saving private coghlan

we breached the german border will all the speed of blitzkrieg... fueled by the burning desire of these young danish vikings to avenge their 8 hr surrender to germany in ww2. it would be a battle in the trenches(under the basket), avoiding sniper fire(3pt shooting) and an insatiable desire to defeat zeeee germans. (now that i got a few war analogies outta my system). it was a long ass drive(7.5 hours) in a bus. these minibuses are ok but the seats don't recline and even my renowned fall asleep anywhere ability was tested. we drove south through hamburg, past hannover to where we were staying in Braunschweig. its a city of about a 1/4 million right in the heart of germany. our hotel was a special little place, it musta been the sister hotel of the one that dounia booked for us on andjes stag. one of the dudes peeled back his mattress and found a used condom underneath. we told him it was probably flavored. they had us in these weird rooms, four single beds, a tv and couches. my bed had one of the support slats missing so my hips would slide down into this depression all night. terrible sleeps. the first night we arrived at about midnight and bounced to a pub for a few beers as we were wide awake from dosing in and out the whole drive. we end up at this hole in the wall pub on the campus of this tech school. a month ago they introduced a smoking ban in public places, lets just say it aint been enforced yet. germans aren't the prettiest people in the world from what we saw, then once they start speaking it gets even worse. most people max out their english-o-meter at about 20 % but the danish dudes study it in school so we got by pretty good. we tried to play some pool but apparently it was too late and would wake the tenants above. i know i have a good break but damn... good beer in that neck of the woods

our little mercedes minibuses weren't exactly taking full advantage of the autobaun. just like on our gear, the euros are shameless with the advertising. its a billboard bus. next morning woken up early by this dude on our team, soren, doing the hitler walk, saluting and yelling in german at the foot of everyone's bed... for "breakfast"... which euros call a bun with meat cheese and jam. or my personal favorite; a bun with chocolate wafers on top..... bizarro. what do i gotta do for eggs and bacon or sausage? we then head out to this town of about 60,000 called wolfenbuttel, about 15 km south. this is the club that sam plays for and he got in about a week ago. he actually ended up making their top team in the second bundesliga so we never got to play him but he came out and watched our first game which was another god-damn turnover fest. i really had to bite my lip again. we lost by 17 i think but if we woulda taken care of the ball it coulda gone either way, we were pretty evenly matched. met up with sam for lunch, met some of the imports that he plays and lives with.

me sam and endre

the german balls

we then played again that evening against a team from hannover, led all game then fell apart at the end and lost by four. we definitly would beat this team if we played em again. i caught a devastating charlie horse from one of the german oxes that was guarding me. it felt like i broke my thigh, hobbled thru the rest of the game. couldn't sprint or push off it.

fade into oblivion

probably after another turnover

the gym we played in wolfenbuttel was crazy... one whole side of this practice gym was glass and it looked out onto a cemetary. sam was telling me that that was where he buried people who tried to guard him

huddled

we went to this turkish german place for dinner with both teams. it was pretty good, they had a few waiters who operated at about 60% english so we got by with beer, ribs and curry. when ordering, we said the corresponding number of the dish that we wanted, so this dude soren yells out "gimme 300... for sparta...huuuuuggh" somehow the waiter gets the ref, starts laughing tells his buddies. he comes back later and asks us in broken english what us greeks should be drinking.... ouzo! we weren't exactly excited about doing it until we figured out he was gonna buy us a round. he brings aound these shots and soren(the tom green type dude) asks him "what is your profession: dishwasher, what is my profession: huuuuuggggh!" pure hilarity. not understanding what just happened and happily confused the waiter goes about his business. we later catch soren hugging the waiter before we leave.

for sparta....

wolfenbuttel is the town where jaegarmeister was invented and they have the factory that produces it there. adrian woulda been in heaven with a tour of this joint.

this dude annuse has his 21 birthday so we took him out drinking, we got him some shots and then convinced him it was tradition for him to buy us a round of drinks. we were sitting on the patio, he goes inside not really understanding why its him who has to buy the round.... so we all take off and he is left to walk outside carrying 6 beers to an empty table. not one to waste the beer we returned. this dude got all boozed up, we get back to the hotel and diedler bets him 100 kroners he won't run the streets naked(frank the tank styles) he takes the bet, goes outside in his jogging pants and starts yelling up to the window, but its was the coaches window not one of the guys windows. so sure enough he drops his pants and goes running down the street. meanwhile one of the dudes runs downstairs and grabs his clothes that he left outside and his key. he gets back and tries to come back in but the door is locked, these dudes finally let him in and he has his junk tucked like the crying game and a bottle between his legs, they steal the bottle and he goes running around the hallways. now i wasn't there watching everything, but these dudes videotaped the whole thing and replayed it over and over again all the next day

we played the next day in braunshweig against a team from sangerhausen. they started two guys who were over 6'10 but surrounded them with guys who couldn't knock down outside shots, so once we survived an early push we just sagged off, crowded the inside and ran fast breaks every chance we got. i was running a fair amount of point guard this game which was fun with the mismatch. we won by about 13 i think. i played pretty good despite this really bad charlie horse, which loosened up by the start of the game but which is now super swollen with blood and stiff. 3rd game in 2 days is tough for an old man like myself. my ankle is really starting to feel better again though.

this dude soren with his borat shirt "lets make sexytime" these dudes don't stop with the borat references.... if i hear "i like" or "don't shrink me gypsy woman" one more time...