Brittany Wilkins <><: Belgian Basketball, Chocolate and Amazing Waffles!!!!!!!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Belgian Basketball, Chocolate and Amazing Waffles!!!!!!!

In August, I signed with a team called Point Chaud Sprimont which was located near Liege, Belgium. I was excited for the opportunity to play again since I hadn’t played competitively since December of ’09, and was still recovering from my back surgery that I had in March. I left for Belgium September 8th and had my first game back on the court after 6 months of post operation rehab!! I felt really good and was just grateful to be healthy again!!! My team was quite young and we lost a lot of close games and struggled to get some wins. However, I grew to really enjoy Belgium, as I was close to Holland, Germany and so much!! My former German teammate, Kitty Muller, who I played in Saarlouis with, has family in Aachen, Germany, which was a quick 30 minute drive from Verviers, the city I was living. It was great to feel like I had a family away from home. Being the only professional on the team, I did a lot of workouts on my own and with the coach. While in Belgium I was able to travel to some cool cities like Maastricht, Holland; Aachen, Germany; several different places in Luxembourg; and of course to cities in Belgium such as Anthwerp, Brussels, and Houthalen. For Thanksgiving, I cooked my very first turkey and full meal for my team! It turned out to be a wonderful candlelit evening with lots of good food, wine, and they even talked me into playing some guitar for them! I became great friends with my older teammate Hilde (also my translator) and her husband Bjorn. I went and stayed with them several times and enjoyed them so much! In December right before I returned to the states we made a road trip to Koln, Germany, to see the famous Christmas Market, and actually got stuck in a huge snowstorm! We almost got in an accident and it was definitely a memory we made together! That snowstorm was the same one that caused me to be 2 1/2 days late in getting home, but I made it and was happy to land in Nebraska and have 12 days with family.