And the Countdown Begins!

Hey Hey everyone!!! I want to start out today by asking you to say a prayer for my friend Mrs. Pearl Washington. She was under the weather and taking care of some complications and could really use some uplifting prayers:-) I love you Mrs. Pearl and can't wait for you to get better!
Now, I am so excited because I can officially start counting down the days until I get to go home without sounding like a crazy person! As of today, in 20 days I will be touching down in Tennessee! :-) I am so excited to get to see my family and friends. I'm especially excited to see my niece Adalina and my nephew Lyam. They are growing up so fast on me! Every time I call home I get to talk to them on the phone. It's great knowing that they still recognize my voice when they hear it:-) I hear them laughing and trying to talk back to me. It's the sweetest thing ever! :-)
I received a few care packages these past few days from friends and family. Getting these kinds of things makes me realize just how much I really do miss home, but how grateful I am to have this opportunity! I have gotten sooo many goodies that I am in heaven right now! Small gestures like these really help me make it through, so thank you! :-)

Goodies from my older sister Tonya!

Goodies from the Catron Crew at Barfield Elementary along with the letters they wrote me:-)

Snack cabinets are packed!

Snacks for days!! :-)

Santa ears and XL pen! Thanks CB and JP!

I've also been skyping with my friends Carrie Beth and Jackie and their 4th grade class. I am their pen pal:-) Every Friday at 5 pm my time I skype with their class and they ask me questions about how I like Israel, what kinds of foods I eat, what life is like here etc. Each week, they're given a subject to write or talk to me about. It's so fun and I look forward to it each week! But last week, I had a blond moment (No offense to any blonds!) I logged onto skype at 5 and the Catron crew wasn't logged on...and i just couldn't figure out what was going on. I didn't know if they forgot about our skype date or what. So I texted Jackie and asked her if they forgot about me, only to be told it was Thanksgiving break!! AHHHHH! Haha it totally slipped my mind! I felt so slow for about an hour! Haha.
Just in case you all were wondering, my Thanksgiving dinner was a McRoyale cheeseburger meal from McDonald's. But no worries, it was good! Lol. Our night also involved getting our car towed when we went to a basketball game! Haha the sucky thing is that the car we parked behind was still there!!! They knew we weren't from here and got us! Luckily the car lot was in the same parking lot as the gym! So we had to pay 260 shekels to get our car back that was towed 20 feet, and on top of that we have a 250 shekel ticket we have to pay! Oh the joy!
The other night me and my roommates were in the kitchen and we saw a HUGE cockroach above our window sill. We start screaming and running around because we didn't know what to do. Not to mention it was after 1 in the morning when all this was taking place! Danielle climbs on a stool with a plastic container and a napkin trying to swiftly sweep it into the container only not being able to do so because the cockroach ran and she jumped down off the stool. Her and KD moved the fridge at least 6 times trying to kill the roach. But he DISAPPEARED! We don't know where the heck he went, but we know he definitely wasn't under the fridge! We think these roaches are playing games with us! That's the 2nd one we've seen that has disappeared!  So apparently our neighbors called the police on us because we were making so much noise. They came by and asked if everything was ok...lol...it was quite an adventurous night for us. So as I'm sitting here writing this post, guess who shows up!?!? THE ROACH! He was crawling on the ground towards me on the couch! I hopped up and quietly freaked out and told Danielle to kill it! LOL!! We won this time!
Today we were off, so I slept until 1 and then went to the beach with Danielle for an hour. It was so relaxing out there. We laid on the chairs and Danielle took a nap.

 Our team is now 5-2 after last night's game against Holon. Last week we played the other Rishon team at our place. It wasn't a pretty game at all, but we got the win and that's most important. Last night's game was definitely a tough one as well! It went down to the wire! We ended up winning 83-80. Last week I had 17 pts and 12 rebs and last night I had 18 pts and 11rebs. I feel like I'm starting to get back into a flow and just play. I am really enjoying my teammates and coaches. The sky is the limit for our team...and I think we are special because we have such a good bond that's beyond just basketball and not to mention we are starting to get pretty good chemistry on the court.
Tonight for dinner, I made cheeseburger helper (my sister sent it in my care package:-) ) with a flour tortilla! It was definitely a change that I needed:-) I took those helpers for granted when I was younger, but after today, I will never do it again! :-)

Yummy!!!

Today's Hebrew lesson is: Mom=Ema(ee-muh) and Dad=Abba(ah-buh)
That's all for today's walk in my Nikes!
Until next time, 
Alysha 

You Live and You Learn

Hey hey everyone!  Well it's been almost 2 weeks since we last caught up! Not too much has happened here in Israel. We have played 2 games and unfortunately lost both. We played Ramat Hen here at home last Monday. We played TERRIBLE! And it didn't help that they played great. That team has Ivory Latta, Tiffany Jackson, and Ashley Walker, who was the MVP of the Israeli League last year. They are a good team and we have to play better if we want to be able to compete. The game was on TV here, and also online so I told everyone to watch it, but come to find out not many people could get it! So sorry if you were one of those people!! Yesterday we played at Ramat Hasharon, which is the team who won the championship last year, and who our coach played for last year. They have Camille Little, Chante Black, and Alexis Hornbuckle. They're a good team. We lost by 4 points and could have won! It's a bad feeling knowing it was our breakdowns that lost the game. But it happens! Oh...I DIDN'T FOUL OUT EITHER! Hahaha. But I've got to play better...I don't know what's going on in my brain, but I'm going to turn it around and start playing some ball!
Chip Walters told me that every post I make revolves around what I've eaten that week! So I won't dwell too much on that this week! Just for you Chip;-) However, I have been eating at home a lot these past two weeks...I went to the store and bought stuff to make. I did make the most amazing spaghetti for my pre-game meal yesterday though:-) We also had a team dinner last Saturday at OUR apartment! I made a chicken casserole, the recipe I got off google and it turned out great! Danielle baked some chicken and put some teryaki sauce on it, very good! Everyone else brought some pasta and salad and of course dessert:-) We had a great time.

OMG! Our power just went out! The buildings across the street still have lights and our hall light still works! Our neighbor just opened her door and all her lights were on...soooo it's just our apartment! Lol. Maybe we have too many things plugged in! Well I'll keep writing and hopefully our manager Rami will be here soon to fix it!
These past couple weeks I've also learned the impact of the mistakes you make. It's never easy to make mistakes, but it's even harder to admit to them. I've had to learn the hard way, but I'm hoping by admitting the mistakes I've made will help me grow as a person and help me to understand myself better. I've always had faith in God and prayed, but I've never read the bible all the way through. I was listening to the Michael Baisden show one day and he was having a contest between men and women about the bible. His purpose for this game was to point out that so many people admit they have faith but don't study it or know the history of it. I see the life I want to live and see the woman of God I want to become, but I have to take that first step and really commit to living by His word in all aspects of life and not just the ones I choose. Admitting my mistakes and taking a good hard look at myself made me realize I'm in need of a change. So everyone keep me in your prayers:-)
My family and friends have gotten some care packages together to send me:-) I'm so excited to see what kind of goodies they've  included! I'm missing home now...and me and my roommates have been counting down the Mondays until we get to go home! 5 Mondays! I can't wait :-) That sound much better than 35 days!
I got a massage last Friday and it was MUCH needed!! I went to the spa at the gym and it was amazing! I must say, I miss the warm massage beds that we have in the states. It's not too fun having the chills when you get a massage haha. I've also become addicted to this frozen yogurt place that's here in Rishon. It's SO much better than ice cream! They have all kinds of fresh fruits and sweets you can put on it. Everytime I go I get Oreos, green apples, pineapple, peanuts, cantaloupe, and warmed up nutella on top. We actually went today after our hour long stretching session!
Rami came by and fixed our electricity, apparently when we turn on the hot water button and leave it on all day, it runs down the electricity. So it just shut off everything! Oh and the button, we didn't find out about it until 3 days ago! We have been taking cold showers at night and were so upset about it! And we would go to practice talking about it. Then a friend of ours said "You guys don't turn on the button at night?" We said "WHAT BUTTON!?" She then went on to explain to us that every building here is solar powered so that's why during the day we had hot water and not at night. So, now we know that we have to turn on the hot water button at night to get hot water...after a month and a half of cold showers! Haha.
Today's Hebrew lesson is Sababa=Cool, alright
That's all for today's walk in my nikes!
Until next time, 
Alysha 

The Holy CIty

Hey hey everyone!! Happy Friday!! This past week was one I'll never forget!
First things first. Our team is now 3-0 after Monday's win at Ra'anana Hertzeliya. They are a pretty good team. Their Americans are Shannon Bobbitt, Christi Thomas and LaToya Thomas. I was in early foul trouble so I had to sit and watch a lot, but my teammates were playing with such energy and togetherness. That's what I really like about this team! We are playing for each other and bond really well. But as much as I liked watching and seeing that, I want to be out there playing with them! Haha so my goal is to keep my behind out of foul trouble from here on out! It was a pretty physical game and it was definitely a tough win. But we're glad we got it! This Monday we are playing Ramat Hen at our place and it's going to be live online! You can watch it at www.one.co.il at Noon central time.

The women's side

This past week we also went to Jerusalem as a team. The drive out there was much like driving to Chattanooga, all the winding roads and up and
down mountains. It was so pretty! When we got to Jerusalem we went to my teammate Keren's house for dinner that her mom prepared. It was AMAZING! We had rice with veggies and stuff in it, a traditional Israeli soup, baked chicken and salad. For a snack and dessert they had an assortment of different nuts: cashews, sunflower seeds, watermelon seeds (I didn't even know those existed! Let alone eat them!), and pistachios. Then her dad brought out this chocolate cake with warm chocolate icing...mmmmmm:-) I was so full I almost popped!!

You can see the men's side to the left

The manilla card is my prayer

After dinner, we left and went to this place where you could see the whole city of Jerusalem! We took tons of pictures! Unfortunately, they're on my camera and my memory card doesn't fit into my laptop! But then we went to the Old City and walked around the outdoor mall they had, then walked through the old city. There were tons of shops! People would ask us to come in their store and try to bargain with you. It was pretty cool. Then, we went to the Western Wall. The men and women can't walk in together. So there were two different security lines. Once inside you could meet back up. We went over to where the wall was and it was separated into a women side and a men side. Everyone had their bibles and were praying. It was truly amazing. I wrote a prayer on a card I had and walked to the wall and put it in a crack and said a prayer. My teammates told us that when you leave the wall you're never supposed to turn your back on it...so you have to walk out backwards. This was truly an experience. This is the holiest place and closest place on earth to God, and I got to actually be there. You could just feel the spirituality there.

Me and my roommates at the Western Wall

A view of the wall

Me with the artwork

Walking through the Old City

Once we left the wall, we walked back through the Old City and back through the outdoor mall. Of course on the way out we stopped and got some Jerusalem Bagels. The mall had all kinds of art work that was for sale, so my teammates and I decided to pose with a few of them on our way out!

Macabi Game

On Sunday, me and Danielle got to go to a Macabi Tel Aviv game. Now, for those of you who don't know, Macabi is the best team in Israel and a powerhouse throughout Europe. The gym they play in is called the Nokia Arena and it looks like a freaking mall! They were playing Jerusalem that night, which is the 2nd best team in the Israel League, so the gym was completely packed! These fans are so passionate about their teams here! It's crazy to see! But very entertaining.

Macabi Game

This week's Hebrew lesson is: You're welcome: Bevakesha(bay-vah-ke-shaw)

That's all for today's walk in my nikes!
Until next time,
Alysha

Games Underway!!

Hey hey everyone! Well this is week #2 of the season.  Last Monday we played our first game against Netanya and won 67-100. We played really good defense and just had a lot of energy from the tip. It was a good first win for us, especially since according to the press we were the underdogs.   Last night we played our first home game against Hapoel Tel Aviv. I took pictures in my jersey before the game:-)

We won 72-55. The second half was bad though. We let up on defense and lacked some energy. But we'll fix it...we still got the W. But it was so cute after the game...all the little girls that were at the game came down to the court and had us sign autographs and take pictures with them. When they would ask, they would be speaking Hebrew though! Haha so I had to say "What does that mean?" or "English?" After the game me and some of my teammates went to the SoHo to eat. We had a table of 13 people and there was soo much food! We were tasting everyone's food! That 50% off comes in handy!

Clark in Hebrew!

                                     All the yummy food! 

The team with the mayor

This week we had a meeting with the mayor of Rishon. He basically said that he was excited to have a team in Rishon and he is waiting for our success. Except the majority of the meeting they spoke in Hebrew, so me, Danielle, and KD were sitting there clueless! Haha so we just laughed when everyone else laughed!

Me and the Mayor of Rishon

His office was on the 5th floor, and this is looking down.

This past week I also ate some home made Israeli food. At the mall, there was like a buffet set up...and the people cooked the food at their homes and brought it to this area to be sold. It's every friday! So we tried some different things and basically ended up getting two meals. I got a chicken breast stuffed with rice with this chile sauce and some potatoes. It was sooo good!

 

I also had the best dessert!! Of course, we went to the SoHo for lunch one day and split this dessert. It was cookies and cream ice cream and these cookies with this stuff that looks like rope on top, but it's really sweet! Omg, we devoured it in less than 2 minutes! 

Before...

2 minutes after!! 

Another fun thing we did this week was go to our men's game. The guy's team has their own gym and it's about 7 minutes away from us. The energy from the crowd was so amazing! They have these huge drums that they bang on and it makes the gym so noisy! But it's awesome! 

Today at practice we found out that on Saturday, we're going to Jeruselum as a team! Two of the girls on our team, Becky and Keren, are from there so they get to be our tour guides and take us to The Western Wall and some other historic places!! I can't wait!! 

Today's Hebrew lesson is: Good Morning-Boka tov and Good Night-Lila (like lilac without the c) tov. 

That's all for today's walk in my nikes! 

Until next time, 

Alysha 

Time for the Season!

Hey hey everyone! It's been a long week! I'm finally getting settled in and getting on a normal sleeping schedule. After two weeks of being here, I am finally going to sleep before 2 am!

Since the last time I wrote you all, we had a scrimmage against one of the top teams in our league. Ramat Hasharon is the defending league champs from last year, and this year the Americans they have are Alexis Hornbuckle, Camille Little, and Chante Black. My team is small, but everyone that plays is skilled and feisty. We played pretty well in the scrimmage...we ended up losing by 8, but it showed us what it's going to take for us to compete in this league. If you haven't already checked out the teams in this league, you definitely should! All you have to do is click on this link http://www.eurobasket.com/Israel/basketball.asp?Women=1 and it will take you straight to the page. This is how you can also keep up with my games and stats if you're interested. Just in case you forgot, my team name is H.R. LE-ZION. Our first game is tomorrow against a team called Netanya. I'm sooo ready to finally get games underway. I've had my ups and downs when it comes to our practices. I've gotten frustrated because I'm missing shots I should hit and making some stupid turnovers, but I'm trying to be patient and remain positive because I'm still trying to get adjusted and get back in the flow of my game.

Now for the fun stuff that's been going on! There's this place called the SoHo here and it's an Asian/Sushi bar that a lot of the Americans go to hang out and eat. We live like 3 minutes down the street! Well on Friday night they held a party for both the women and men players here in Israel. Everyone was having a good time, eating, dancing, talking.  Around 11 the players got to get this 50% off card for the whole year! 50% OFF EVERYTHING! So now we can go and eat this great food that's usually like 40 shekels and above for half off! I love these kinds of perks!! We could have used something like this in college! Lol! Afterwards, everyone went to Tel Aviv to this club. We didn't get in until 4:30 am!! We were sooooo tired, but had a great time! The night life here in Israel is definitely lively!

Keren, my teammate, had this decoration in her hair and I asked her what it was. It's called a rasta, and it's basically weave attached to the root of your hair and then decorated with string and beads. She told me where to get one done and so I went one day and got a purple one put in. A lot of the Israeli girls get it done. Just something fun to have in your hair. And whenever I want it out, because it's not braided into my hair, I just have to cut the little string that's tied to my hair. 

The final product!

As far as food is concerned, my roommates and I have pretty much figured out what we like and know how to pick it out at the store now. The other night, I was really wanting some Mexican food. Anyone that knows me knows I LOVE Mexican food! So I was going to make tacos. Well, they don't sell the seasonings for Mexican food here. I got on google and looked up how to make taco seasoning from scratch! I went to the store and bought all the spices, came home, and then mixed it up and cooked it. I must say, it was pretty darn good! Even Danielle said it was good! We had burritos that night for dinner, and then two days later I had a burrito for lunch! I definitely want to experiment with cooking while I'm here and learn how to make some new food!

I've talked with my family on skype just about every other day. It's amazing how technology connects us!! But I'm definitely thankful it's as advanced as it is today! I got to see my precious 8 1/2 month old niece on camera, and when I was talking to her, she would lean into the camera because she recognized my voice and saw my face. My sister said she was looking at it like "why can't I touch her? I hear her!" It was the cutest thing ever!!! I definitely miss my family and friends a lot!!

Of course, I've been learning more Hebrew. I found out the other day that my grandpa speaks Hebrew! I should have had lessons with him before I came! But my teammate Inbar has been impressed with my learning skills. She said I'm going to be the best foreigner speaking Hebrew that she's known! Today's words are: "why"-llama "where"-efo "I'm hungry"-ane reva(a-knee ray-vah) and "I'm full"-ane sveah(a-knee svay-ah)

That's all for today's walk in my nikes!
Until next time,
Alysha

The start of the rasta!

No worries, this isn't my hair she's steaming!

Adding my colors!! :-)

Our washer....

Our dryer! :-)

Cheetos in Hebrew!

This is what the stop lights do before they turn green!

Learning New Things

Hey hey everyone!! I just want to thank each and everyone of you who is following my blog!! I really appreciate it! I am so glad I get the opportunity to share this journey with you!
Being here in Israel has opened my eyes a lot! At times it has been frustrating because it's hard to read labels or communicate with people, but at the same time it's been a lot of fun trying to find new ways to get people to understand you. I can understand how frustrating it can be for people to come to the USA and not be able to communicate like they want to...and it's always easy to say "well they should speak our language" but that's what makes the world so great! Unique cultures and diverse ethnicities makes things interesting! I can definitely say this experience has opened my mind up a lot more! :-)

I must say this country is definitely beautiful and full of life!! Danielle and I went to the beach today and it was breathtaking!! The waves were so big and the water was gorgeous! We ate at this seafood restaurant called Fish and they brought out a loaf of bread with about 7 different dipping sauces. It was AMAZING!!! One thing Israel has is great bread! I am in seventh heaven! My roommates and I have already caught on the coffee drinking way of the Israeli people. My teammate Rebecca told us that Israelis drink coffee all day every day. And it has been soooo good! They also eat a lot of hummus with pita bread and Danielle and Khadijah seem like they have been living here all their lives because they eat it all the time! Haha.

The stoplights are different too! Instead of going from red to green, it goes to yellow first. And then when the green light is about to change, it blinks three times and then goes to yellow and then to red. It took a few days to get used to. Haha and there's no turning right on red lights either! Oh man...the urges I've had to just do it anyway! There also aren't dryers over here, so once we get the clothes out of the washing machine, we have to clip them on our clothes line that is outside our window! But the clothes actually dry pretty fast! But I must say I miss the dryer! Haha.

On Fridays, everything closes at sundown and remains closed until Saturday night. It's called the Jewish Sabbat and is their day of rest. So it's kind of like our Sunday in the states. So it's a little different changing the thought process of being used to the weekend and doing stuff on friday and saturday. But it's really neat to learn all this stuff. Also, two of our teammates are in the Israeli Army! They told us that over here in Israel, women between the ages of 18 and 22 are required to serve 2 years and the men are required to serve 3. So in addition to playing basketball they're also serving their country. I think it's pretty awesome.

I've been learning more Hebrew! Today's words are: Thank you: todah (emphasis on the dah) and good: tov

Well that's all for today's walk in my nikes!!

Until next time,
Alysha

Re-Adjusting

Hey hey everyone!! Welcome back!! These past few days have been kind of a blur because I have been trying to re-adjust myself.
The first night, my roommates Danielle and Khadijah went to practice. Me and Danielle didn't have to practice because we were traveling that day. We were on the sideline talking about what they were doing and got a little nervous because they were doing these drills and had a LOT of running! Haha but it just helped us prepare our minds for what was coming.  We were introduced to the team and could only remember 2 people's names because they were American names. But you'll be glad to know I know all 8 players now!!!! And I pronounce their names correctly too.

The second day we had to go do our medical test. It consisted of doing an isokinetic test to measure the ratio between our quad and hamstring muscles. It was pretty tough. They strap you into a chair and isolate the muscle in your leg and have you do a series of exercises with different resistance. Then after that we had to go test our conditioning, or "test our shape" as the coaches would say. They hook all these wires up to your chest and put you on the treadmill and have you run at a certain speed for a minute and increase the speed and incline every minute after and you basically run until you can't anymore!!! Haha I hopped right off as soon as I was about to die...and they said "No No Alicia...keep on..." and I said "Yes Yes...I'm done!" Hahaha. But I got up to 93%, so I was happy about that. Then we had to go to practice after that!!!!!
The first practice was good! Like I said earlier we only have 8 players so our practice involved a lot of running! But I'm used to it from Coach Insell of course:-) After practice we came home and disinfected our rooms and put our stuff away...and to no surprise I saw a roach crawl from under my bed!! I completely freaked because anyone who knows me knows I don't do bugs!!! Khadijah brought me some raid and we gassed my room! LOL! I haven't seen him since! OH! And we all have a flatscreen in our room:-) They have definitely taken care of us over here in Rishon.

Last night we went to the grocery store and were there for AN HOUR AND A HALF! Lol. Everything was in Hebrew on the labels so we were going off pictures to pick what we wanted. We asked people that were in the store if they could help us find something and some of the stuff they didn't understand because they didn't speak English very well or have a translation for what we were asking for. But in the end, we got a lot of good stuff!! Then on our way home we stopped at the pastry stand and tried a couple different sweets...and OMG whoever thought of chocolate croissants is a GENIUS. We will definitely be back! Oh yeah...and the most important thing that happened yesterday was that we got our internet fixed!!! I'm so glad I've been able to talk to my family and boyfriend!

We had our first practice this morning...we got lost going to practice, but we eventually found our way. So now we can get around a little bit! :-) The drivers out here are bold!! They just get over without looking and don't care how close you are! Haha. We also got lost on the way home too because it's hard to read the street signs when they're all in Hebrew, but once again we found our way back! We found a CD in the CD player of our car...and number 5 on the disc was Lil Wayne Lolipop...IN HEBREW!! LOL! It was sooo funny! "Shlop i lop", or at least that's what I think he said when it came to the chorus. Definitely made my day!

Right now, we're meeting with the mobile phone people to try and get a plan for our phones! It would cost us 98 Shekels a month which equals out to $26! Now where in America can you get an unlimited calling plan and 200 text messages for $26!? This is great! By the way, 3.65 shekels=$1.
I'm going to help you learn a little Hebrew with me. Today's saying is "Let's Go = yalla
Well that's all for today's walk in my nikes!!!

 Me before my running...that net was a shirt she cut and had me wear lol.

 This is our instant coffee!! We took a picture to make sure we remembered which one we drank.

Until next time,
Alysha