Welcome to Deutschland!!!

I left August 12th and got on a plane for Frankfurt, Germany to play for a team called the Saarlouis Royals in Saarlouis, Germany. I have really enjoyed it so far and am just getting time to update my long lost blog and get some pictures up. So now you all know where I am at least!!!!

Home Sweet Home!

Hey Hey everyone!

Happy month of June! I wanted to let you all know that status of my life and where in the world I am these days. I am back in Good Ole' Nebraska! I flew home from Istanbul, Turkey on April 29th after completing my season playing with Adana Botas in Adana, Turkey. Well according to my emails, I am lost somewhere between the countries of Jordan and Egypt. Bear with me, I still have lots to share from Egypt, Spain, Portugal and Turkey travels! My emails, well as you know I like to include details and pictures, and I am currently organizing my pictures and should get the rest of my 4 1/2 week backpacking adventure stories and blog out soon!

This summer I was unable to get on board with a WNBA team, which has allowed me some time to spend with my family, friends and just slow down here at home, which I never seem to be able to do! I recently started teaching basketball clinics and doing some public speaking at local high school camps in the Arlington and Omaha area. That has been a lot of fun and rewarding getting to talk to young women athletes who are working hard and trying to get better at basketball and life. I am also teaching private basketball lessons to kids/jr high/high school ages. I really enjoyed doing that in college and in Sacramento and am happy to give back to the community and see young kids develop and grow.

My family seems to be happy that I am around and I enjoying spending time with them. During the last few weeks, my brothers, dad and I remodeled my Grandpa's bathroom, we have been doing lots of projects around the farm, went to a few former teammates weddings, and I have also got to spend a lot of time with my nieces and nephews. My sister in law Kiley and my brother Ben, had their first baby, about 3 weeks ago on May 16th. Nathan Benjamin Wilkins was born and is growing and a healthy little tike. Kiley did great with the whole birth and is proud to be back under her pregnancy weight.

So now I have 4 nephews and 1 niece that I get to watch Disney movies with, jump on the trampoline, and play games with :) I love it ! On the day that Nathan was born it was the day we celebrated my Grandpa's 92nd birthday! How lucky am I getting a new born baby nephew and celebrating my grandpas last 92 years of his life all in the same day!

Congrats to one of my good friends Lisa (Kriener) Bishop and her husband Andy had a little boy about 2 weeks ago, Elliot Alexander Bishop and they call him Zander. Also another one of my good friends, Stef and Paul Spangler had a baby boy a few weeks back and named him Collin James Spangler. There are just little boys being born all over these days!! Congratulations to you guys!

My mom is good and just had her birthday this week, my dad is happy to have all the crops in the ground and growing, my sister is coming home from Utah at the end of June for 10 days!! My brothers and sister in laws are all busy with kids, summer projects, and softballs/T-ball games and my grandpa seems to be doing well toodling around the farm in his golf cart :)

I am excited to be home and enjoying the time away from team bball, while still working out and staying in shape, swimming, biking, doing my own bball workouts, took up pilates, and I forgot to mention laying in my hammock and watching the sunset!!! I have seen quite a few sunsets in my day and none can compare to Nebraska sunsets :)

Well, that is the latest on my life, here are some pictures since I have been home. Like I said, I will get some detailed stories from my last 4 couuntries I was in as soon as I get a chance!

Hope you are all happy and healthy!!!

Love, Britt

Brittany Wilkins <><
bwilkins51.blogspot.com
bwilkins51@gmail.com

~I don't know what my future holds, but I know who holds my future ~

Pictures:
1. Riley, Kobe, Brodie and Gradi hanging out in the hammock one night while I was babysitting.
2. Beautiful sunset in Nebraska
3. Baby Nathan
4. Me and the girls from the Arlington Basketball Camp that I helped run.
5. My brother being a proud Daddy with Nathan.
6. Me and Nathan.
7. Me and my cousins at celebrating my Grandpas 92nd birthday.

I am the luckiest Aunt ever!!

Hello hello canims!! (canim means like friend or darling) everyone says it here.

Well as you all know my little nephew was born almost two weeks ago
and wanted to pass on some pictures I got of him! I guess he has been
sleeping very well and being a great baby. Brodie, his big brother,
has been following my sister-in-law and brother everywhere they go
with Gradi. He loves to watch Gradi be fed, get his diaper changed,
and just watch over their shoulders. Here are a few pictures of him
at the hospital and with the kids.

As far as basketball goes, we only have one game left and then our
season is finished. We didn't have enough wins to get into playoffs
so after March 21st we are done. But we had a game this weekend
against, Samsun, the #2 team in the Turkish league. My team and
everyone has been pretty unmotivated, just knowing that we only have a
few games left and are officially out of playoffs. So anyway, we
ended up playing a great game and we won!! I couldn't believe it! We
even had our American point guard that wasn't feeling well, one of our
best Turkish players sick, and Marcedes, Angela, another Turkish
player and I all in foul trouble and somehow we ended up winning!!!
So that was nice to finally win and we had fun. So we don't play our
last game until the 21st, so our coach gave us a few days off.
Usually on my days off, which we don't get to often, I try and travel
or plan a trip somewhere. Well I have been quite tired recently and
after my fun weekend in Greece I thought I needed a few days to
recuperate. So the last few days I have been watching movies, going
to coffee shops, reading the paper, playing guitar and just relaxing
here in Adana. It has been nice.

So I got a message from my brother yesterday on facebook that was
rather interesting. He is in the Air National guard and is in Germany
right now, doing fly in-fly outs into Afghanistan for 2 weeks. Every
30 hours they fly into Afghanistan to pick up injured soldiers and
take them back to Ramstein Base in Germany. So apparently they were
flying back to Germany when a cockpit window shattered in their plane
about 2 hours out of Afghanistan. They were going to do an emergency
landing here in Adana at the US Air Force Base, Incirlik, but decided
to keep going and try to make it to Germany. Ben said he was voting to
land in Turkey so he could see me but the rest of the crew wanted to
keep going!! So I almost got to see my brother yesterday!!!!! That
would have been fun, but I am just glad he is safe. He is heading
back to the US today I think.

I am starting to plan out my traveling after the season, as of right
now my first trip will be to Istanbul to meet up with some high school
friends for a few days then we are flying to Dubai (in the country
United Arab Emirates) to hang out with another high school friend that
lives there!!! Then after that I am flying to..................i will
let you all know in the next email!! I love to get the anticipation
level up!

Well enjoy the pictures!! I am off to a coffee shop to meet with one
of my American friends here!!!

Love and miss you all!

Britt<><

Greece was amazing!!!! I had a wonderful time and I made all my
flights!! More on that in the next email.

The world welcomes my new nephew, Gradi Christopher Wilkins!!!!

Well for those of you who know me, I am proud to be an aunt to my brother Brett, and sister-in-law Michelles, three kids, Riley, Kobe and Brodie. Last night at 5:30am I received a call from my brother that Michelle gave birth to a healthy little boy!!!! He was born at 9:15pm, yesterday, weighing in at 9 lbs 1 oz and 20 1/2 inches long!!!! They named him Gradi Christopher Wilkins. (Christopher is my brother's middle name). I was pretty excited and couldn't go back to sleep for another hour after I talked with him!!! Michelle is doing well, just exhausted. I called Brett this morning and wished him Happy 33rd Birthday and he was asleep at the hospital. Riley apparently was in the delivery room the whole time and witnessed it and she is happy to be a proud sister of three little boys. Kobe and Brodie I am sure are excited to have another little brother. Riley and Kobe are missing school tomorrow to go see Gradi and be with Brett and Michelle. I am so happy that he is healthy and everyone is doing well!!

Today we have a game against Kayseri. It is a pretty big game for us, and will be important to get this win in if we want to advance in playoffs. After the game I am catching a night flight out for Athens, Greece to go and hang out with my old ISU teammates, Mary Fox and Lindsey Wilson!!! Also an teammate from Sacramento, Kristin Haynie, who is playing there and a teammate from San Antonio, Erin Buescher (now Perperoglou :) I should be a great weekend after we get a big win today and hopefully I make all my flights!!!!


Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Britt<><

My Team, Turkish Food, and season so far.......

I figured it has been almost a month since I blogged last which is pretty pathetic, and I have been taking good pictures, making good memories, and haven't been sharing. So this week I hope to catch you all up a bit :)

Since I got here in late December we have had seven games, and went 2-5 in all of them. Overall, our record is 4-11 in the league and are sitting in 9th position. We need to win two or three more games in order to get into the top eight of the league. If we don't make it in the top eight, then our season is finished March 21st. If we do make it we finish early-mid-April.

I have adjusted pretty well as far as getting used to the basketball here and my team. There are three other Americans on my team along with me. Shannon Bobbitt is our point guard, she is from New York, played college ball at Tennessee and professionally with the LA Sparks. Marcedes Walker is our center, she is from Philly and played college ball at Pittsburgh and is also my roommate. Angela Tisdale is our shooting guard, she is from Austin, TX, played college ball at Baylor. The basketball world is so small, as those of you that are it know, that there so many connections with teams, players coaches, and people everywhere. For example, prior to my time here in Turkey, I played against Shannon's team, LA, when I was at San Antonio in the playoffs. I played against Marcedes in a pre-season training camp game and played against Angela in the Big 12 for two years. They are all great to play with and easy to get along with.

My Turkish teammates are all so great. I couldn't ask for better girls to be around. They are all very young, but so gentle hearted and hard working. There are about three girls on the team that speak english well, the rest of them is pretty broken and can't really understand much English. The are all players that have been with the club Botas for a few years, and played on the younger Botas teams growing up. So to be playing on the senior Botas team is pretty big for them. They all range from the age 17-23. Yes, I am the oldest on the team out of everyone :) I enjoy it though and have really enjoyed being able to be a leader in my actions and words around my team.

So I have been able to try lots of great yet interesting food since I have been here. One is this dish called Iskender. I posted a picture of it for you all to see. It is famous in the city of Bursa, Turkey, but they sell it everywhere in Turkey. It is basically little pieces of bread with thin slices of meat on top, with a white yogurt, a red tomato sauce on top, butter poured on the top and a tomato and pepper to go on the side. This is one of my favorite Turkish foods, but I usually try and get no butter, they pile it on here!!!!

So one of my teammates, Ebru, invited me over for supper one night. I got there and they were just so nice, cooked Turkish food and even made some chicken and rice if I didnt like the Turkish food. Well Ebru's english isn't the best and her parents didn't really speak any at all. Don't worry that fact is important to know as the story continues. So anyway, her mom cooked this stuff called Mumbar. It looked like something I wouldn't attempt to eat, but wanted to be polite and try it. I asked Ebru what was in it and she said that it was stuffed with rice and meat. So I thought, well that is pretty safe, so I ate the whole plate full and it was ok, not super tasty but ok. So I was telling one of the Americans that I met here that story and she about died laughing because she told me that it was intestines that I ate!!! So I couldn't beleive that I ate a whole plate of intestines and didn't even realize it!!!!! I am not sure whether it was lamb or beef, but I would really prefer not to know. So I posted a picture of some Mumbar for you all to see. And the stuff I ate didn't have the colorful garnishes on it when I ate it :) You live and learn!

So when we go on the road we eat in hotel restaurants right, well one morning I was ordering a omelet and preceeded to ask if I could get my omelet with cheese and ham in it. So I got the the point of me saying "I would like cheese and ha---" then stopped and realized that in Turkey people don't eat Pork because it is against their Muslim faith. So I have caught myself a few times sticking my foot in my mouth on my words!!!! But I sure do miss having a good piece of ham that is for sure!!!!!

Here are some pictures of the groceries here, thought you might all like to see the kind of things I buy at the grocery store. Once again so sorry that I might be the worst blogger on the planet, but I am determined to get better at this!!! Plus I have lots of adventures planned after my season, so I need to get you all caught up on my trips since I have been here!!! I have also been able to go to the cities of Izmir, Ephesus, Sirance, Ankara, Goreme (in this area of Turkey called Cappodocia), Istanbul, and a few places around Adana. This next weekend I am going to Athens, Greece to meet up with some old Iowa State teammates and Sacramento teammates :) So excited!!!!! My dad came about two weeks ago and we had a great time too! He really loved Turkey!!!! I will update you on that soon as well!!!

Today we had the day off since we had a game yesterday. I have been really blessed to have my sundays mostly off. Since I have been here I have been able to connect with several foreigners and got some good fellowship to go to weekly. They are from all over the US and there are about 4 families that i have connected with that either work here or are studying the culture and learning the language. Every week we get together and have a house study, fellowship and pr@yer. I have gotten to know there kids and has been fun to be apart of the birthday parties and just hang out with Americans sometimes. Since I have been here I have purchased a guitar, so I have been fortunate enough to play some guitar for worship time in our house groups, which has been fun. It has been so sweet and we even sing worship songs in Turkish!!! One of my Turkish friends came this morning, that was fun for him to be there, he read the scripture in Turkish to us :) The house group as been able to come to a few of my games and stick out like sore thumbs with their signs and the fact that none of them are Turkish :) They are all great and so supportive of me and my team!!!

I don't want to keep you all for your day, so check out the pictures and enjoy!! I WILL write again this week I hope!!!!!

Love you all!!

Britt<><

The pictures are of my team, Turkish Groceries, Mumbar (intestines), Iskender (looks gross but it is good!) and from the Fenerbahce game. The team picture was taken at the airport as you can see, an airline company is one of our main sponsors. The men in the front of the team from the left is our strength coach (Umit), head coach (Olcay), the Airline president, and our general manager (Alpo).

Inauguration Day from Turkey!

Well, as you all know that a week ago tomorrow Barack Obama was sworn
in as the 44th president of the United States of America. It was a
exciting historical day for the USA, african-americans, and for many
around the world. I was unable to watch the speech and when he was
sworn in because our team had mandatory hang out time at the movies
(we went to Yes Man, it was fun :) But while I was driving in the team
bus to the mall for the movie (this is while Obama was being sworn in)
I felt a sense of American pride and honor knowing that what was
happening at that moment in my home country was effecting lives around
the world.

I respect President Obama for his character, the way he conducted his
whole campaign (Not attacking the other party as much as he was
attacked), and for the way he is stepping up the one of the biggest
challenges of leading one of the most powerful nations in the world.
I am sure you all already know all this but leading the USA out of the
economic crisis, out of two wars that we are deep to our hips in,
while carrying on with the regular duties that the president does will
not be a easy duty. But, despite all the Republican vs. Democrat talk
and who is better than who, and who is the better party, I think
America, along with myself we all need to show our love and support of
our new President and trust that he can unify the US more and gain
back some of the respect that the world has lost for the US. God
calls us to honor our authorities always, even when we don't agree
with them. I am not saying this because the US is better than any
country, believe me, that is not what i am saying, especially after
living and traveling around to many places of the world, but because
leadership takes humility and relating to others. I trust Obama can do
that and through my own research, prayer and reading up on him and his
life, he won my vote. I don't agree with everything he plans to do,
but I do believe the Lord has equipped him to lead the USA and I pray
many of you will trust the Lord with Obama and his plans for America.
As my quote says on the bottom next to my signature, I don't know what
my future holds, but I know who holds my future. I love that quote
because it helps remind me that God holds each and everyone of our
futures, it is a matter of whether you know that and trust Him.

During the inauguration week here in Turkey, many people who knew I
was American (coaches, teammates, trainers, general manager), came up
and congratulated me and the USA for having a new president. The
newspapers were packed full of articles and pictures of the
Inauguration some people here were wearing buttons of Obama. Even here
there was a sense of hope and new expectation in the air that
hopefully this is a good step in the right direction for the world. I
want to thank President Bush for all the good, bad, ugly,
accomplishments, failures and everything that has happened the last 8
years. I hope he is able to walk away from being the president a
better person than before, with a humble sense of achievement and
leadership in his efforts to have lead the USA for 8 years.

I have attached some pictures of the newspapers here, an Obama pin
that was found in a shop in Ephesus that I saw. Also attached are a
few pictures that one of my friends told from the east coast on
January 20th. Again, I just want to say I am proud to be an American
(sometimes while living overseas, I am embarassed to be American for
various reasons, the way we live, dress and our reputation) but for
the most part glad to have seen history unfold and President Obama
step into the batting box for the US. Those are all my thoughts on
politics and hope you enjoy the pictures!

I have some great news! My dad got a plane ticket to come and visit me
here in Turkey!!!! He will be here for 10 days and will get to see two
of my bball games and hopefully do a little sight seeing while we are
at it!!!!

Take care and until next time!!
Live to make Him smile :)

Brittany Wilkins <><
bwilkins51.blogspot.com
bwilkins51@gmail.com

~I don't know what my future holds, but I know who holds my future ~

Turkish toilets...........

So Turkish toilets have made for some fun stories that is for sure. See before they were introduced to seats on toilets here, they used to just squat over a hole and go to the bathroom. They like to call them squaty potties or old Turkish toilets. So the first practice I was here, I had to go to the bathroom, they pointed towards the WC (water closet) and i got in there and said nooooooooo way am i going to the bathroom in that, and there was no toilet paper!! So I have learned to keep a roll of toilet paper in my gym bag and use it all the time. And since Turkey has gotten a little more modern there are more toilet now with actual seats, so I always ask for those!!!

Some of the pictures are: from our basketball gym. In every business establishment and every gym in Turkey there is a huge picture of this guy Aytac Durak ( i think that is right). He is the guy that basically founded Turkey and put Turkey on the map as far as economically. They worship this guy like crazy and have pictures of him all over the place. There is even a day for him (November 11th) where the whole country stops to remember him for one minute. All the buses, boats, trains, cars, everything. One of my friends said he was on the boat and all of a sudden the engine stopped right in the middle of the trip.

Other pictures: this is the mosque near my house which is near a beautiful walking park, which i have been out to a few times.
The other picture is of me in the mosque. I had to cover my head when I went it. And for those of you who are wondering, not all the women in Turkey have to cover there heads or wear burcas. There is a lot more of that in Istanbul and the farther east you go.

Well thats all for now! Love you all!!

PS. Here is the website for the Turkish league. There is a picture of me in the ones that flas on the screen. I am number 14 and wearing a red jersey. I think it is picture number 17 or 18. Also scroll down and you can see an article about me coming, but its in Turkish :)

http://www.tbl.org.tr/tbbl/index.asp

Back in Turkey again :)

Well after a grrrrrrrreat time at home for the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was able to get a contract in of all the places I really didnt want to go, but yes Turkey. The Lord just keeps putting it back in my path and this time I was really trusting Him and hoping that it would go better than the last time. The team is named Botas Spor and is located in Adana, Turkey which is about an hour from the Mediterranean Sea and an hour from the Tarsus Mountains. I got here on December 27th and it has been good so far, lots of stories already. We played our first game last week against a team called Ceyhun and won. It was really exciting and a huge game for us. I played like 7 minutes and it was good, but I am still getting comfortable with the team and plays and such. Our next game is in Tarsus on Saturday. Tarsus is the home of the Apostle Paul from in the bible so I am hoping to go there one day to sight see and such. But wanted to post something quick so you all know where I am these days and what I am up too. Here are a few pictures from New Years Eve. We hung out at our coaches house for the night and played Tombala, its like Bingo. It was interesting playing in Turkish!!! They also like the concept of the christmas trees and giving gifts but dont celebrate the real meaning of christmas. So there was a tree up in his house and day after I got here one of my teammates, Gulsah, got me a gift the day after i met her. Anyway, hope you all enjoy so far. The most that I am standing by is the biggest mosque in Turkey. It was amazing!!!!

Well i will write more later, love and miss you all!