A Tour of Vina

Bienvenidos a Chile

Since my last blog post, I have returned home from Australia to Portland, where I stayed for 2 weeks. Last week I signed to play with Sagrados Corazones in Vina Del Mar, Chile. I have been down here in Chile for a week now and once again I find myself in a great situation. Vina Del Mar is a beatiful Chilean city right on the Pacific ocean.It is a major tourist attraction in Chile and I heard it gets crazy in the summer with all the visitors coming from abroad! Since I've been here, its been sunny all but 1 day.

5 minutes from my hotel

I live in a hotel in a great part of Vina. It is close to the center of the city, the beach, and many pubs and nightclubs, as well as a huge casino. The lovely workers of the hotel make us three meals a day, and are great cooks. In Chile, lunch is the biggest meal of the day. For "almuerzo", we eat a soup and salad for starters, then a main course of chicken, fish, or some kind of meat and then desert, or "postre"
I really an enjoying experiencing this new culture and I am getting along well with the coach and players. The language barrier is very frustrating at times, but I am doing Rosetta Stone to help learn Spanish. I may also enroll in a language school in Vina in the mornings. A few of my teammates speak English and one or 2 is fluent. They serve as our main translators when coach is giving us directions. (He is from Argentina and doesn't speak much English) When i'm not playing ball, I like to walk around the city and try and take it all in. There is so much to see and do and there are always so many people walking the streets, which makes it interesting. Living in Chile, where the average man is.... well lets just say not very tall, I get stared at often, as the Chileans don't see a 6'7 gringo everyday..

Sagrados Corazones

Our first game ended in a 6-6 tie... Now you may be thinking to yourself, thats a pretty low score, basketball games can't end in a tie. Well in this instance, 4 minutes into a game in Santiago (Chile's capital and largest city) there was a massive power outage in the city, causing millions of people to go without power for a few hours, including our team. Fortunately we had a game the next day and pleased our home crowd with a 68- 38 win. This weekend we have 2 games, the second one being against the league top team, "Boston College". It should be a great weekend to gauge where we are at as a team.

The Grand Finals

Whats up people? Hope everyones doing well.  The season in Australia just ended this past weekend, as we lost to Geelong in the grand final series, 2-1.
1,000 or so people packed our home stadium, "The Arc" for game 1 of the series. It was an amazing atmosphere and we won the game by 10 in overtime, despite being down by 16 pts in the 1st half.  It was a great win and was our 14th consecutive victory. Shout out to all of our fans for their great support all season.
Many of the Warrnambool faithful made the 2 hour trip the following week to watch the 2nd and 3rd games in Geelong. Unfortunately, the weekend didnt go too well for us. We lost game 2 by 16 and fell in the third game to end our season.

Here is a small news highlight about our semifinal win against Whittlesea.
Despite the sour end to the year, we have a lot to be proud of. The Seahawks made the grand final for the 1st time in 11 years and we finished the season 17-8. For me personally, I had a great year in Australia. I really enjoyed the team and the people of W'bool and am hoping to come back next year.
For now, I am unemployed for the first time in a while. I'm looking to play in Europe or  South America for this upcoming season, but havent received any offers yet. Tomorrow I am traveling to Sydney for a few days and then I head back to Portland a week from today.
Peace

Game Footage

Here is footage of one of my games in Ireland

                                        

Trip to Queensland and the All Star Game

I know its been a while since my last post, but quite a lot has happens since you last heard from me. I learned to surf (well, kinda), traveled around the country, and played in the Big V All Star game. Yes, its been a good few weeks.
    We recently had a bye week and got the week of training to rest our bodies. A few teammates and I took advantage of this time off and took a trip to Queensland and New South Wales (these are other states in Australia for those who don’t know) to relax a bit and get some good weather. For the first few days we were in Byron Bay which is a small, hippy town about an hour south of Gold Coast. Its right on the beach and the weather is still warm and sunny (even in the winter). We spent most of the time at the beach and I got a surfing lesson. Lets just say, its not as easy as it looks.

After falling at least 20-30 times, I finally got up (only for about 2 seconds though). My body took a beating out there! After a few fun nights we headed north to Gold Coast and spent a night there. We got free accommodation there in this ridiculously nice hotel right near the beach and all of the night clubs which was awesome. We all had a good night fist pumping and getting down in the club out there  All in all we had a great vacation. It was awesome for me to see other parts of Australia other than Victoria. Australia is really a great place (thats a hint for you peeps at home to come visit me).
    I was also fortunate enough to be named to the Big V Division 1 All Star team. This past Saturday two of my teammates and I drove to Melbourne to take part in the All Star festivities. Playing in the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Center, we had a great crowd and it was a successful event. Unfortunately, we lost the game by 9 ( I led the Division 1 squad with 12 pts.... I was gunning). It was a great honor to play in the game, but now I’m ready to get back to the regular season.
    We have won 3 in a row now and at 6-6, are two games out of the playoffs. With 8 games left in the season, we know that are margin of error is small and we need to win probably 6 or 7 games to make the playoffs. But we are confident that it can happen!!! Anyway, thats all for now. Miss everyone back home and hope everyone is doing well...!!!

Settling In...

Its hard to believe that I’ve been down here for almost a month now. It has truly been a great experience so far. I have done quite a bit of stuff and have seen a lot of Victoria (the state where I am living). A few weeks ago I went to Tower Hill nature park, where I saw kangaroos, emus, and koalas. I have been to some beautiful beaches and spent a day and night in Melbourne, which is a great city. It is so diverse and has so much going on in the city. It’s a great city for young people who like to party, as the clubs stay open through the night and into the morning. Australians are very nice people and the players, coaches, and committee members really have made Warrnambool feel like home for me. We have a great community fan base as well and have around 500-600 fans at each game, which is very good for our league. The fans, especially the younger ones, are really involved and get loud at our games (we even have our own player cards)  A few days after I arrived in Warrnambool I got interviewed at the local radio station and was on a sports talk show, which I must say was pretty cool. I also write a weekly column in the local newspaper giving an insight into the life of a professional basketball player, both on and off the court. I am hoping through these media outlets that basketball will continue to grow as a sport in Australia. (The number 1 sport is Aussie Rules Football, or footy as they call it).
    The Seahawks are currently 2-4 and are in place in the Big V standings. We won our last game at Altona to pick up our second win of the year.  After getting the Easter break off, we are back to work this week and play Whittlesea on Saturday night for our next game.  Hope everyone had a great Easter and I miss everyone back home  Peace

Goodbye Ireland, Hello Australia

Its been about a month since my last post and quite a bit has changed in my life. The season in Ireland ended. We lost by two points in the semifinals of the league playoffs, which was a very tough loss. Despite the loss, I had a great experience in Ireland and want to thank all of the players, coaches, and committee members that helped make it such an enjoyable 7 months for me.

I recently signed a contract to play for the Warrnambool Seahawks in Australia's Big V league. I flew home from Ireland on the 22nd of March and headed down here the 31st of the month. It was tough only being home for a week or so, but it was great to see all my friends and family for a bit. Warrnambool is a small, coastal town located in the south of Australia, (about a 3 hour drive from Melbourne) in the state of Victoria. Its a beautiful city and I am very excited to be about 1 kilometer from the beach.

I arrived in Australia on the 2nd of April (ya it was a pretty long flight) at 9:30 and played in our game that night at 7. Despite the jet lag, I was still able to play a solid game and we won by 7 on our home floor. The arena and the crowd were awesome and everyone has been great to me so far.  I even got a write up in the city newspaper, http://www.standard.net.au/news/local/sport/basketball/seahawks-import-gets-down-to-business/2122347.aspx .
We have a very young team, but have lots of talent and should really improve over the season. Updates coming soon.