Day 7- 9/18/11 Sunday

 This morning brought watching Huskers online. Thanks to mom and dad for the birthday present of the BigTen Ticket online service which is the international way to watch Big10 Games!!! Since the game was aired on ABC, I didn’t have access to it until midnight eastern time, so I watched it when I woke up!  It was a good Sunday morning!!

Vesna came at 3:30 to pick me up for coffee.  We went to Madison Lounge, the same place we had gone to coffee the day before. I love the atmosphere there!  

 

 I didn’t realize that tonight was the Macedonian Basketball game!  Macedonia came to the European Championships pretty much un-known I believe or at the very least not expected to get anywhere in the tournament.  However they made it all the way to the semi-finals on Friday night, but lost to Spain.  Tonight’s game was the bronze medal game against Russia.  It was so much fun to be around the people of Macedonia as they all rallied around their team!!   

(my view on the right)

Macedonia did not win unfortunately, but the fans began a parade of singing and chanting throughout the streets of Tetovo.  They were covered in paint, flags, and anything that had the Macedonian colors of Red and Yellow.  It really brought a smile to my face to see a country get to come together around their sports team.  I read a NYTimes article about their “star player” Bo McCalebb who is originally and American.  Here is a quote from the article, you should know they call Bo, Borche in Macedonia J. “Borche and the players have positioned us shoulder to shoulder with giant nations and have shown us that Macedonia is a great nation,” Georgi Filipovski, an information technology specialist from Skopje, said in a telephone interview. “They wiped out our inferiority complex about being losers from a small, insignificant country.” (NY Times, Sept 15, 2011)

 

 

 

Following the game, we walked to get some really tasty ice cream!  There were several flavors, I had hazelnut and caramel dipped with a bit of chocolate and hazelnuts on top. It was different than ice cream I have eaten before, it was more creamy and not as frozen tasting… if that makes sense at all.  It was a bit breezy so I of course got a piece of my hair in my ice cream and then it streaked across my glasses…I can’t even be cool in a far distant land!  As my dad would say: “Way to go Grace”.

Lesson: There is an awesome power and feeling when a group of people can come together for a similar cause!