Tourney, Road trip, Food poisoning

Happy Saturday everyone!  It is a beautiful afternoon here in Ankara Turkey, sunny, 82 degrees, and not a cloud in the sky.  Wow I must be getting old, I am commenting on the weather now!  I must admit that there has only been 2 days here in Ankara when it has been cloudy otherwise it is straight sun the whole time.  My wife can attest to this as she was over at a friends house last week hanging out on her patio the whole afternoon, and when I came home from practice she looked like a lobster!  Sorry to bore you of the weather comments (like watching paint dry haha!).  Today however AJ and I went to the grocery store near by to pick up some dinner for tonight.  Speaking of tonight we have a hot date....MOVIE!  We are heading to our first cinema here tonight and I am really looking forward to it.

Ankara to Gaziantep, Turkey

If you read my previous post you know that I just got back from a pre-season tourney down in Gaziantep, Turkey.  It is located just north of Syria.  The image to the right shows the route and the location of Gaziantep compared to Ankara.  We were down there Monday-Friday and arrived back in Ankara last night.  The tournament consisted of a game on Tuesday and Wednesday.  On Thursday we had a practice, and another game on Friday.  Our first game went well.  We ended up winning by 6 to Antalya.  Again I apologize I do not have any specific stats for our team or individual for any of the games.  Our second game we played a good team in Aliaga.  We ended up losing by 3 points.  It was an exciting game however.  We were down by double figures in the 2nd half and ended up coming back and cutting the deficit to one possession with around 30 seconds to go.  A player from Aliaga took a shot and missed.  The ball was getting tipped around and bounced out of bounds.  We all thought for sure it was going to be our ball.  Referee whistles........ball to Aliaga, and that folks was basically the ball game.  So, we are sitting in the tournament at 1-1 and one game to be played on Friday still.

HOWEVER, we ended up not playing the game on Friday and traveled home because 7 players and a couple coaches on our team got FOOD POISONING from our hotel dinner the night before.  I was one of the players that got it but not an extreme case like some of my teammates and coaches.  It was unbelievable.  Our dinner the night before consisted of some type of minced meat (apparently not fresh). That night I went to bed feeling just fine until around 3am when all of a sudden I had extreme diarrhea like you wouldn't believe (no vomiting).  That lasted all night long.  Immediately I knew that it was something that I had eaten.  That morning I woke up to our trainer knocking on the door saying that I need to go to the hospital to get my blooded check.  I thought how in the heck did he know I was on the toilet all night.  I find out that I was one of many guys up all night, as I stated before.  I say that I did not have the extreme case because some of my fellow teammates and coaches were up all night vomiting and diarrhea.  So, I go to the hospital to get my blood drawn (test came back that I had bacteria/food poisoning in my blood) and I walk into a big room filled with my teammates and coaches laying on gurneys with IV's.  I wish I would have taken a picture and posted it on here.  It was quiet the sight.  Members of a professional basketball team all side by side in one big room getting treated for food poisoning.  They ask me if I wanted IV's for my body but I politely refused (at this time it was around 11am and I felt better).  That day I basically laid around resting and getting fluids back into my system.  Thursday night one of our trainers came into our room and said that we are leaving back to Ankara tomorrow morning (Friday) after breakfast.  So no game!  We ended the tournament 1-1 with a lot of dehydrated, stomach grumbling, scared to eat, and not impressed players.  Not to mention we had a 10 hour bus ride home on Friday.

It felt good getting back to the apartment last night and eating some food that I knew was legit.  I feel 100% better today and am looking forward to getting back on the court tomorrow afternoon.  Our team is making strides in every aspect of the game.  It is great seeing us all improve day by day.  We need to continue to do that the rest of the year if we want to meet our goal.  That pretty much sums up an exciting week of basketball, road trip, and food poisoning.  As I mentioned before I am thrilled to go to a movie with my wife tonight, relax, and not worry about food haha!  I hope you all have a blessed weekend.  I look forward to posting again soon.  God Bless... Colossians 3:17! LOOK IT UP :)

At our newly found bar & grill in Ankara