Our Croatia Trip

2 weeks ago we took a little vacation to Croatia. We visited a couple different cities including Zagreb (the capital), Pula and the Plitvice Lakes.
We only stayed in Zagreb for one night as it was a stop in between where we really wanted to go at first, the Plitvice Lakes.
These lakes are a chain of lakes and waterfalls that vary from 2 meters in height to 30 meters in height. The lakes and falls are a national park and it took us about 5 hours to walk around the whole park. I am not sure if you can see it from some of the pictures we took (as it rained pretty much the whole time we were there) but the water was turquoise and so clear. The park also had a series of walkways, some on land and some man-made walkways that went over the water, some of which went right over some of the falls. It was so cool to be walking on the wooden walkway and look down through the cracks in the boards and see the water rush by only inches below.
After the national park we went to the Istrian peninsula and went to a city called Pula. This was an old roman city and still had roman buildings/artifacts there. We were able to see some old roman arches, a temple, and they also had a Colosseum. It was shaped like the one in Rome only not as big. This Colosseum was great though as you could go right down on the arena floor, where the gladiators would have been, and walk around. They also let you go under the stadium to where all the gladiators would have been before they went out for competition. Today it is like a very small museum where you can see things from the past but it was cool to be under the arena where the gladiators used to be.
Pula is also right on the coast and is why it used to be a very important roman city - it was a major port leading to the land to the north. Because it is on the coast there are quite a few beaches. And because it was high 70's, maybe even the low 80's we took advantage and visited a couple of them.
The beaches over there are a little bit different than most beaches you go to though. Over on the Istrian peninsula where Pula is the beaches are not sand but rather rocky beaches. When I saw rocky I am not talking about little pebbles I am talking about rocks that are about the size of your fist, smooth of course from all the water that has washed over them, but big none-the-less. Next to the beaches there were bigger rocks that you could lay and sit on and because we didn't have a mat or a couple towels to put under us we choose the bigger rocks as the little ones didn't look to comfy. Here we were able to get a little color and just relaxed. I tried to stick my toes in the water but after 2 minutes they came out red and almost frost bitten. It was cold. The lady next to us tried to go for a swim but she made it in to her knees and that was that.
Our trip to Croatia was great and we had a good time. We also really enjoyed taking the train through the different countries and seeing a different part of them than you would if you were driving on the roads. We would definitely recommend it to someone else.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter Silly Beaster!!! Hope you are able to celebrate with family. Although we wont be able to celebrate Easter
with family back home we will get to celebrate it with great people over here and know we will be back in one week and look forward to seeing everyone again (looking forward to getting back...except for the snow...its been high 70s low 80s here for the last number of weeks. Weather-wise, its going to be hard to go from warm to cold, but if it means were heading home its all good).

That's all she wrote....

Tonight we played our last game of the season. We played very well in the first half and really looked good. We went into halftime with a lead, but in the third quarter they outscored us 27-6 and after that we just sort of went on a slide down hill. We made little runs in the 4th but it was never enough to tie the game or take the lead. In the end they beat us 75 to 80.
It was a tough fought game and everyone played hard but in the end we just couldn't overcome the change in momentum from the 3rd quarter. It was an up and down season and it stinks that it is over, but now I the preparations start for next year and I am looking forward to getting the chance to play again.
I guess if we look on the bright side...I get to play the next game. :)

Do or Die Time

Tonight we have our third playoff game as it mentions in the title it is do or die time - if we lose we are done. The first two playoff games were a struggle for us and we ended up losing both games, the first one by 12 (67-79) and the second one by 16 (79-63). Both games were on the road though and tonight we have a home game. Hopefully we will be able to use the energy in the gym to our advantage and make the best-of-5 series 1-2.
Both games we started off slow, or not as fast as the other team. They just couldn't seem to miss in the first half of both games. Last game they shot 80 some % in the first quarter. In both games we got done by 20 points and it is very hard to come back from that. We played well in the 2nd halves of each game, but 20 points is a large deficit to overcome. If we could just have two second halves I think we would be set. Hopefully tonight we can start well and then keep the pressure up for the rest of the game. If we win, our next game will be here in Wels on Thursday (as the series for us is 2 away games, 2 home games, and then the 5th game would be an away game) but if we lose we are out. So tonight, and the next 2 games, are very important to keep our season going and the next step in getting to the finals.
Wish us the best of luck and check back tomorrow to see how we did.

The Euro

Over here in a lot of the European countries the Euro is the money that you use and since Austria is part of the European Union they use the Euro as well. The Euro has bills and coins. The bills are in denominations of 500, 200, 100, 50, 20, 10 and 5. Each bill gets a little bigger in size as it gets bigger in worth. (for example: the 10 euro bill is bigger than the 5 euro bill, the 100 bill is a little bigger than the 50 euro bill and so on).
The coins are: a 2 euro coin, 1 euro coin, 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents, 5 cents, 2cents, and 1 cent (except for the 5-10 cent euro coins, each coin gets a little bigger as it gets bigger in value. 5 cent coin is bigger the 2 cent coin, 50 cent coin is bigger than 20 cent coin, and so on).
On the front of each coin is a common logo, but on the back of the coins, each country that belongs to the European Union and uses the Euro has their own design. Austria has a design that was different than the German one we saw a lot last year. Doesn't matter what the country logo is you can use the coins anywhere the Euro is accepted, probably much like our quarters in the states that have different state logos on them.

I know gas has been getting pretty expensive back home and thought I would take a look at what is over here.
Per liter it is about 1.40 euro.
Per gallon it would be 5.29 euro
(assuming 3.7854 liters to a gallon) and with the exchange rate, if I have done everything correctly, a gallon of gas over here would come to about $7.50 (US dollars).
Good thing we dont have to drive around that much here and the gym and workout facility is only a few minute drive from our place.

Last regular season game/playoffs

On Thursday we had our last regular season game against Worthersee (pronounced Vert-eh-see). They have had a tough year only winning a few games and we took this game pretty handily, 102-72. It was a great game to watch as some of the younger players got to play quite a bit. Coach gave some of the older, more experienced players a break (some still played but not as much as they normally would) so they would be ready for the 1st playoff game. But the young guys stepped up and played pretty well. One of the guys who hasn't really gotten much time this year got 26 points. I think everyone in the gym was happy to see him and the others do well...and were on their feet cheering for them.
Today we have our first playoff game against Oberwart (pronounced Ober-vart). They are a very physical team and have played pretty well this year. It will be a challenge, but if we play as a team for 4 quarters I know we can win.
From here on out the playoffs will be Sun-Thurs-Sun-Thurs-Sun, where you must win 3 out of 5 games to advance to the next round.
The final game of the playoffs, if the finals go all 5 games, would be on the 25th or 26th of May.

Nice

T-shirt time! and I don't mean a cheezy Jersey Shore (crazy U.S. tv show) slogan, I mean it has been very nice here today and the past week. Today it got up to 70 degrees and tomorrow it is supposed to be up 73. It nice to be able to put a pair of shorts and t-shirt on to go outside.
Another thing that nice weather brings is that nice cars start coming out of hibernation. If you just drove through Wels you might not know it but it is a pretty wealthy city, or at least there are some people here that have some money. And some of these people have some nice cars. The past week I have seen Porsches, a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, Maseratis and some nice Audis. Its great to drive down the street and see some really cool cars going by.
The only disappointing thing about the spring is that we cant find any Lilacs over here. It always seems that the spring smells better with Lilacs...maybe we'll keep looking.