Rebecca Woodberry - Europe Blog #10

Today, we were able to wake up at a reasonable time and enjoy a delicious breakfast in the hotel restaurant.  I am absolutely in love with the breakfast items in Europe; they definitely have fresher and healthier options compared to many American hotels.  The hotel we were staying at was similar to the hotel in Sweden; although, this hotel had an old-fashioned/antique feel to it.  

After breakfast we got on our bus for our tour of the area.  Our tour lady had a pretty thick accent, but was able to speak good enough English for us to be able to comprehend.  I was excited to use the only Norwegian word that I knew, "Takk," pronounced like "tuck", which means "Thank you."  I was sure to use it as much as possible.  Every time I used it the people would laugh at me and smile, but I didn't mind. During our bus ride to the museum the scenery was gorgeous.

The museum we visited was similar to the one in Sweden except the boats there weren't as big, were all made from wood, and were very fragile.  Our tour lady mentioned to us that in the first boat the queen was buried in it with all of her belongings, and the second boat traveled without any hood/cover for six weeks from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.  You would think that these boats had engines, but they were all rowed and needed 26 people rowing at once.  I also learned what a Viking was, sadly I never knew.  I've heard of several schools and professional teams with the mascot but never thought twice about what they truly were.  Viking is a Norwegian-Scandinavian word that comes from the word "bay" and is a person who invaded the north and west seas in Europe around 8th century.

The only thing I dislike about Norway are the prices.  I'm pretty sure the rest of my teammates and staff can agree with me.  Shawn (Gilbert), our video coordinator, told us that Norway is actually among the top three most expensive places to live in the world.  After hearing that I was thrilled. Unfortunately, a couple of girls thought it would be smart to go the cheap route by going to McDonalds.  After Tear'a (Laudermill) purchased a simple combo, it came out to be 118 kroners which equates to 21 U.S. dollars.  At that moment we all knew we would have to be very wise when it came to how we would be spending or money in Norway.

Later that day we had our second game of our trip, which came against a Norwegian team.  We were all ready to come out more focused with fresher legs than our first game.  The first game was a little bit shaky and many people, six in total, had their first game jitters I'm sure.  I'm thankful and happy that we are able to play a total of four games and improve as individuals and a whole.  We started off kind of slow and eventually picked it up toward the end of the first quarter.  We were finishing and rebounding a lot better than we had been in the first game. As I'm sure you all know by now, we ended up winning and hope to continue winning once we arrive in Copenhagen.

After the game we headed back to the hotel and freshened up.  For dinner a group of players went out looking for the cheapest and best meal to eat.  We ended up finding a deli place and a lot of us enjoyed fresh sandwiches.  I'm definitely enjoying my trip here in Europe and want to thank the Fastbreakers again for making this happen.  The team, staff, and I truly appreciate it!

Go Big Red!

Rebecca Woodberry