Harry Potter's House

(This picture taken from the web)

Hohenzollern

Germany never ceases to amaze me... The only thing missing from the beautiful collage of colors in the landscape is water.  It's a bit weird being from an island and now living in a place where the only water you see is the occasional lake and what comes out of the facet.  Visiting castles will also never get old, especially now that I've seen one of the bigger castles Germany has to offer that is full of incredible history and dates back to the 11th century.

The castle, Burg-Hohenzollern, was built in 1061 and stood strong for nearly 400 years until it was destroyed (I'm assuming from flaming, explosive catapult fire balls).  However, it was rebuilt even stronger and better within the next 30 years only to suffer neglect from changing owners during the next 350 years.  Good thing the emperor of Prussia came to save the day and restore this amazing castle with a reconstructed Neo-Gothic style.  We toured only a small portion of what the castle had to offer inside as it is still owned privately; however, we were able to see secret passages, elegant hallways, a beautiful banquet hall, personal chambers, and old collections of diningware, armor, weapons, crowns, jewelry, paintings, portraits, and more!!

The courtyard. 

Beautiful portraits handpainted... Don't tell anyone I took the pictures, no photography allowed ;]

Nice pants.

Amazing landscape.  Farms with sheep herds and other animals were randomly scattered about but can't be seen in these pictures. 

Incredibly intricate and detailed room.  To preserve the floors we had to wear shoe slippers, which you'll see in a photo below. 

Very picture-worthy hallway. 

One of the old bedrooms complete with a mirror, TINY bed (no way I could of fit), and a washing area... aka a bowl and a sponge.  What a gross way to shower...errr...bathe*.

Bruchsal Schloss (Castle)

Today my roommate and I hit the road in our clunker and drove to a nearby city by the name of Bruchsal.  This beautiful German town is famous for it's 18th century castle that was destroyed in World War II and then rebuilt in the last 50 years (and is still undergoing construction).  I've posted a few photos of the amazing painting and architecture... also, the weather cooperated and we were able to explore in 70 degree weather (sorry Alaskans)!

Going in!

Pillars from the outer entrance. 

Part of the castle was tributed to old instruments and music players... Below is an old fashioned jukebox with the coin slot on the right!  

I don't know about you, but this definitely resembles a boombox... I don't think it plays any Snoop Dog though. 

Can't imagine how long it took to create something like this... incredible.

Check out that wood work!

The "backyard" view of the church that hangs out next to the castle. 

View from directly under an amazing chandelier looking towards the ceiling.  

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Marble, gold, and authentic artwork... What more could a rich bishop ask for?

Guillotine! Headdddooooo (hello with an accent..punny)

There's enough reason to stay out of trouble if you lived back in the day.

Incredibly powerful painting, especially considering the country I'm standing in looking at this.

Amazing glasswork. 

I cannot get over these amazing rooms!!

Either can this group of gawking tourists.  Okay who am I kidding, my neck hurts from staring at the ceiling so much.

We have so many more castles to see!  Here's the huge stack of brochures Sid casually made off with of all the castles nearby.  

Replace the grass with water and you have a moat!

Perspective. 

Oh you fancy, huh.

More castle bits across the street.

We out!

Dear Blog, It's Been Awhile

I haven't realized how long it's been since I last posted something, so time to fill you in on the last 10 days.  First, the bad news: we lost to a team we really shouldn't have, but under some extenuating circumstances.  Second, the good news: I saw the most amazing castle... well ruins of a castle... up close and personal in Heidelberg.

I unfortunately didn't get to go into the castle, but it was pretty sweet even from the outside.  They have an incredible view from up there!

Now a little about the game... we were down a few of our main players, one still out with an injury and one was sick.  This dropped us down to 6 people (ouch) and we had to rotate in some of the younger team players to give our main German's a few rest breaks.  The win was at home and the team celebrated like the won some kind of championship, ridiculous.  Till we meet again.  If anyone is interested in seeing post game stats or watching live stats (even though our games are probably really early in the morning back home) the leauge site is: http://www.dbbl.de/de/

Dirk Nowitzki Stomping Grounds

If you don't know of Dirk Nowitzki, let me fill you in:

He is one of the greatest German's to play in the NBA and is THE MAN in the paint (post player reference).  He was drafted in 1998 and has averaged nearly 23 points per game throughout his 15 year career.  He shoots an incredible 48% from the field and averages 8 boards per game... pretty impressive stuff!  The 7 foot center led the Dallas Mavericks to their first NBA championship during the 2010-11 season and also was the NBA MVP that same year.  In summary, he is the shiz.

His hometown: Wurzburg, Germany... where my team and I played this weekend.  

To get to the game we all shoved into an 8 passenger van for 2 hours on the way there and FIVE hours on the way back thanks to some hefty 4 day weekend traffic.  Never thought I'd experience that on the fastest highway in the world!!  Ah, the irony.

Anyway, to the game.  And if you don't feel like reading an awesome, yet fairly detailed recap, please skip ahead.

Wurzburg vs. Viernheim, Conference Game #2
Did I look at the refs wrong?
This was my thought the entire game as I'm learning each time we play how merciless the refs are to Americans, especially posts.  I have never been so frustrated or felt like the reffing was so biased in my entire life and the inconsistent calls almost landed me fouled out and on the bench.  First, I couldn't get a single call my way - and believe me - I was getting hammered every time I went up by the basket.  At one point, I split two defenders with a spin move and one grabbed my arm on the way up to the basket.  The shot went in and I was waiting for the whistle for the "and 1" call, but did it come? Nooooooppppee!!  Secondly, I picked up 3 fouls 5 minutes into the second quarter (one from a very clean block), which landed me on the bench to heatedly watch the game and let the steam from my ears slowly die down.

1st Quarter
We jumped out to an incredible 14-0 start and I thought the game was going to be a complete blowout, as Wurzburg was shooting terribly from the field and we were owning them on the boards and controlling the tempo of the game.

2nd Quarter
Unfortunately for us, their dry spell ended and they started hitting some big 3's and our double digit lead evaporated as they pulled within 6 points to end the half.  It didn't help that we were 7 players deep and therefore had very sparse subbing while they were subbing 2-3 girls in at a time to keep their players fresh.

3rd Quarter
Knowing I had 3 fouls, I tried to tighten/smarten up my defense and not go for anything stupid.  Our team was battling hard to keep up with our very quick opponent and using up every ounce of energy we had to stop them in transition.  By the end of the third, we held on to a small lead.

4th Quarter
Fast forward to a minute left in the game, Wurzburg took the lead by 1 on a pair of free throws.  Maybe it was the fizzy water that I drank (since that's all German's seem to like and bring for the team to the game), but my stomach was in nervous knots the entire fourth quarter.  With team moral and my moral nearly beaten from getting absolutely no calls from the refs in a game that felt like 7 on 5, we rallied to get a basket to put us back in the led.  But, Wurzburg quickly answered on a big two point shot from their American with 17 seconds left.  Our coach calls a timeout and sets up a play, which ends up falling through and we get a decent shot off from the field but it clanks out... desperately, I dive into the paint to try to tip the ball in or at least get the rebound but it's just slightly out of reach... HOWEVER I end up tipping it to our 6'4" awesome German post who grabs it and practically dunks it in to take the lead by 1 point with 5.5 seconds left!  Stomach knots getting no better, we buckle down on defense... their American gets a really good look from a pull-up jumper but it rattles out and we win!!!

End attempts at the free throw line: Wurzburg 26, Viernheim 12.  Complete shiza and biased reffing with stats to prove it.

With all adversity aside, we got the win!  And now I think we're getting the attention from the league who counted us out early.  Such a good feeling to be 3-0 (2-0) in conference... time to keep on rollin'!

Lass uns Gewinnen!

Let's win!!

Tomorrow we have our second conference game of the year against Wuerzburg, a team two hours up the Autobahn from Viernheim.  A quick brief on them = they are fast and like to push the ball in transition.  We also know they have a quick, little American point guard who makes them go.  It will be a good test of how we can work together and transition back on defense.

We also played yesterday in the "Pokal", which is basically like an extended version of the NCAA tournament that is spread throughout the season between all the division teams in Germany.  Therefore, at some point we may play a Division 1 opponent depending on how far we make it.  On Thursday we played a team that is a division lower than us and beat them pretty handily by 50.  The next round of the Pokal is against USC-Heidelberg who we beat last weekend... and if you're wondering, yes we're a little mad we have to play the same team AGAIN!

Swedish Escapade

Two of my very good friends who I used to play with in college at UAA are now playing professionally in Norrkoping, Sweden, which is an hour out of Stockholm by train.  To get there, my roommate drove me a half hour to Manneheim, where I boarded a bus that drove nearly 2 hours to a the Frankfurt-Hahn airport in the middle of (what I feel like was) no where.  There, I got on a flight that took nearly 2 hours as well and landed at the Stockholm-Skatsva airport.  Theeeennnn I got on a bus that took me to a train station and finally I got on my last 45 minute train to get to Norrkoping!

Underground area at the train station.

The train to take me to Norrkoping... my first ride on an actual train!  (I know, deprived Alaskan life)

Now I won't lie to you... I can't say I was all too confident that I'd make all my connections and figure my way around in a different country with a completely different language and layout.  

On the train... passing through miles and miles of Swedish farmland.

Train station in Sweden... it was chillllyyyy!!!

After watching Hanna and Tamar's team dominate their opponent on the court, we headed to downtown Norrkoping for "Culture Night" where music was playing all over in different little nooks and crannies of the city.

You hear about water-ways running through Venice, but never did I think I'd see something like this in Sweden!  Pretty sweet.

Swedes love their candy!!!

View from atop a small hill... Sweden seemed a lot like Alaska... just missing the mountains.

Mis amigas :)  Nothing has changed in over a year!

Love these girls!