The cobblestone streets lined with shops, cafes and restaurants. Our restaurant is on the right with the green umbrellas. a great meal outside.
Our restaurant after dark
The tree lined pedestrian street lined with cafes. Note the almost perfect timing with the 2 women in the foreground!!
A neat alleyway in the Bohemian district
Our restaurant - This old hat of mine. Great food and friendly people.
Lines and lines of cafes
Fountain in republic square
Serbia Day 12
Day 12 is over. Wow. What a full day. Quite possibly the best day since we arrived. Breakfast was set for 9am so I thought I would get some sleep in. The South African contingent decided against that plan. In the parking lot immediately behind my room they decided to do team building exercises at 7:45AM. Instead of being pissed I just sat there and observed. They did some neat activities and different challenges. I took some notes and thought about what they might be trying to accomplish with the activities. They were doing some neat things.
So breakfast was fairly busy with no scrambled eggs available so it was sliced ham, polenta and the rice/nut/raisin/milky kind of mix. I discovered pumpkin seeds in it today. It’s not too bad. Leaving breakfast I started to notice the heat. It was humid and VERY hot today.
After breakfast we had a team meeting scheduled for 11:30. Deb, Linda and I went for a coffee at the sidewalk café to get some sun and relax for a bit. It is amazing to me to see how many athletes are there smoking and drinking coffee. I headed back to my room afterwards and finished the Mozambique video. We headed over to the meeting room at 11:00 to set up and discuss the game plan. The meeting was quick and then the girls headed off to get a snack as a pregame meal. Deb, Linda and I headed over to the little grocery store on campus and then went to the tourist info place, the souvenir store and the headquarters for the 2011 games which will be in China. I don’t know if it was fatigue or not but we had too many laughs in that short time.
The bus departed for the game at about 1:45 for a 3PM start. When we got to the gym Hungary and Japan were in a tight game. It went to overtime and with 5 seconds left and her team down 1, a Japanese player stole the ball and went in alone for the win. She tried to roll it over the front of the rim and it rolled out. They lost on a bad fundamental. USE THE BACKBOARD!!!!
So we start the game vs. Mozambique and the girls seemed a little flat which was a familiar setting. We struggled to get going and they were up 21-14 at the end of the 1st quarter. They were driving hard to the rim and we just couldn’t seem to get in front of them to stop them. Their athleticism was tough to handle. Having never practiced it we switched to a zone and that caused them trouble. We made a great run and were up 37-29 at the half. Interesting thing happened in the first half. Mozambique is not that deep and they only play around 8 kids maximum, most of the time it is 7. Well one of their players picked up their third and then fourth foul with no sub. She then fouled out with about 4 minutes left in the first half. I had never seen that before.
We met at halftime and I discussed some adjustments for our zone defense. We were going to stay in it as long as we could. For a little bit in the 3rd quarter they forced us to lose our discipline and we spaced out too much allowing them to find the holes and score. We called time out and tightened it up and things seemed to be fine. We stayed in it the rest of the way and came away with our first win - 76-58. Kelsey struggled a bit today as I think her legs are bugging her although she will never say anything. She finished with 3 points. (Last night it was 11 as I think I forgot to add that in).
We were pleased with the effort and now we have a day off tomorrow with a game vs. France scheduled for Wednesday.
A familiar face was in the crowd cheering us on today as Jelena made the journey from her home to come and watch. It was really nice to see her and she looked great. What was even more impressive was that she took a 4 hour bus ride to the site of the game to cheer us on and then jumped on the bus and headed back home for another 4 hour bus ride. Her and her parents are coming up here on the weekend and we will go out and have dinner.
So the real adventure came after the game. We came back and the girls got ready to head to the men’s game. The coaching staff decided to explore what downtown Belgrade nightlife was like. The temperature here tonight was amazing. We headed downtown at around 6pm. The cab ride was fun as the guy said he was having a bad day and then tried to get a little more out of us instead of the agreed upon price. We settled on a price and headed out into Republic Square. This is located in old Belgrade and it beautiful. There are a number of pedestrian streets with shops and art displays and a pile of sidewalk cafes. We sat at one and just people watched for a while. All I can say is that Serbian women are impressive!!!
While we were there, a young and quite sickly looking girl who was probably no older than 8 or 9 came up to us with a note scribbled in Serbian. She was begging the people for money. She looked pretty bad and it was quite sad. After a little while we headed off in search of information. We found a tourist info booth and we asked about a good place to eat. She told us there were many restaurants in the Bohemian district of Skadarlija. She didn’t point us in the right direction though, she walked us over to the area and told us exactly where to go. She was a wonderful young lady.
I didn’t know what to expect but I was floored when I got there. Cobblestone streets lined with cafes, restaurants and artisans. It looked like something out of a painting. I was really blown away. It was what I expected in Europe. We walked around a few streets and checked out a few spots. It was so pretty with little bands playing Serbian songs at most of the restaurants. WE decided on one that was recommended called “This Old Hat of Mine”. We sat down in the beautiful night and watched the people go by as we listened to Serbian music. Our waiter was very nice and explained some of the things to us. First were the drinks and I ordered lemonade which was warm, freshly squeezed lemon juice. He brought sugar with it that made it somewhat drinkable. He also brought some warm bread that was very good. He told us about an appetizer plate so we ordered it. It was good. It came with a very tasty smoked meat, prosciutto, corn bread, feta cheese, a ham and cream cheese “square”, two kind of spiral rolls with cream cheese and spices and some kind of salad in the middle almost like chicken salad. IT also came with a cheese spread that was almost like butter that is traditional in Serbia. WOW. IT was tasty to say the least. The waiter also brought some peppers on a plate with garlic. Deb tried them and had tears in her eyes because they were so hot. She did a good job of eating many of them though.
I asked our waiter to recommend something to me and he asked what I felt like. I said meat and potatoes. He said “Good, in Serbia we are meat eaters”. He recommended a sampler plate so I went for it. It arrived with a few potatoes on it and then 3 different sausages, a bacon wrapped chicken breast, a cheese stuffed pork tenderloin sample, a piece of beef and then something else I thought was pork. The potatoes may have been the best ever and the meat was OUTSTANDING. What an amazing meal in an amazing environment. We had great conversation and shared a lot of laughs.
After dinner we roamed around a bit and checked things out on the streets. We then headed back to republic square. There was a Nike store open so we headed inside to check things out. I didn’t buy anything after looking at one pair of Air Jordans. They cost over $400. No thanks.
Perhaps the most fun part of the night came next. I think Deb would talk to the devil if she could and she is all about business when it comes to certain things. We approached a cab driver and she haggled a price and we jumped in. The driver looked about 50 and seemed friendly. She started chatting up the driver and our education began. We asked him about sports and he said he didn’t follow them. He said when he was younger he liked sports a little bit but when all his buddies were playing football and basketball he was playing his favorite sport – chasing women. Then the philosophy came. Deb teased him about it and then he told us some sage wisdom. He said in broken English, “Women are like ocean, you must explore”. He then told us that women are like books too. He said, “You read book, you know in future the book. You know what happens and how everything will be. Read book and then get a new book. Old book is boring now.” He had us laughing the whole way home. What a crazy ending to an absolutely fun day. Tiring but fun.
So tomorrow is an off day before we play on Wednesday. In the morning we will have breakfast and then our attaché is taking us to Kalamegdan park and the Belgrade fortress. It should be fun. We saw the fortress on our tour and it looked impressive.
Now that you are completely asleep I will depart and get ready for some sleep. One week from now at this time I will be in Montreal awaiting a flight to Halifax. I can’t wait to smell the ocean.
Coach
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