Killing 'em on the road

I could romanticize these past few weeks and speak only of traveling the snowy European countryside by train, sitting in cafes in Vienna watching fat, flaky snow fall, walking by closed shops with workers inside hanging wreathes and balancing Christmas trees, ornaments and bows waiting on the ground around them. I could speak of watching the sun go down over the houses and buildings of a small Swiss town, walking the brisk old town of Bratislava, or browsing a Christmas bazaar in Western Hungary. I’ve done all those things. In fact, in the last three weeks I’ve been in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, and Ukraine and even sometimes in Slovakia. I’ve bought bottled water in Euros, coffee in Swiss Francs, vodka in Hungarian Forints, potato chips in Slovakian Crowns, and orange juice in Ukrainian Hryvnia. Buying a candy bar was like working out an SAT question. Remind me never to go into currency trading. The other story of course is laden with 18-hour bus rides and below freezing temperature, days spent in overcrowded airports and nights stumbling through gas station bathrooms, one time even sharing a stall with a mouse. But in all honesty, the last few weeks have been both romantic and miserable but all in all experiences to remember.

I’ll start my story with the last leisurely weekend I have had in awhile. After a Slovakian league blowout (winning by 60 points) my parents and I got dropped off at a train station somewhere in western Slovakia. Since nothing was open we ended up eating gas station bought sandwiches and avoiding drunks walking around the train station. It seemed we found the one happening spot in town. It was freezing cold outside as we boarded the train and rode to Bratislava, excited to have a couple days free to travel. We woke up the next day to a beautiful sunny day in our very strange but comfortable former Communist hotel. The building probably hadn’t gotten a touch of paint since the 1950s and I kept imagining my grandfather sipping high balls in the ancient bar on one of his business trips back in the day.

After a beautiful European breakfast, mom and dad and I hopped on a train to Vienna where we stopped at the famous Opera House and talked of Mozart, window shopped along the snowy streets, and kept warm inside the Gothic Cathedral. We snuck into cafes where we sipped coffee with whipped cream and almonds, ate cheese strudel with rich vanilla sauce and watched the umbrellas bobbing up and down outside. At every possible opportunity mom and I toured the beautiful hotel lobbies, basking in a small taste of western high class.

After the nice weekend in Bratislava and Vienna, it was time to get back to Ruzomberok and prepare for the travel ahead. The first road trip was to Switzerland, 18 hours away by bus. We left on a very cold and snowy night, slept as well as one can on a bus, stopping every so often for bathrooms in Austria, coffee and breakfast in Germany, and finally stumbling off the bus at a rest stop somewhere in Switzerland only to look up and see the Swiss alps in all their jagged glory. I felt like breaking into “The hills are alive with the sound of music”….. but couldn’t muster up the energy. The trip was long and a bit confusing. Bathroom and snack breaks were a bit of a crapshoot, fumbling around through a mélange of currency, deducing the country from the change collected in the bathrooms or from the foreign profanities thrown at us by bathroom attendants when our currency didn’t match up with their toilet paper charge.

Finally we rolled into the little town of Neutchatel and settled into our beautiful hotel with Swiss chocolate on the pillow and fluffy white towels. Never had a nice hotel room felt so good. I pulled back the old window and looked out over the city with its large beautiful lake and snow-capped mountains. I could see the sun going down over rooftop decks of the buildings in the old town below.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Switzerland although it was limited to the gym, the hotel, and an overpriced mall. Mostly I spent time in my lovely European hotel, sipping silky coffee and eating flaky croissants. The morning of the game I found myself in the café at the train station catching up on two years time with my college teammate, Brittney Wilkins who would be on the other bench that night. It was so great to talk to her, weaving our lives together again, remembering old times, and relishing this magical winter spent in Europe.

The game was incredible. There were three people in the packed stands cheering for our team and two of them were my mom and dad. I played probably the best game I’ve ever played and we won by 2. It was exciting and dramatic and a huge road win for our team.

After the game we drank beer and ate pizza at a small Italian restaurant. The refs were at a nearby table, the owners of the other team in the opposite corner, and all of our entourage was toasting the victory over wine and eating huge whipped cream covered sundaes. I sat and felt the wave of happiness that comes from intense well fought battles, thankful that the 18 hours on the bus would be wrapped in the happy cloak of victory.

After a weekend home win in the Slovakian league it was time to leave again. With hopeful anticipation we looked forward to flying after the long bus ride. Unfortunately, fate had other things in store for us. Since we were going from Nowhere, Slovakia to Nowhere, Ukraine the trip was bound to be complicated and when I was informed that we would be leaving at 2:30 in the morning I just knew the trip wouldn’t be simple. Sure enough, we left Ruzomberok at 2:30 am, arrived at Budapest Airport at 7 am only to find our flight to Kiev was delayed, as it would be most of the day. I sat around reading the International Tribune, buying duty free vodka, and sleeping on the benches. Finally we left at 3:30 pm and arrived in Ukraine soon after.

I had heard Ukraine was a bit different. I looked out the window when we landed and felt like I had arrived at the end of the earth. It was -7 degrees C and if it’s possible for darkness to have a personality, this one was heavy and dismal. I stepped off the propeller plane, the one flown by an unpronounceable airline, and probably rejected by another mainstream one back before ‘Nam’. We walked through the airport, through the parking lot in the freezing cold to the domestic terminal for our second flight to southern Ukraine.

To add to the depressing darkness, color seemed to have been swallowed up by the bleak surrounding. The buildings were all mottled gray or faded mustard colored, the walls were the color of dirty water. The only sense of liveliness were some icicle lights hanging loosely from a small adjacent building. The terminal felt like an old, overcrowded, decrepit bus terminal and I immediately felt like I was doing something wrong. Call me crazy but it felt like the kind of place a lippy young woman like myself could get in trouble.

Stepping into the airport was like stepping into a brothel. Most of the women looked like they got dressed with the sole intention to go stand on a corner and the men all had round faces and old jackets and solemn expressions. Many men have told me that Russian women are the most beautiful in the world and now I know why. They generally dress like hookers. It felt a little bit like Halloween. The hooker attire went a little like this with few exceptions: knee high boots, tight jeans with tassels or zippers or rhinestones or studs, push up bras and leopard print low cut tops, green eye shadow with fake eyelashes and glitter, a huge fake fur coat in bright orange or purple, and peroxide hair expertly teased so that it appears larger and thicker than it is. It was hard not to laugh. On the upside I now have plenty of ideas for my next 'pimps and hoes' party.

We made our way up to the front counter somehow despite the fact that there was no line and it felt a bit like we were all pushing ahead for our bread rations. After getting through security, including being felt up by a women custom’s officer and remarking to my GM that ‘that was the most action I have gotten in awhile’, we all huddled together in the small waiting area where no one laughed or smiled or looked remotely happy about anything in life. I stood next to the heater and started taking pictures, feeling like at any point my camera might be confiscated and holding myself back from pointing it at the 40 year old woman with platinum blonde hair feathered into a bird’s nest, and a purse with a giant kitten embroidered in gold with sequins. Mostly I was laughing to myself and talking to my coaches about how unreal this place was and thankful they hadn’t put us in the outside waiting area, which looked like a cross-country meet holding tent. It was then I taught my teammates what ‘ghetto’ means in American slang.

We finally arrived in southern Ukraine and after taking yet another bus ride checked into our hotel at 11 at night. A full 21 hours of traveling. For those of you not entirely clear on your geography, Ukraine and Slovakia share a border. If we are talking distance, its like taking 21 hours to get from Seattle to Salt Lake City. I was exhausted. Our hotel was nice but the view consisted of more mottled grey, a deserted concrete plaza with bare trees, and lots of buildings that all looked alike. We did see cuter areas when we drove around the next day but most of the older buildings with character were covered in giant store signs in over the top colors like hot pink and electric blue. For some reason this reminded me of their women.

The next day, after practice in the airport hanger type gym, we had pregame meal. I wasn’t expecting much; pregames always seem to be chicken and rice, nothing exciting but digestible and consistent. Instead they gave us plain spaghetti noodles with melted cheese and a side of ketchup. Did I mention it just happened to be Thanksgiving? I thought of mashed potatoes and gravy as I shoveled my glorified mac and cheese in my mouth thinking that the meal was better suited for my 9 year old cousin and comforted myself with the fact that bad food makes me lose weight. Finally my GM stepped in and told them we need some real food. But by that time I was tired and full and wanted the whole experience to be over with. Plus I was pissed as hell. I am fairly flexible with travel, I know most things are out of my control so I don’t sweat it. However, a line gets crossed when my pregame nap or meal gets messed up. And since we had to wait for them to go kill the chicken and cook it, and seemingly harvest the rice, both my nap and my meal were seriously screwed with.

Even the pregame coffee and dessert was a joke. They wheeled coffee and bananas into the conference room and as I poured coffee into the thimble sized cup I realized they hadn’t brought milk. I politely asked the servers if we could have some milk with our coffee. They responded by telling me that they had provided sugar. Thanks. Obviously customer service isn’t emphasized here. Then I went on to hit 6 three pointers and score 28 points. Maybe the pregame meal wasn’t so bad. Either that or I just took it out on the other team.

We got a traditional Ukrainian dance performance before the game with 10-year-old girls tiptoeing around the court in elaborate vests and the shortest skirts I’ve ever seen. Guess they start them early. It was really sweet though. At the end a young woman adorned in fake flowers presented a huge round loaf of sweet bread and deposited it in the arms of my teammate who just happens to have the biggest sweet tooth I’ve ever seen. Last week she bought her twelve year old brother a huge bag or duty free chocolate but ate it before she could give it to him.

Despite all the craziness of the previous two days we somehow managed to pull off a win. It was another huge game for us, making us 3-0 in FIBAcup and beating everyone in our group. We thought about going out to the pub but since the country has something against credit cards and our hotel wouldn’t exchange euros we were out of luck. I had to veto the idea to find men to buy us a taxi. The thought of being a chaperone to my 16 year old teammates with Eastern European men was not my idea of a good time. So, we spent the night in the hotel, drinking and laughing in our rooms until the front desk called. We were up at 6 the next morning for our two flights and two bus rides and by the time I arrived home in Ruzomberok late the next night I felt like I had been run over by a bus instead of on one. Luckily my parents were home waiting for me with a clean house, poinsettias and candles. I’ve never felt so pampered.

I spent the next two days sleeping and fighting a cold, playing and winning a home game, and getting ready to travel again. My bag practically packed itself. Our last big road trip! This one was the shortest but maybe most difficult because everyone on the team was sick or tired or both.

We left at 10:30 am on a sunny, slightly snowy Wednesday morning for our 8 hour bus ride to Hungary. The ‘short’ trip. I put my head on the arm rest, my feet up on the window and looked up at the tree tops whizzing by, the jagged rocks of the mountains jutting out between soft snow covered hillside. It was relaxing, the swooshing of the bus over slushy roads, the feeling of looking up at the earth, and I thought of the rather deep things one does when passing such natural beauty and being reminded of their small place in the world and of trivial things such as how crazy our bus must look riding through the Slovakian winter wonderful. The bus that is completely covered in Ruzomberok team logos with multiple action shots of a female basketball player that no one seems to recognize.

After a meal in a small border town, famous for producing Zlatzy Bazant beer, we rode into Hungary and melted into our beds at the hotel. Players were dropping like flies with fevers and sore throats. Practice consisted of 7 healthy players playing soccer with every spare male we could find: our coach, manager, general manager, team doctor and trainer. The men were exhausted after five minutes of course since their normal road trip behavior consists of lots of drinking. At noon they toasted the small town and their famous beer, on the bus it was back to the vodka and orange juice premixed in large water bottles, after the game its beer or wine, sometimes outside of the bus before we even leave the gym. Rest stops are just long enough to take a shot of fernet, their herbal hard alcohol, and pregame warmup sometimes has the men going for a ‘team meeting’ on the bus for their apple brandy. They love my dad because he joins them, part of his ‘cultural experience’. They were definitely drinking screwdrivers at 9 in the morning last bus trip. Probably why we never hear any complaints about the 18 hour bus ride from any of them.

In the game the next day, we played and looked like we’d spent the last three weeks on and off buses and planes. But we dug deep and somehow did enough to win. It wasn’t finesse and we all walked off the court limping. I spent the night icing various parts of my body in the hotel room, thankful that I would be sleeping in my own bed for five out of the next five games.

I've never been so happy to be back home in my little mountain town. My apartment feels like luxury and buying food at my small grocery store is a small no longer insignificant pleasure. Nothing like some completely unbelievable travel crisis to make you appreciate home......