7th Place

We won!!
Yesterday we had our 2nd to last game of the season against Vienna. If we beat them we would take first in the bottom 6 and secure the 7th seed for the playoffs. We did it. When the second half of the season started it was one of our goals to win the bottom 6 and it is great to have reached that goal. We needed to win one of our last 3 games and it was nice not to have to wait until the last game to do it.

It was an ugly game up until the 4th quarter.But the 4th quarter was all we needed to pull ahead of them, after trailing the whole game, and win 78 to 72. After a tough game last Thursday in Gussing where we lost to a team that we shouldn't have lost to, it was nice to get a much needed win.
Now we have one more game in the middle of this week before we start playoffs next Sunday. As far as I know we still are unsure of who we will play in the first round of the playoffs and will find out after everyone plays their final game this week.

Grocery Store - In the aisles

Okay, one more post about the grocery stores.
Picture yourself in the grocery store and there is no one else in the store but you. You would be free to drive your cart anywhere you wanted to and turn your cart perpendicular to the aisles if you wanted to. You could drive it along the side of the aisle while to look at the food or down the center of the aisle if you wanted to. Or you could drive your cart around and not have to pay attention to where you are going or if someone needed to get past you.
Sound like it would be nice?
Well, maybe if there was no one else in the store it would be. But when you are in the store and the other people drive like this (maybe not all of them but most) it can get very crazy.
It may sound a little ridiculous but I have had some people park their cart crossways in the aisle, then leave it to go look for things.
The aisles here aren't quite as wide and there have been times where one cart is parked in the middle of the aisle and the next person instead of parking their cart a few more feet ahead (so the carts are in a line where people can get around) they park it right next to the cart blocking everyone in their path. And, if you are waiting - that's what you will do - wait. And If they see you're waiting to get by you ask? No change. If it doesn't have to do with them it doesn't matter.
Okay, I'm not saying everyone is like at all this but this has happened quite a few times to me this year and there's really nothing you can do but shake your head. Sometimes it can be very interesting! :)
I sometimes think that if the grocery store trips were on candid camera it would be pretty funny to watch.

Fasching

I'm a little late with this post, but oh well. About 2 weeks ago was Fasching, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, Carnival or whatever you would like to term it. The day before lent starts so we are all on the same page.
Here in this part of the world Fasching is celebrated and it is much like Halloween back home in that everyone dresses up and wears a costume. Sure there are a lot of younger people that do it, but there are also quite a few older people that dress up as well. This year during the day we went to parade in a nearby town and then at night we went with some friends to a "Masked Ball." The requirement was you had to wear nice clothes and a mask. Well, we had nice clothes but no mask. Over here you can buy one, but they also have places that rent out costumes and you can get almost anything you can think of. The price? Only 5 euros a day. Not too bad if you are going to rent it one day and return it the next. The place we went to was small but there were so many people coming and going getting costumes for the night - from a police person, to a chicken costume, to a power ranger. All you had to do was pick out a costume and fill out a card of where you lived and your telephone number and you were set. This is where we got our masks.
So we got all dressed up and went to our party and the place was packed.....or, not so much. Instead of having a full house there was maybe 12-15 people there. So we stayed for a little bit and went somewhere else.
In Wels, in the middle of the city is an area where there are a couple bars all under the same roof. That's where everybody was. It was packed. We tried to walk from one side of the mass of people to the other and pretty much had to pinball our way off one person to the next to get to the other side.
Here we got to see all different kinds of costumes and had a pretty good time, we even saw a couple of the guys from the team just hanging out as well. This and one other place is where we spent our night and had a good time. People told us that here in Wels there aren't that many times during the year when a lot of people go out in the city, but Fasching is one of them and it was fun to be part of it.

Team Bonding

Want to get a group of guys to have a good time together - give them paintball guns and let them run around and shoot each other.
Last Friday we went paint-balling for a little change from basketball practice. We had pretty much the whole team there and played at a course about 30 minutes away called Basefield. Supposedly it is the biggest paintball place in Austria. I think it has a couple of different areas that you can play, but we played in the indoor area that wasn't all that big. Not being so big made it more fun though because it meant that you were going to see the other team more often :)
We broke up into 2 different teams the foreigners and the Austrians. We had the paintball course for over an hour and played four different games. The foreigners won 3 out of the 4, with the game we lost being a little bit in question. The first two games we played the rule was whoever had people still left at the end, won (if you got hit you were out and had to go wait until the game was over). And, in the second two games we played capture the donkey (capture the flag). The foreigners were able to shoot all the locals in the first game without getting hit once ourselves. After that the rest of the games were a little more even and we had a blast.
It was a little bit expensive to go in Austria and do paint-balling but it was totally worth it. Hopefully, if not this year, we will be able to go again in the future.
(I don't have any pictures of it right now but some of the guys forgot to wear heavy clothes, sweatshirt or something long sleeved, underneath the jacket that was provided and ended up with a couple of war wounds. If I can get some pictures I will put them on as they are pretty funny to see).
To see what the paintball course we played on looked like you can type http://www.paintball-linz.at/Home in the address bar and it will show a virtual tour of where we played. Pretty cool. (The course had tunnels below ground that you could hide in and maneuver through and an area above that had lots of things you could also hide behind to shield you from the paintballs of the other team).

One bad, One good

Last Monday we had a game in Graz.
With a win we have locked up 1st in the H2. Instead we had a rough game and Graz got the better of us. Sometimes in sports it seems that there is one team that has your number and even though they may not be a better team you just cant beat them. Graz seemed to be the team we had trouble with this year. Other teams that played and beat Graz, we have had no problem with but but they just seemed to have our number. We did beat them once, but they were able to get the best of us the other 3 times we played them. At least now we wont need to worry about them as we will not being seeing them anytime soon.
Tonight (Saturday night) we had another game, against
St. Poelten. St. Poelten plays with an all-austria team and has 5 players from the Austrian national team. Lately they have been playing pretty well, but tonight we were the better team. Right away in the 1st quarter we went out to huge lead (26-6) and looked as though we were easily going to run away with the game. But in the second quarter they came back and made it a game. The 2nd half was pretty much all us and we ended up winning 86-68.
We have three games left before the playoffs start, with the next one being on Thursday. With one more win we will have won the H2. With three games left hopefully we can get three more wins in a row and go into the playoffs on a 4-game winning streak.

Grocery Store etiquette - Check out line

Here at the main grocery store we shop at there are usually a good amount of people in the store and it seems as if everyone decides to check-out together. This can cause very long lines when there are only one or two registers open (as their typically are in the grocery store). When the line/s get too long the cashier will ring a bell and that means that another cashier will come and open up another lane. When the cashier comes they say what lane they will be opening up, so they would say lane 2, lane 3 or whatever lane they say. Back home when another lane would open up, common courtesy is used to decides who goes first. If you have been waiting in line longer someone would let you go first.
Here? nope.
Its like it is an olympic race and everybody springs to action when the new lane is called. If you can get there first you get to go first. Run someone over? Doesnt matter. 80 year-old lady? Doesn't matter. If you get there first you get to checkout first.
Okay maybe its not quite like that.....wait, pretty much. Some guy did run his cart into me the other day.
Most of the time we just stand in line and laugh as it is pretty funny to see and watch people charge for the chance to be first. It doesn't happen every time but when it does you can't help but chuckle.

Two Good wins this weekend

This weekend we played on Thursday and Sunday. Thursday we played at Wortersee and Sunday we played at home against Graz. Both days we got wins. These were both big wins for us. Graz is the team that is in second in the lower 6 (In our league the 1st half of the season is played to determine the top 6 and the bottom 6 - we made it into the bottom 6. The way it works is, the top 6 makes it into the playoffs and then the top 2 of the bottom 6 also make it into the playoffs. When we started the 2nd half of the season, we were in 2nd place in the bottom 6 and Graz was in 1st place. So far we have won every game in the bottom six and Graz has lost a couple. Because of this we have moved into 1st place in the bottom six and have a couple more wins then them. We play Graz again next Monday and if we win we put another win inbetween us and should take 7th place or 1st place in the bottom six). So these two wins this past weekend were important and a win next Monday against Graz would be huge.
Even though we got two wins this weekend, we did suffer a big set-back. Our point guard broke his foot in the 2nd half of the game. He broke one of the small bones in his foot and it will be a season ending injury, so it will be interesting to see what happens and what if the club will bring in someone new or if we will play with the team we have. Either way we know we will have to play hard to win on Monday.
Katy's team also played this weekend on Sunday but lost. Next weekend they can make-up for up though as they have two games on Sunday in Graz. Because Graz is 3 hour drive, by bus, they have moved another weekend's game to next weekend so they can play two games next Sunday and only have to make the drive once. Makes sense if you ask me.
It will be a busy weekend for us, travel-wise, next weekend as we will have to drive to Graz and back for Katy's games on Sunday and then there and back for my team's game on Monday.
Even though it will be a lot of travel 3 wins would definitely make it all worth-while.

Living in Austria - Grocery stores

Where to start.....
There will be a couple posts about the grocery store, so I will start with looking for food.
When you are in a grocery store and stop to look at something you usually put your cart off to the side of the aisle and look for what you need. If someone else would like to look too you move a little to the side so they can see as well.
Is it the same here? Nope. The other day I was standing looking for something in one the aisles and was standing maybe a couple feet away from the shelves. To the side of me I could see someone coming and moved a little closer to the aisle so they could get around me easily. Wrong move. The person decided what they needed was in front of me and didn't waste any time squeezing in-between the shelving and me. I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't know if I should start laughing or if I should look around only to realize this is some kind of prank and others will be laughing at me. Really, if we were in a club and dancing our bodies wouldn't have been this close. It was a little strange for me. But, this isn't the only time that this has happened where some has gone right in front of me. I'll save them but I could give you lots of stories like this. So instead of putting both of my arms up and trying to push and reach for the item I needed I backed up and let the other person get what they were after. Darn courtesy, whats my problem :)
(Grocery store etiquette #1 - if you see something you need, or if you have to look for something on one of the shelves, pretend like you are the only person in the store and don't let anything get in you way or discourage you from getting that packet of cheese, or whatever you cant wait 15 seconds to get your hands on)

Great weekend

This weekend was a greta weekend basketball wise. Katy's team didn't have a game this weekend but my team played a great one. This weekend we went to Vienna and played against a team that was relatively close in standings. With a win we would be able to push them farther away, making it almost impossible to catch us. Well, up until about half time the game was close. Then, in the 3rd quarter things changed. We played well together, hit shots, and went up by 20 in a 5 (or so) minute stretch. In the 4th quarter we pulled out ahead by 30. And even though we only won 97 to 76 we were up by a lot more at times in the 4th. It was also nice to see that our youngest guy that barely ever gets any time got to go in and play some minutes at the end of the game. I think he was pretty excited about it and we were happy to see him playing as well.
Katy also had a good day Saturday. She left early with some friends and went and looked around Vienna for the day. Saint Stefan's dome, ate at the square, went to the market, and saw all of the old buildings. She said she had a really nice time and it was great that she was able to do it with some friends. Nice too that they know a little bit more about the area and can explain or show things that otherwise would probably go missed.
This weekend is going to be a busy weekend basketball-wise. My team has a game tomorrow (Thursday) and then again on Sunday. Katy's team plays a double-header on Saturday. (the trip they have to make is over 3 hours, so they are going to play both games in one day so they only have to make the trip once). Good idea - hopefully the girls can stay fresh for the 2nd game as well.
Check back next week to see how we did.