Hablas Ingles?

Pregame before the a game at the 2007 European Championships.

Hola! Que tal?! My apologies for the delay since my last post… It’s been for good reason though. For the last 2-weeks I’ve been travelling in Spain. And, found myself asking people “Hablas Ingles?” quite a bit.

This trip was double edged: both a little vaca with Cat and, of course, some basketball learning.

If you followed or were able to catch what’s been going on in basketball in Europe, you might have caught some of the 2007 FIBA European Championships. We were able to attend a bunch of games live in Sevilla and Madrid. And, I was fortunate to attend a closed practice for the Spanish National Team. [I wrote about that practice here.]

All in, the adventure was a blast. I visited Sevilla, Granada, Cordoba, Madrid and Barcelona. Man, they had to practically drag us out of the country kicking and screaming. I fell in love with Spain: the cities, the pace-of-life, the history, the architecture, the people, the language, the weather, the basketball, and, the food. Oh, the food… it’s spectacular!

I think we snapped over 500+ pictures – of which easily half were of us with some new culinary delight that was working its magic on our palettes.

On top of a whole lot of walking (what I would have done for a foot massage after 8-hours trekking around Alhambra!), I talked a lot and watched quite a bit of basketball. Unfortunately, I just didn’t have the access to internet that I would’ve liked to give periodic updates. That, and if I was busily blogging I would have quickly been sleeping on the couch. (It was supposed to be a “non-basketball” vacation!)

Taking it all in though, was both affirming and encouraging. I didn’t leave this experience having seen anything revolutionary. As one mentor told me, some time ago, there’s nothing new in basketball. There aren’t any earth shattering ideas to be had, necessarily. The ingredients, that is for the most part, are the same. However, we can – and others have – come up with some new recipes. (Love that analogy, Mike!).

More to come.

/sef.

NOTE: My Spaniards lost in the final seconds of the European Championship on a J.R. Holden jumper with 2.1 seconds left, securing Russia their first-ever EuroBasket title with a thrilling 60-59 victory over reigning world champions and hosts Spain. Watch the final moments of that game.