Great Stuff..

As the newspaper article about our game states, my Mom and Dad came to Germany this past weekend for a little basketball and a little bit of travelling. It was a great weekend (especially since I got to travel on the parents bill) where we got to see the biggest cathedral I have ever seen in Cologne and "Old Town" in Dusseldorf. The game wasn't too bad either as we won by like 40 points and I had 18 for my hometown fans, which happened to include Fletcher and AO for the second half. It is always amazing when you look into the stands and see some familiar faces.

Trevor put in work with like a thousand dunks and blocks and everyone in the house had at least 15 or so except Marko who sat out the game due to a rolled ankle. I think the four of us ended up with like 75 of our 110 points.

We came out firing and quickly built a 20 point lead we never relinquished. The young guys got to play and overall, it was a great game and an awesome environment for a TV Werne match. We have a big game this weekend and hopefully we will get the w. We lost to this team by 40 while I was in America healing up my foot so I am hoping that I can make the difference on Saturday.

After the game, my mom made the best meatball subs that have ever graced my taste buds and a big salad. Everyone in the house absolutely loved the home-cooked, Americanized meal and is extremely grateful... Thanks Ma Dukes! After feasting, Fletcher, Andrew, and I sat around and continued to plan out Euro Trip 09. It seems as though Paris is off the list and Barcelona has slid in, so thank you for all the input. I cannot lie, I am so excited about this trip. It is definitely going to be one of those things that we never forget and I just can't wait to get it started....

On Sunday, I woke up early and the rents and I took the train to Cologne to check out the old city on the Rhine. It was awesome. As you pull into the train station the Rhine is on your left and the Cathedral is on your right. This thing was absolutely massive as you can tell by the photo at the top. After seeing the Cathedral, we hit up the Roman and German Museum of History. It was filled with very cool, old artifacts, including Maximus Decimus Meridius's tombstone (that's not true, but I like to think so). He was the commander of the armies to the North, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius, father to a... well, you get the drift.

To end the day, we went to the Chocolate Museum. It caters to the youner crowd but, somehow, I still found it most entertaining. After our second, tasty German meal of the day, we called it a night and headed back to the hotel, which, by the way, was definitely the nicest hotel ever (the mini bar was complimentary! unheard of..). The next morning we went to Dusseldorf and checked out the Old Town there. It is pretty nice, but I definitely liked Cologne better. The highlight of the day was definitely the full glass of water with ice and the grilled chicken, cheddar, and bacon sandwhich I got at an Irish pub in the middle of Dusseldorf. It tasted just like I was back in Motown at the Dublin... Really made me miss home, but, I will be back so soon so it is allll good. Overall, great weekend with the rents and one I will not soon forget!

- MFG

The Week in Review..

Sooo we suffered a heart-breaker of a loss on Saturday. We were late, we were down, we were up, back down, tied, and than lost by 3. I was satisfied with my play and actually felt pretty good most of the day, after the 1st quarter at least, but the game ended poorly for me and it soured my entire opinion on the game.

To review, most of the team got lost and we showed up late. Then, we went down by a bunch of points early in the first and than came out on fire, dropping in 37 in the second quarter. This run was capped off beautifully by yours truly by stealing in inbounds pass halway between the 3 and half-court with 3 seconds left, turning, and wetting a bomb of a three at the buzzer. We went into the half up 8.

Within two minutes of the third quarter, however, we were losing by 1. We took a BUNCH of bad shots in a row and our defense was suspect at best. BOO.. So we went back down by ten, than tied it up in the fourth quarter with like 3 minutes left. Got whistled for an intentional foul on a REBOUND which lead to two free throws and an and 1 runner in the lane by their American... 5 point possession in the last two minutes, eeeyaa later (to clarify, I committed neither of these fouls.. I felt I needed to say this since my dad thought I committed BOTH).

My mood was sour after the game because within the last minute I hit a three, grabbed a few big boards and choked on two free throws.. Woo hoo... It was a minute full of emotions and the last one was an "I suck" feeling. Luckily, my teammates were there to pick my mood up after the game. We didn't do much that night.. Just relaxed after the loss and watched Godfather Part 2 for the first time. Freakin awesome and I highly recommend...

The other major event of the last week was the planning of Eurotrip 09. On Sunday night, Fletcher, Andrew, and I met to talk about our adventures and they are going to be serious. The basic sketch is to start in Venice, hit Naples quickly, Rome for a few days, Florence, Nice and Barcelona... this is where the plan has haulted. We cannot decide whether to do a long train ride from Barcelona to Paris and than hop over to London after a few days, oooorrrr do an extra day in Barcelona, hit up Madrid for a couple days and hop on a cheap Ryanair flight from Madrid to London. I will be putting a poll on the side of the page and would appreciate you voting because all of us want to see everything and we cannot make a damn final decision.

We even emailed our old Art History professor to see his opinion and in true Art History professor form, he said we will figure it out in time and that deciding is part of the learning process.. Damn you for still trying to teach us things about life! So, once we do London for a couple days, we are going to go to Dublin for a couple nights and than I am coming home April 19th! Woooo hooo, very excited about coming home.

Speaking of home, my parents will be arriving here in Germany on Friday morning. I cannot wait and I am sure my pops is super psyched to see a game this weekend, so we better make it a good one. I know not having Amherst basketball every weekend has taken a toll on him.. haha... After the game, we are going to see some German cities before they go home on Tuesday. Should be fun and I cannot wait to see some family! That is all for now, don't forget about the poll....

- MFG

Amsterdam.. Check Please

First off, I am in absolute awe that the things that are legal in Amsterdam are legal in Amsterdam. The place is absurd. Saying that, I will go over the weekend's events with as much details as I can, but to truly understand what it is like in Amsterdam, you have to go there at some point in your life. I highly recommend it. It is not only a city with great history and friendly people, but those damn Dutch know how to chill out with the best of them....

As the long-time readers (haha) may already know, I absolutely love European cities with rivers going through them. In comes Amsterdam, the city with the most bridges in all of Europe and with canals all over the damn place. I was in river-through-the-city heaven. It is most definitely a beautiful place. This is especially impressive due to the fact that it straight poured throughout our visit without putting the slightest damper on our weekend events.

After some issues at the airport, my mum finally arrived Friday in the early AM. When I say early, I mean early, like 6 in the morning. We hit copious amounts of traffic on the way to Holland but finally arrived at the hotel and settled in. Trevor, T, and Marko went to their hotel, which was hilariously dirty, and my mom and I took a nap before venturing out into the city. For some strange reason, we were very motivated that Friday and saw both the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum before dinner. It was intense to say the least. The Rijks was an art museum but also had alot of information on the history of the Netherlands as a whole which I was digging. As soon as we walked in, there was a serious replica of a Dutch East India Trading Company ship that was made a long time ago. Of course, my immediate thoughts went straight to Captain Jack Sparrow and the glorious crew of the Black Pearl.

Don't get me wrong, I love museums and history and such (wow, I am a nerd.. damn you Amherst!) but, I feel like there is no place in the world which induces daydreaming about weird ass stuff more than a museum. You walk through checking out famous paintings, punching in numbers so that you can listen to your audio tour, and immediatley upon seeing a large famous painting such as my favorite from the Rijksmuseum and their most famous piece, "The Night Watch," I wondered how the hell Rembrandt got all those people to pose for long enough to paint that ish. I imagined the little girl in the painting getting antsy and Rembrandt attempting a million different ways to make her stand still like when a 4 year old gets his/her photo taken for the family christmas card. Or, maybe he did it from memory and all my rambling daydreams were for nothing. Whatever the case may be, my daydreams can make any museum a little bit more interesting. I found myself secretly wishing my mom had made a scavenger hunt for the museum like she did when I was a youngster. A tactic I most definitely will use with my future fam, not only to keep the young ones interested, but because I am a large child inside a large man's body.

I definitely dug the Van Gogh museum too. It kind of went through his life like a biography which made it more interesting to me than just looking at his paintings. It also turned into a bar during our visit which never hurts the cause. That night, momma G hit the hay early and I ventured into the streets of Amsterdam to meet the other roomies. We went out, and it was great. We made friends with a Dutch bartender and drank some local brews and met some crazy Englishmen having a bachelor's party. In addition, many a prostitue tapped on their red-lit window and said, "Hey, big fella, you want a good time?" in broken, Russian-accented English. I tried to get a picture of some of the red lights, but every time I took one it would inexplicably go a bit blurry. It is like the prostitutes have power over the weather a la Storm from X-Men. Here is my best shot, however. Surprisingly, alot of them were quite good-looking (must have been because it was the Friday graveyard shift cuz I heard some horror stories about the old day shifters), but they scared me. Nevertheless, I am glad I have a beautiful girlfriend (shout-out one time!).

At the end of the evening, I walked back with the guys to their hotel before beginning the solo mission back to my own hotel. The walk from their hostel to my hotel was essentially a straight walk following a single canal. In my state, in the wee hours of the morning with a rainstorm coming down, I found it extremely difficult to follow my soggy hotel map and got severely lost. This journey reminded me of my famous walk towards UMass (I was not trying to walk towards UMass) in the early weeks of Sophomore year at Amherst, except, I could not call Andrew and ask him to pick me up on Lincoln Ave. I finally found a place I recognized and got home safe.

Saturday was a day of Touristy events. Me mum and I went on a bus tour of Amsterdam with a stop at a diamond factory followed by a lovely canal tour. It was a great way to see all of Amsterdam and I took maybe a million pictures. You can see all (most) of the pictures from the weekend here.

Saturday night was basically the same as Friday minus the whole getting lost thing. Sunday, I showed ma the Red Light District cuz she just had to see it. I quickly realized the difference between Friday / Saturday nights and Sunday mornings. After viewing a small sampling of the Sunday morning shift, I had a bad taste in my mouth that finally went away around Wednesday. In addition, my eyes stung for a couple days, but I have finally recovered from the horror that is Sunday morning in the Red Light District. I am now doing my best to black out those Sunday memories, but, alas, luck is not on my side and those visions have been seared into my memory until the end of time. So, now, I'm praying for the end of time (Meatloaf fo' life). Haha, no, Amsterdam was great and a visitor must take the good memories with the bad. In my opinion, this weekend's great memories far outweigh any of the nasty/ugly ones because all the nasty ones were absolutely hil-arious.

Final opinion: I recommend a visit to Amsterdam to anyone in the area. It is absolutely worth it and will definitely be a trip you will never forget, whether you want to or not. Much love.

- MFG

It's Been a While..

Sooo everyone, after many internal squabbles (for those of you who do not know my roommate from Amherst, the wonderful Fletcher Walters, that is a term he created to describe any debate which you may have in your own head), I have decided to start a blog for my time here in Germany so I can keep everyone updated on my situation here throughout the year. I, like many of you, have always thought of blogs as kind of nerdy, actually, extremely nerdy. However, after checking out B Jones' blog and Fletch's amazing Bill Simmons impression, I just had to join in on the fun. The deciding factor, of course, was the ridiculous amount of joy I received from the first post I made on our group blog which David, Fletch, Brandon, Andrew, Kevin (my roommates from Amherst), and myself have begun. That blog is a bit more risque and most likely more for the younger crowd, but it is on the Internet and you can read whatever you damn well please. So, here it goes.

As many of you already know, I have been here for almost 2 months after doing News Release and coming straight to Werne to play. Therefore, this first entry may be a long one. News Release was an amazing experience which will not soon be forgotten. Although, at times, I was extremely intimidated by the religious aspects of the camps, I definitely think it had a positive impact on my faith and my character. I met so many people that I plan to stay in touch with for a very long time. Of course, our entire News Release team bonded like a family in a matter of weeks, but the host families I stayed with were particularly memorable as well.

News Release Week 1:
I stayed with a family in Lorrach, Germany (a town literally on the border of France, Germany, and Switzerland). My host mom Monika was amazing and the 6 year old Finn was honestly the most energetic child I have ever met. It took me a couple days to get used to the German way of "seeming sort of mean and rude, but actually welcoming you into their home and appreciating your company." Fletcher was only a few blocks away from me with his host family so we got to hang out constantly throughout the week, something that definitely helped ease me into this new German life I have begun. We got to go into Basel, Switzerland and see some amazing old churches and buildings. Basel was so beautiful and interesting, I just wish I could have gone there a bit more. During that first week, I also got to see my first castle. Let me just say, castles are so damn old and so damn cool, its ridiculous. Like, you are sitting up here in a tower where 500 years ago some dude patrolled with a bow and arrow ready to straight snipe people at any time very similar to the way Kevin Costner takes out two arrows in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" and takes down two evil dudes with one shot by messing with the feathers on the arrows (or at least that is how I thought of it). Fletch and I obviously both felt this way as well without saying it, considering we took photos like this at the castle.

Basel was so cool because it has the massive Rhine River running right through the center of it. I do not know what it is about European cities, but I am digging cities with rivers running through it (I guess I do know what it is actually - the river). Fletch and I chilled on the banks of the Rhine one night doing nothing besides watching the river and talking about how cool it is (obviously, while having a couple pilsners and some local cuisine).

On the weekend, Fletcher's host family and my host family joined forces to go to this crazy mountain roller coaster in the Black Forest. You take a ski lift up the mountain and than take your own like go-kart style car down this track that winds down the entire mountain. Pretty insane and really fun. As a side bonus, the view from the top of the mountain was absolutely absurd.

You can see photos from all this stuff and my second week in Lauf which I will be speaking about shortly here.

News Release Week 2:
So week two came way quicker than I thought, and suddenly, we were in Lauf, Germany. Lauf is in the land of massive hefeweizens, bratwursts and sausages of all shapes and sizes, and host families that consider you their own. Aaron, Oscar, and myself stayed with the Kreuz's. A special thanks has to go out to Momma Kreuz and Simon, who took such amazing care of us and made us feel right at home. Like I said in my thank you speech at the farewell dinner for that week, Simon happily helped us out with things that we obviously could have done ourselves (like turning ON the German Xbox) without any hesitation. Momma Kreuz made us scrambled eggs and thin pancakes with nutella (amazing) for breakfast EVERY day and we literally had family meals with the mother, father, daughter, son, and daughter's boyfriend at least twice a day. It was very cool and something I definitely want to do when I finally start my own family (not to say that I did not have plenty of wonderful family meals with my own family :) throughout my 22 (almost 23 (holy crap)) years on this earth). Sorry, too many parentheses, just doing the old stream of consciousness thing.

Lauf is a village right outside Nuremburg. Clearly, Momma Kreuz made sure we got to see a wonderful city like Nuremburg. Again, Nuremburg has a monster river running right through it (I am really falling in love with these damn rivers) and it was so beautiful. The day we went into town, we had lunch right there sitting on a floating dock on the river. In Nuremberg we saw the main Nuremberg castle as well as two churches. One of which was the Church of St. Sebald which I believe is pretty freakin' famous. All I know is that it was massive and well-appreciated. After finally making the jump and taking an art history class my last semester at Amherst with the infamous Joel Upton (an absolute legend who can whisper in a way that an entire room not only hears it, but thinks they are getting top secret information about some Gothic church that Joel both discovered and kept secret from the rest of the world), I loved going into these huge churches.

We also saw a famous fountain that is super old and if you rub some ring on it, you get good luck or something. Oh, and speaking of Joel once more, we went to Albrecht Durer's house, an artist which I wrote about for a paper in art history... Great stuff. After some emotional farewells, the rest of the News Release team went back to the states (besides Kev and Fletch who are still here and killing their respective leagues) and I began my journey to Werne.

Werne:
I can finally speak about Werne. I arrived here on a chilly August afternoon and went straight to my apartment. As I struggled to keep my eyes open during the car ride here (as many of you may know, I tend to pass out when in a car, not driving, during any trip of more than 10 minutes), I noticed that all I saw was German farmland and a strange shack on the side of the road called McSnack. McSnack, it turns out, is where my roommates, T, Trevor and Marko, and myself have lunch every Monday and Thursday. McSnack, of course, sounds as good as it is, but that is another story for another day. I arrived in my apartment semi freaking out. Am I in the German farmland by myself? Is this some prank? Was I dreaming all of that or did that actually happen? I found that my worries were unnecessary and irrational, as the next day, I walked around town and found that there is actually a nice little market place in Werne that has everything a man like myself could need. Plenty of places for food, 3 eiscafes (ice cream, no wait - check that, gelato spots) and about 5 bars. I was happy.

So, thus began my life in Germany. Oh yea, basketball. I play pro basketball here in the 2. Regionaliga. Thus far we are 3 - 0 in our league and we won our only cup game. The cup game, by the way, was against a team in a league lower than us and the only thing I can compare it to is shooting practice. Literally, the entire game was me running around, catching the ball, realizing no one was around me and lining up a three (sorry Hixo, I am shooting 'em anyway haha). The other two Americans could not play that game so there were plenty of shots to go around. Believe me when I say, I took advantage of the extra jumpers available that game. We won by a ton and it was a good time. When the game was over, I was as satisfied as I am when myself, Riordan, Liakas, Cam, and CJ (aka the Nizman, Juice, etc) run the Y like its our job every Tuesday and Thursday from 6 PM - 9 PM throughout the summer months. Yes, you read that correctly, like the Morris Center YMCA.

League games have definitely been way tougher and we won a huge one last weekend by 1. Luckily, I missed 2 free throws with 1.4 seconds left up 1 and grabbed the rebound to seal the deal (haha, I am trying to justify this in my head still, just let me be). There is actually video of these two free throws and the amazing soccer-style chant/dance thing we do with our fans after the game. Check out this website and look around, you should be able to find it. Overall, I am so excited to be here and very proud of myself for being able to do this after breaking my leg so badly during my junior year at Amherst. It is a childhood dream come true and I couldn't be happier. There is a cool article on Amherst's website talking about all of this. The only downside, of course, is that my wonderful girlfriend, Brooke, is in New York City (all male friends/brothers please shut up and do not bust my balls haha, I miss and love you guys too).

Oh, and I almost forgot. Because we only have practice three times a week at night (Yes, 3 times a week), my coach got me an internship here as well. I work Monday through Friday from 9 -3 for a consulting firm in Germany. We work mostly in the healthcare sector blah, blah, blah, job, job, job. It gives me some extra Euros each month and definitely keeps me from getting bored. Oh yea, and it is a great experience that will look good on a resume, blah, blah, and I clearly stay up to date with sports in the United States with all the access to ESPN.com I could ever need.

Finally, I hope to blog at least once a week with updates and information about my time here in Europe. Become a regular reader and post comments whenever you feel the need, it should be an interesting year. Ciao!

- MFG