’d always wanted to do and it thoroughly fulfilled my wishes. More than the activities themselves, it was great to do all this stuff with my adventure partner, Ty, and to just spend time hanging out with her (and her fun extended family) at a destination that I’d consider pretty close to heaven.

Before our rafting excursion!

Not more than a week after being home from N.C., I was off for yet another vacation! This time, Dad, Mom, Kate, her boyfriend Joe, Aunt Cheryl, Uncle Tom and I spent a week at the Sax’s condo in Destin, Florida.

As you can imagine our family vacations are always filled with fun times, crazy stories and lots of laughter. This one definitely held up to that standard! It was extra exciting because it was Joe’s first Kemezys vacation! Also, any vacay with T-Bone and Shirley (Uncle Tom and Aunt Cheryl) is always an adventure! As expected, the majority of our days were spent sunbathing on the beach or venturing out to wade in the ocean. But no worries, there was excitement involved in that too. First we learned that Joe has an extremely keen eye as he ended up finding 4 pairs of abandoned sunglasses in the middle of the ocean! One pair of oakleys, some raybans, and one pair that unbelievably was the pair that Kate had lost out in the ocean the day before! Also, the boys had a minor animal sighting one day when they were pretty far out. The story has of course gotten more elaborate with each telling, and if you ask Dad he’ll tell you that it was a great white that skimmed right past him. However, Joe and T-bone claim that while it was a really large shadow of an animal it might have more likely been a manatee or something. Still, a good story! But I have to say that the biggest adventure came on the last day when we all (to my persuading) went on a jet ski tour. Yep, all of us. Kate and Joe on one boat, T-Bone and Shirley together, Dad on one and one with me and Mom together on what proved to be the ride of her life. Although this was my first time jetskiing (mark it off the bucket list!), I think it was more the choppy waves than my driving that made Mom almost get down and kiss the ground when we finally reached land! Haha. Besides our ski’s over-excitement we all had a good time on the tour, capped off by the time our guide directed us to an area to see some dolphins. In fact, we stopped our boats and I even hopped off and swam with them out in the wild! So cool! That however was the end of the good excitement. When we got back to the dock Dad ended up slipping getting out, cutting a huge gash in his pinky toe (which as we all know, according to Kramer, is the most important! Lol.). It resulted in him and Mom spending the evening in the ER and 5 stitches for the big guy. He’s finally all healed up today but it was an excitingly gruesome way to end the trip! But like we all said- luckily it was on the last day and not the first. The whole week was a blast, telling funny family memories or stories, or just enjoying the beautiful sunny weather and each other’s company.

Our whole crew at Ballyhoo restuarant

(also the place of Linz and Darren's rehearsal dinner last summer!)

Our awesome sand castle!

Kemezys Christmas card pic!

A few weeks later was my birthday where I turned *gasp* 24 (which as all my fellow athletes know is really like 87 in basketball years…kinda like dog years). But it turned out being a great week spent with family and friends. My favorite Canadian, Courtnay, even made the trip in for the week to celebrate! After spending 8 months in Lithuania together sharing all our life stories, it was so fun to show her around my neck of the woods and introduce her to all the people she’d always heard so much about! She got to experience Dandy Inn, indulge in Taco Tuesday at Sax’s store, get the requisite tour of M-town, see Busch Stadium, go up in the Arch, go to the zoo, play pick up with my SLU girls, eat Chipotle, swim at Aunt Marlene’s pool and take in some of the STL nightlife. All in all a great week, right?! So doing all that made my birthday week extra special, highlighted by the actual day of my birthday where I had dinner with my closest friends and fam and then went to the midnight premiere of the final Harry Potter with my cousin Maria!!! And yes, we stood in line for 3 hours and of course made shirts for the occasion. Hey, you only turn 24 once right? Might as well do it big! :)

Courtnay and I continuing our awesome picture taking in STL!

(copyright Katie Kemezys photography ;) )

Friends out for my bday!

Ready for HP DHP2!!

 

My next and last vacation was a trip Kate and I took to go see Linz up at school. She’s in grad school at Purdue Calumet, about an hour outside Chicago. It was the perfect mix of a weekend as we spent all day Saturday downtown (even getting to stop and have lunch with my Chicagoan friend KTM!), and then had a low key Sunday going to church, watching movies and just having some good old fashioned girls times. With our spread out living arrangements and busy schedules these days, it was great for us to hang out just like the old times. I’m so glad I could finally visit her and spend some much needed time together! :)

Kate, Linz and I in Chi Town!

 

So, in a nutshell, that was my summer. :) I obviously only hit the big points but there were also tons of other great times including some Penny Pitchers nights at Humphreys with the one and only Lacey Shalenko; lots of dinners and sleepovers with Mal; countless movie nights at the Wambolds (and playdates with Dalton!); a stellar Mascoutah Homecoming weekend; a surprisingly low key county fair excursion with the Poe-Nelson clan; and lots of quality family time. All in all, I don’t think “awesome” even sums it up. More like- PERFECT!

Every mile a memory... (Year 1 wrap up)

Staying true to my procrastinating style, yes I am just now writing a recap of my first year playing overseas.

If someone would have told me even a few years ago that I would have left home and lived in a foreign country for 8 months to play basketball I would have thought they were crazy. I had many coaches and other former players encourage me to look at the option of playing overseas, and however enticing it was, I could never wrap my mind around the idea of being away from home and my family and friends for so long. Uh uh. “Not for me” I told them. No thanks. No way.

But something in me changed the last 2 years of college. I can't technically put my finger on any one moment, but I can honestly attribute a lot of it to my tenure at SLU. Although I never had a winning record there, I truly believe that the experiences I went through, both good and bad, shaped me to be the person I am today, which includes the trait of being independent enough to go off and live in Europe all by myself. These personal traits were not solely created by me, but more from the fact that God surrounded me with some amazing people who allowed me to shape the kind of person that I wanted to be. So long story short (too late) I want to thank all those people- friends, teammates, teachers, coaches, and most importantly my unwavering family for being there for me, and each playing a significant role in allowing me to develop the strength to follow my dreams.

That said, if you read my blog at all this past year, I think it’s pretty obvious that I had an absolute blast! Going into this, I wasn't quite sure what to expect at all. The only references of playing overseas came from my good friend Tyler who played a year in Holland and from Monica Wright off of Love and Basketball. As much as I tried to hide it, the moment I left America last September was the most scared I'd ever been in my entire life. Keep in mind, this is the girl that went to college 20 minutes away from home, had never gone longer than 2 weeks without seeing her parents, and who has always dreamt of living in Mascoutah, Illinois for the rest of her life. As excited as I was for the new adventure, I was also terrified. I had no idea what to expect- would the language barrier be too much for me? Would I be able to hang playing professional basketball? What were my teammates gonna be like? Would I be able to cope with being away from home and family? And most importantly- Would this picky eater find anyyy kind of food I liked over there??

I had many initial culture shocking moments at first including navigating international flights by myself, some scary egg salad, questionable traffic laws, drinking milk from a bag, and of course the language barrier. I mean, knowing how to sing Happy Birthday in Lithuanian only got me so far... But from the moment I got there, I also had some calming sense of home. Growing up with a heavy Lithuanian influence in my dad’s side of the family, it was like all of that made sense to me now. Every elderly person over in Lithuania reminded me of my Mociute. :) And although the culture was very different, having ties to it made it that much more exciting. I wasn’t just learning about a new country and language for basketball’s sake, but also to be closer to my family roots.

It also helped that this huge life change wasn’t me going over to Europe on a whim, or on a post-college backpacking excursion. I had a team (and a job) waiting for me. The team was welcoming from the being. Once they got comfortable enough to speak their broken English to me and realized that I wouldn't make fun of them for it, I formed relationships with all the girls quickly. I soon had my other fellow North American, Courtnay, join me and from there the good times continued to roll.

Our season can definitely be considered a success. We had some big wins along the way. We weren't supposed to win a single game in Euroleague, yet the small but mighty Vici team ended up winning 4 games and just missing playoffs by a tiebreaker. It was awesome to not only get to play some of the top names in the women’s game but to also unexpectedly beat them. Being the underdogs made all those wins that much sweeter and always ended in huge celebrations of us hugging, dancing and jumping up and down. I even had my first dogpile after a buzzer beater! The feelings after those wins were some of the greatest emotional highs I’ve had playing.  They always reminded me why I love this game so much- the culmination of all your hard work paying off. We did have a few crushing loses in Euroleague too, but we dominated almost everything else, winning the Baltic League, Lithuanian League and DnB Cup championships. Our combined total record for the whole year was 35-6 meaning we won 85% of the time. Not too bad if I do say so. :) And after a slow start adjusting to a new level of game, I saw my minutes and production go up as my confidence did and I look forward to building on this for the next season.

Can you tell how happy I am?? :)

Although there were some trying times throughout basketball- like I said, some of those Euroleague games weren't just loses, but absolute thrashings- I still had fun playing with my team. Which brings me to the next part of my reason for such a great year- my team itself.

I know, I'm supposed to be a "professional" now and just worry about my performance and see basketball as my "job", but I can't help to still have a team mentality at any level and turn my teammates into best friends. My favorite teams I've ever been on in my life (8th grade, sophomore and senior year high school, my 2^nd, 4^th and 5^th year of college), were some of the most successful but were also the best because of the people on those teams. And the same goes for now. The girls on this team were never anything but welcoming and loving to me from the very beginning. And not just on the court, but I was lucky enough to make great friendships with them off the court as well. To me, it was one of those special teams where, yes there was some griping here and there (when is there not on female teams), but overall everyone meshed together well and got along. No matter what we were doing we always seemed to have a good time just because we were all together- yes, even on that 19 hour bus ride from Slovakia! :)

Apparent from previous blogs, my girls in the "fab 5"- Courtnay, Giedre, Marina and Lina- especially became great friends to me this past year. As the younger crew of the team, we all got along so well and had such good times together both at the gym and away from it. Although they have lived in Lithuania all their lives, there is such a heavy American influence that we shared in all the same pop culture gossip, TV shows and jokes. I mean, who knew that Bon Qui Qui is funny across all cultural barriers?! (Never heard of it? YoutTube it. Then laugh hysterically.) Courtnay and I obviously had a natural bond as the only North Americans, but that also grew into a close friendship that I was so happy to have (aka I would have died without her).  I can credit Marina, Giedre and Lina for taking me under their wing when I first got there and also showing me the ropes culturally- including where I can watch American TV and movies online for free and of course also teaching me the basics of Lithuanian language, predominantly all the bad words :) This was my “crew” over there and every minute we spent together turned into a great memory that I’ll always hold dear.

Yes, we're as much fun as we look :)

Being a few months removed from my rookie year, I look back on the whole experience as millions of great memories. After being scared to be away from family and friends, I ended up talking to at least one, if not ten people from back home every day. I’m not sure how people lived abroad before the internet, but I do know that I thank God every day for the inventors of email, Skype and Facebook (did I just thank God for Mark Zuckerburg? Weird...). With the constant support of tons of people from home, I had the experience of a lifetime playing basketball, travelling the world and hanging out with a great team. I still have to pinch myself now and then when I think that this is technically my job and that I am living out my dream of being a professional athlete (and yes, it’s still awkward for me to call myself that and yes, I purposely leave the “occupation” line blank on forms because its awkward).

If you’ve spoken with me at all about my experience (or followed this sparse blog of mine), I think it’s pretty easy to tell how much I loved it and how truly blessed I am to count that as an experience of a lifetime. I feel that I have grown immensely from it and I will always look back on that first year as one for the books…and for the blog :)

Dreams do come true.... :)

I love pictures

We were once again lucky enough to have a visitor here as Courtnay's best friend/college roommate, Jackie, came to visit. She played hockey in Austria this year and now has some down time in Europe so she decided to make the trek to Lithuania! It was only a short visit, but we had a good time, spreading the weekend out in Kaunas, Vilnius and Klaipeda. It was great to finally meet Jackie as I felt like I already knew her from Courtnay's stories, and it was even better because she has the same love of pictures that I do! :)

No this isn't photo-shopped. All bathrooms in malls have blue lighting. I know, weird!

Court and I at practice

Went to Bajorkeimis for dinner but stopped down by the river/woods behind it first for some photo ops.

Me on the left. Again, NOT photoshopped. I've developed a vertical in Lithuania!!! Haha. (Ok, maybe not...)

Jackie, Courtnay and I

Skippin rocks on the river. Always a country girl at heart! :)

Lithuanian national dish- cepellini. Tastes sooo much better than it looks. I'm gonna miss this!!

 

Indoor water park in Vilnius where slides go out the building and come back in. Awesome slides, jacuzzi and a swim-up bar-- LEGIT!

Excited I beat her in pop-a-shot (arcade basketball)! An yes, i get very competitive in arcade games! Haha.

Road trip to the Baltic Sea in Klaipeda!

I was so excited about the ferry you drive your car on. Just like in the movie Double Jeopardy!! Haha.

Good times on the ferry :)

Gettin ready to jump in the Baltic Sea!



Annnd it was FREEZING!!!!!
(As apparent by the ridiculous look on my face and my girly running style out of the water. Lol)



Just hanging at the Baltic Sea :)

Artsy ;)

Such a great visitor!!

Yep, this was the actual "bathroom". And yep, i used it.



Goofing around in Klaipeda



Winning never gets old!!

Just a quick (and semi-late) update. Last weekend we once again added some more hardware to the Vici name by winning the Baltic League!!! We had a semi final game where we played Lemminkainen for like the 80^th time this season. We started the game a little slow, and weren’t able to hit anything, so the game was actually close for awhile. After settling down in the second half we pulled away more and once again won by double digits. Ugly game, but I still of course chanted “we goin to the ship” afterwards (shout out to all my Hardball fans!! :) ).

The championship game was then against a Russian Spartak team, but no, not the same Spartak team from Euroleague. They were still going to be good competition though as they had some strong players including a girl from the WNBA. It was a pretty exciting game, and once again nice to play against tougher competition, but our girls were raining 3s left and right and we ended up with a double digit lead for most of the game, winning 85-72!! It was a great win as most everyone played well, making it a big team effort. :)

We had another big celebration similar to the DNB Cup win, including my favorite- you guessed it- CONFETTI (see “Checks on my Bucket List” post)!!!! We again had so much fun celebrating, as you can see in all these pictures and videos--

http://www.basketnews.lt/news-38543-vici-aistes-apgyne-bwbl-cempioniu-titula-video-foto-komentarai.html  (video at the bottom. And if you notice in the one picture below of Marina where Courtnay’s behind her putting her hands up making the "3" sign over her eyes- those are called "3 goggles". It was all the rage in college basketball this year and I was happy to bring the trend to Lithuania!! You can see Marina and I doing it on the bench when Courtnay hits a 3 and Marina also did it in the game after she hit one of her 3s. Nothing like a good celebratory fad! Lol.)

http://www.lrytas.lt/videonews/?id=13023616381300812956  (Notice when they show me, Vita, Lina and Courtnay together. They started taking pictures of us and I kept saying "dar, dar, dar" which means "more, more, more". See, my Lithuanian is good! ;) Haha)

They even gave us Championship shirts right after the game-- LEGIT.



LOVE this laughter pic!! :)



Trophy presentation

Raining confetti!!

(And Marina hamming it up as usual...lol)

CHAMPSSSSS!!!!! :)

"3 goggles"!!! :)

Teammates, Champions, Friends... <3

"Don't let them shave your head..."

Well most of you probably already know by now thanks to the social networking of both Facebook and my family, but I had my first real injury here in Lithuania. It actually happened about 2 weeks about but I’m gonna use my busy schedule and my minor concussion as an excuse for why it took me so long to blog about it. :) Also, I’m gonna cheat a little bit and rather than recount the whole story again, I’m copy and pasting the email that I wrote to my family about it the day after it happened…

So yesterday was like an easier day of practice. In the morning we just shot and then in the evening we had a "fun day" of playing games (which as we all know by now ended up not being so fun...lol). We played like 5 variations of tag, some monkey in the middle type stuff, things like that. Then the final thing we did was play soccer. As we know I am NOT the best soccer player (as we can remember from my brief and embarrassing stint in the Belle Clair soccer League...). But regardless I wanted to try my best. After playing goalie the entire game, Pikce decided she wanted to trade me so I went out as a regular player. Well literally the very next play the other team had a corner throw-in so everyone was obviously huddled close to the goal. Marius (strength coach) has like a 3 foot vertical so we knew they were gonna try to lob it up to him for a header. Well after that I'm not sure exactly what happened. When we both jumped to try to get it I remember hearing a loud pop/crunch sound and then things were black for a sec until I landed and realized we had bumped heads. I started stumbling around a little, trying to collect myself, obviously holding my head where I had got bumped. Then when people came around asking if I was ok I took my hand away and saw a whole bunch of blood. I figured I was ok enough so I walked over (with a couple of the girls’ help) to the bleachers and sat down. Marius was obviously much worse from the beginning. His nose was bleeding everywhere and they pretty much assumed it was broken right away. We sat there for awhile with Migle going back and forth tending between the 2 of us, with the girls intermittently coming and asking how we were. Then to my surprise Court was like "you know they called the ambulance for you guys" and all of a sudden like 3 EMTs were by me checking my head. It's not as dramatic as it sounds, but I was still surprised that they went to that trouble, since I didn't think the cut was that bad. But they said they were gonna take me to the hospital bc they thought I needed stitches. While waiting for the girls to get all my things together, the EMTs asked me (through thebroken translation of Vita) if I wanted some pain meds. Assuming I'd get a quick IV or something I said ok, forgetting that that's not the way they do it here. Sooo in the middle of the gym they pulled down the side of my pants and gave me a shot in the butt! Hahaha. No worries, completely normal here. Lol. And really at that point I didn't care. My butt was actually pretty sore from it though which i guess was ok bc it took my mind off my throbbing head.

Anyways, then walking out I got the big surprise to finally get my 1st ambulance ride! (As you guys remember i've always been a little bitter that Mom didn't let me ride in the ambulance when i got my first stitches when I was 6. Lol. So this was a dream come true! That is, to ride in an ambulance but not for a serious medical issue :) ). It wasn't as exciting as I thought as we didn't have the sirens on and since no one else spoke English (just Marius and I in there and he doesn’t speak it) andddd the fact that my head was still hurting. But we made it to the hospital with Migle and Courtnay following. Filled out some papers and then they took me back to a gurney to lie down. Then after like 8 people huddled around me and looked at my head (all speaking Lithuanian mind you), the 1 nurse who spoke English came and told me that they were gonna give me some stitches and do a CT scan. All fine with me until she said they were gonna have to shave my head a little around the cut!! :( (which as i was leaving the gym and all the girls were wishing me well, the last thing Giedre said was "good luck, don't let them shave your head!" Haha). So they took a little razor blade and i guess made a clearing around my cut. Still haven't seen it yet so don't know the damage...

Then they wheeled me to a room to get stitches. The guy nurse/doctor spoke pretty good English and told me he was gonna give me an anesthetic first which would hurt but then I wouldn't feel anything after that. Sounded good to me. And it did hurt a little but nothing too bad. Wellllll then he started in on the stitches which I COULD FEEL! So I said "I feel, I feel, I feel!" (Yes, broken English. Hahaha.) And he said "Yeah? You feel?" and I said "yes!" Ha. It didn't hurt too bad but knowing that I wasn't supposed to be feeling anything I wanted to tell him before he started the serious work! So he said he'd do more anesthetic- remember, the stuff that hurts? Well it did! I don't know if he did 3 different shots of it or was just moving his needle all around or what but it was ROUGH! As I was wincing in pain and mumbling a mixture of English and Lithuanian curse words, the nurse who spoke only Lithuanian grabbed my hand and tried to comfort me, so that was nice. I guess there's no language barrier for being in pain. Haha. But after that they stitched me up no problem (4 stitches!) and then took me to get my CT done. Then they wheeled me back to the like triage area and I sat there waiting for awhile until I asked the English speaking nurse if Migle could come see me. I hadn't seen her since they first took me back so I kinda wanted to touch base and see what was going on. So she came back and then sat with me for awhile. Said we had to wait for my test results to come back. She also said that Marius' nose was broken pretty badly, in like 3 places. So looks like I at least got the better end of the deal! Ha. Migle also had them give me some more pain meds (another shot in the butt!) so that made things feel better. She sat there for awhile just talking, holding my hand and petting my head like a mother of course while we waited. As you know, she takes such good care of us. :) She left then to go check on Marius again and I dozed off after that. She came back and woke me up to tell me that my test results were fine and we could leave. Although the gauze they had wrapped me in was full of blood so she asked someone to re-do it before we left. Which it was a differently lady who did it TERRIBLY!! My ears were sticking out everywhere and my hair was a mess under it. So after we walked out to the waiting room and Court and Marius (and allll the other people out there) got a good laugh at me, Migle sat and re-did it. Court and I left then, around 9 or 9:30, but apparently Marius and Migle didn't end up leaving til 11:30. Turns out he has to get surgery this week to fix it! Poor guy!!! :(

So I feel fine now. My head hurts a little but that’s expected, nothing serious and all my tests results were fine so I'm generally ok! :) I just have to wear this stupid gauze all around my head like a mummy! Court stayed at my apartment last night to make sure that I didn't get sick (like from a concussion) throughout the night (which I didn't). No practice today, there were only aerobics this morning which I got to miss. :) Honestly the worst part right now is that I can't wash my hair myself!!! Mind you it was already sweaty from our "games practice" and then it got all covered in blood! I think the nurse tried to wash it with a cloth a little bit but it didn't help much! It's this nasty, crunchy, grody mess!!! And, as Court said, it looks like I dyed my hair red!! Lol. So as soon as Court gets back from aerobics I think she’s gonna come help me wash it. I know, such a good friend. :) And I can’t wait!!!

Well, that’s my story. Crazy how it all went down. Funny- or not so funny- that the time I get hurt is while playing soccer. And of course I have now vowed to never play that stupid sport again! Ha. But I am glad that it wasn’t too serious and that it happened during an off week with no games. I would have been even more heated if I would have had to miss a game because of it! Also lucky that I only got what I would consider a “mild concussion”. I really felt ok for the most part and after taking a week off I was good to go when I started practicing again. I got the stitches out a few days ago and it doesn’t look that bad. My bald spot is growing back and can now be classified as “stubble”. Luckily its on the right side of my head and I’m a parter on the left side so my hair should always cover it. Probably the worst part was having to be careful when washing my hair for the week I had stitches. And the fact that I had to constantly keep my whole head covered in my mummy gauze. We came up with a solution though where I could wear Marina’s loose-fitting stocking cap to cover it up. Not really my style (I looked like a gangster) but it was less embarrassing than walking around looking like I was recovering from World War 2…hahaha.

So I’ve now got my 3^rd set of stitches and just another story to add to my memories. :) And of course, my stories are always better told in pictures….Enjoy! (But warning- there's a few blood shots. Don't get queasy ;) )



Stop for a photo op on our way out to the ambulance. Smiles = still riding high on adrenaline



They wanted me to leave the hospital like this. That'd seem a little awkward/scary to me.

Hot mess. The re-do of my gauze before Migle fixed me.

Just a few stitches to hold my skull together...no big deal ;)

The aforementioned " nasty, crunchy, grody mess" that was my hair

No worries, that's not red hair dye, just blood!

Bald spot, Day 1

Hoodlum for a week ;)

No more stitches! Just a jagged scar, mild bald spot, and some terrible roots that need to be re-dyed!! (Don't judge! Lol.)

Blue Chicken, Smoke and XBOX = Belarus

Last weekend was our trip to Belarus for the Baltic League Semifinals. It was a 3-4 hour trip by bus which wasn’t so bad because we got the most pimped-out bus I’ve ever been on! Rather than the usual “bus” we take (which is really just a glorified van) we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves travelling on a bus that had big comfy leather seats that were set up around small tables, almost like a restaurant. Even better, the Fab Five crew had our very own VIP section in the back, with a big U-shaped booth like we were in a club or something. Needless to say, we were riding in style! And it’s lucky for us that we had such a nice bus because we spent a majority of the trip sitting, waiting at the border. For some reason, Belarus has strict border patrols so it was kind of a pain having to stop and wait and then have armed soldiers come on the bus and check everyone’s passports individually. Yikes! But we made it through ok, and of course made a good time of it together. Remember, having a good time isn’t about where you are or what you’re doing, it’s about who you’re with! :) So of course Vici had some fun!

I was originally excited to travel to Belarus for a few reasons. 1- we hadn’t travelled outside of Lithuania in a few months; 2- Belarus was an unknown place to me so I was anxious to see what it’s like ; and 3- you know I’m always excited to get a new stamp/visa in my passport! :) However, the trip itself didn’t live up to the hype. About a week before we left the girls started telling us that Belarus was a “different” and “interesting” place that in fact isn’t very exciting. They also told us that the food there isn’t the greatest, including some “blue chicken” that apparently some of them had got in a previous trip. So my hopes weren’t too high going into the trip, and once we got there I’m glad I had low expectations. For lack of a better explanation, Belarus (or at least where we were in Minsk) was kind of the typical, Euro-trashy place. It was kind of drab and kind of dirty, but the worst part overall was the smoke. Apparently there are no non-smoking rules, including inside everywhereee in our hotel. Basically you woke up smelling and breathing a smoky atmosphere and it didn’t go away all day. Needless to say, it was NOT up to the Jean Kemezys hotel standards. ;)

Anyways, besides the hotel, the games were a better story! We knew we’d be playing 3 games in 3 days and had to at least win 2 of them in order to move onto the Baltic Final Four. Although this was better competition than the LMKL, the first two games were against the lower teams of the pool and we ended up beating both of them pretty handily. So even though the 3^rd game was simply for pride and a better seeding, it still had some added excitement because it was against the stronger Belarus team, which was comprised of many players from the Belarus National Team (aka these girls were more legit than our usual competition). It was an exciting game from the beginning and definitely the biggest “battle” type game that we’ve had since Euroleague ended. It was especially nice for me that they had some legit post players (both tall and wide) who I could bang around with. Since we all know that my style is more of a physical game and not so euro-finesse, it’s been killing me playing all these LMKL girls who are barely 6 feet tall and about as wide as one of my legs!! So after a tough battle back and forth for most of the game we ended up hitting some timely shots and getting defensive stops when needed and pulled the game out by 6. Overall it was really just nice to play in a legit competitive game again. Those are the type of games I enjoy the most and are why I love playing! It’s so much fun going to battle with a team you love and seeing our hard work pay off.

Also, after the final game, as the announcers were rambling on in Russian, I heard my name called, and after looking around questioningly, my team urged me to go accept an award. In all honesty I wasn’t for sure what it was, some type of player of the game or weekend or something, but it included getting a (JANKY!) trophy that has some Russian writing on it (that I of course Google translated with the results of “Best Players, Semi-final match, Championship BZHBL” where I think the BZHBL stands for the Baltic League). So it was nice to get something but even better that the team was more excited about it for me than I was. And of course the best part was that the team played well and won all three games!

My dollar store trophy :)

Overall, even though Belarus wasn’t the nicest country to visit, we are happy with the results and of course had fun off the court too. A few other comments on the trip overall:

- Luckily there was no blue chicken as expected but the food wasn’t the greatest in general. Although my food selections have increased greatly over the past year, I still had trouble stomaching the borscht and some sort of curd-filled pastry that they had (although I did try it!). It wasn’t a total food disaster, but it did make me even more anxious for American food (or even Lithuanian food for that matter)!!

- Courtnay and I each had somewhat of “wardrobe malfunctions” this trip. Before we had left Kaunas, Court, Giedre, Marina and I stopped at the Sandwich Bar for lunch and for some reason (nothing short than a miracle of God’s!) I all of a sudden remembered that I had only packed one of my jerseys. Luckily we had time for Giedre to race me home and get it before we met up for the bus. Major crisis averted! Courtnay’s was a little funnier in that seconds before our first game, when we were all taking our warm ups off, she looked down and noticed that she was wearing our Euroleague shorts instead of the LMKL uniform shorts that we all had on. It’s not really a big deal seeing that they’re pretty similar minus a few advertisements on them, but it was still a funny moment when Court pulled off her warm up pants and had a minor freak out. But all in all, we made it ok.

- Since this was gonna be a long trip Marina decided to bring her XBOX along to have in the hotel. We had a lot of down time, so her and I spent a few evenings having some heated battles on a war/shooting game (yes, we got yelled at by our hotel neighbors for screaming so loud at times…and yes, we sometimes act like middle-schoolers…lol). It definitely took me back to the great days of playing GoldenEye on N64 (still the best gaming system EVER in my opinion) with my sister and cousins (you know I always beat you Kate!! Lol). As a closet “gamer” it was fun to have that along for the trip and even though I lost every game because of home-gaming-system-advantage I’m determined to beat Marina before I leave Lithuania! Haha.

- In case any of you are wondering, I also learned that Belarus is apparently the place to go for buying cigarettes, alcohol and some over the counter drugs. Apparently the cigarettes and alcohol are remarkably cheaper in Belarus and they also offer some drugs over the counter there that you have to get a prescription to get in Lithuania. Although we didn’t go crazy on this contraband, some of the girls did stock up on a few things, including some champagne and beer that we enjoyed during our celebratory ride home on the “Soul Bus”. So if you ever need some cheap cigs, alcohol or mildly-banned drugs, Minsk, Belarus is the place to go! You really do learn something new every day, huh? :)

 - Finally, a few of the players on the teams we played were Ukrainian and I just can’t NOT share this video clip seeing that it was all I kept thinking about. And yes, it took everything in my power not to trash talk with them by saying “the Ukraine is weak”!! Hahaha. I <3 Seinfeld.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzLtF_PxbYw