Paris Trip, Christmas, and Beating Rival, Den Bosch, on Boxing Day - Blog #11 (Dec. 16 - 29)

Because of Christmas last week, I decided not to post a blog because I figured most of you were busy spending time with family and friends. This will be a bit longer than normal, lucky you!

Basketball Update:

We played two games over this two-week stretch, the first against Brussels. We lost 66-71 as our home woes continued. It is pretty strange, but for whatever reason, we have struggled this year playing on our home court. We have played with much more intensity and connectedness on the road. I played fine but not quite good enough. However, I might have had my all-time personal best in rebounds, 12!

We had a relatively quick turnaround as our next game was on the 26th versus our biggest rival, Heroes Den Bosch. We played them in our first game of the season back in early September for the Supercup (Dutch Cup Champs versus Dutch postseason Champs from the previous season) and smacked them by thirty. However, they're a much different and, frankly, better team than they were. The game had great energy, as they have a good fan base with a nice arena. Our fans traveled well. We had a nice little fan section that was belting chants the whole game. The game was back and forth, but we took control in the second half and ended up winning 73 - 69. It was one of our better performances of the season and felt amazing to go into our holiday break on a win. I played decent but fouled out. I think I had one or two bad calls against me, but I also committed some dumb fouls. I need to do a better job of being smart with fouls, so I can stay on the court longer. It is a frustrating thing to do with that comes at the result of being out of position a lot of the time. Great win that will hopefully propel us going forward! Our next game is on Jan. 5th versus QSTA for the Dutch Cup quarterfinal.

Leadership Lesson:

Any leader or follower, for that matter, should be curious. Curiosity is very closely linked to learning. As the saying goes, adapt or die. A leader should always be trying to improve what they do by learning new skills or acquiring new knowledge. The best leaders in my life love to learn. To use basketball as an example, both my college coaches and my dad always came into the year with new basketball strategies and leadership points to make. It has become easier to be curious with self-help books, podcasts, social media posts, etc... even blogs! Curiosity can also come from learning from other people and their life experiences through conversations. Asking other people questions is a great way to learn. People love to answer questions about themselves and about their experiences. Therefore, it becomes a good way to foster a relationship with another person while also, perhaps, learning something new. The hard part about curiosity is that it is never finished, and it never ends. There is always more to learn. One of my New Year's resolutions is to learn more, so hopefully, I can take my own advice here.

Top 5 of the Week:

Fruits

1. Pineapple: Number one fruit. Kind of tough to offer explanations for these because they are mostly based on subjective tastes, but I think a good pineapple is very tough to beat. GREAT on pizza.

2. Mango: Only recently started having these more often. Unreal. Really good in salsas and salads too.

3. Banana: The fruit I probably eat the most. I have one every morning. Good by itselt, good with peanut butter, good in yogurt bowl... very versatile.

4. Kiwi: I love kiwi and did not realize until recently that you can eat the skin and barely notice a difference. Nikki put me on to that one. Definitely a top 5 fruit.

5. Watermelon: Watermelon on a hot summer day at a barbecue or picnic is amazing. I think I prefer slices over cubes.

What Else Did I Do?

I'll start by briefly recapping a couple of things from the week before Christmas week. On that Thursday, we got tickets through some ZZ Leiden superfans to go see an Ajax game. A bunch of guys on the team went to the game, and it was a blast. Ajax is probably the Netherlands' biggest and most popular soccer club. Nikki and I went to that friendly between USWNT and the Netherlands which was fun and entertaining. This Ajax game was a much bigger event. The stadium was beautiful and had a retractable roof. The game was a Dutch Cup game, so they were playing a lower-level team from the 2nd division. Six of the guys on the team went, and it was a fun team bonding thing for us. It was also cool to talk to some of our fans and get to know them a little bit. They are a lot of fun and were also part of the group that traveled to Den Bosch to cheer us on. Ajax has a superfan section at their games that is very impressive. These guys chant the entire game without breaks, besides halftime. A majority them are also jumping up and down the whole time too. The passion and fire of soccer fans on this side of the world is pretty impressive. The scale and intensity of the fans is something you do not see in American sports. College football is the closest thing to it. The US needs to adopt some of the chant-style cheering they do, it is pretty awesome.

On Friday, Nikki and I went to Amsterdam Zuid (translates to Amsterdam South) to meet up with Hagen and Jenny to play paddle. It is the European version of pickleball. It is basically a mini tennis court with part fenced walls and part glass walls. The back side of the court is glass and is used as part of the gameplay. You use a tennis ball with pickleball-like paddles. We love racquet sports, and paddle was no exception. We will definitely play again. Sunday, we met up with my old CSU teammate, James Moors, and his girlfriend, Sydney. It was a lot of fun to meet up with them. We grabbed some great sandwiches, went to a Christmas market, drank some Glühwein, and walked around the city together. I haven't seen James since he left CSU, so it was good catching up and hanging out with Sydney too. After we got back from Amsterdam Sunday night, Nikki and I went grocery shopping because we decided to have the team over for a Christmas dinner on the 23rd.

Christmas:

Massive shoutout to Nikki who spent the majority of her day, Monday the 23rd, preparing the meal for the team. I helped a little bit, but Nikki did an amazing job. We had 13 people total here when we were originally expecting like 6 or 7. It ended up being a huge success! Nikki made spaghetti and this "marry me" chicken soup she found on TikTok. To say the food was a smashing hit would be an understatement. It was amazing food. Roeland came with his wife, Caitlin, and daughter, Maya, and they brought a bunch of tasty desserts. Some other guys brought sides and drinks, and we had a great time. Still eating leftovers. I had two practices on Christmas Eve, and Nikki & I went to a nice service. I found an "international church" that I have gone to several times that does the service in English. We also went on a nice walk during the day and opened up the stockings my mom sent us at night. On Christmas Day, Nikki and I opened up presents we got for each other, went for another nice walk, and had a bomb breakfast. Then, I had practice. After that, we FaceTimed family, made steak sandwiches, played Yahtzee (I won), and hung out. It was hard not being home with family back in Wisconsin for Christmas. However, I would not trade this Christmas for one back home. It was so amazing spending time with Nikki and doing the holidays together.

Paris:

After our victory against Den Bosch on the 26th, Nikki and I went straight to Paris from the game. It was a five-hour drive to get there, and we rented a car from the airport so Nikki could drive to the game. It was a nice, new Volvo car. It was automatic which was lovely to drive in comparison to my manual car that is at least twenty years old. The Volvo was probably the nicest car I have ever driven and was incredibly smooth to drive. It had Bluetooth and cruise control which are two things I have been missing. The garage we parked in was a bit scary. It looked like it was straight out of a horror movie, but for 50 euros, it was definitely worth it.

We stayed at family friend, Johanna’s, apartment in Paris. Her apartment was up six flights of stairs which was a nice workout for Nikki and I considering all the food we ate. Friday night we discovered a small, Moroccan restaurant down the street from our place. Then, we grabbed a couple of Kir Royales at a bar close to the apartment. It was an excellent first night.

We were out on Friday from about 8:30 AM to 10:30 at night. It was an amazing day. In the morning, we walked to get the aforementioned croissants and made our way to Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre. It is a gorgeous white church up on a massive hill.

After, we made our way to the Moulin Rouge area past some gorgeous neighborhoods, souvenir shops, caricature artists, and a man playing the accordion with a cat crawling across it. Probably the most French thing I’ve ever seen. The vibe in that area was one of the coolest I’ve been a part of. We made our way to the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel area to check it out. On our way there, we passed a massive opera house and walked through some designer stores. We actually spotted my dad’s wedding ring from a Cartier store that was on display in a window. Pretty sweet. We didn’t get tickets to the Louvre because this trip was a bit more spontaneous and you need to book further in advance. This area was gorgeous. I made one of the best purchases of my life and bought a beret from a street vendor for €15. Nikki was not a fan. I got a bunch of compliments from my friends on my social media posts, so I’ll focus on those.

Then, the hot chocolate fiasco happened... I had heard about French hot chocolate from a couple of people and that I needed to get some. I took to social media to find a couple of popular places that had this thick, creamy hot chocolate with whipped cream on the side. We tried to hit up a spot on our way to the Louvre area, but the line was incredibly long. I figured we could find another spot. Our plan was Louvre, hot chocolate, then Notre Dame Cathedral. I found a place on Instagram that was well-liked, and it was right on our way to Notre Dame, so we were on our way. I thought I knew the direction we were headed, so I put Google Maps away. Nikki asked if the cafe we were passing was the place, and it looked right, so we went in and ordered two hot chocolates. Low and behold, two regular old hot chocolates come out, and it was obvious we were at the wrong place. I turned around and saw that we were in the place directly adjacent to the place with the good French hot chocolate we were looking for. Nikki struggles with dairy at times and did not want to drink an average hot cocoa, so I drank both. For those keeping track at home, I have had two hot chocolates thus far. We were not in a rush as it was still relatively early in the day, so I talked Nikki into still going to the intended spot next door. We got seated right away, and I ordered the most expensive hot chocolate because I figured that was the one. Turns out, it was a hot chocolate royal which is a cocktail...oops. Three hot chocolates. Then, I refused to leave that establishment without a French hot chocolate. I showed the waiter the picture from Instagram, and he said coming right up. Well, the waiter lied because it was another plain hot chocolate. Four hot cocoas in, and we decided to wait until the next morning to get it done.

Notre Dame was pretty amazing. The line took two hours because it had just reopened a couple of weeks ago from the fire a few years ago. It was worth the wait. There were a few people who tried the skip the line to no avail. I stopped them in their tracks, and I think the people in line around us were thankful. The stain glass was some of the best I had ever seen. Jesus' crown of thorns, accompanied by a piece of the cross, were inside too. It was an amazing thing to experience. There were a bunch of statues of different saints along the edges that were fun to learn what they were the patron saint of. It was awesome. After that, it was time for dinner. My teammate, Stan's, sister recommended a place called Freddy's. They serve tapas, and we had great food and some sauvignon blanc. After that, we grabbed some cheese, a bottle of wine, and a baguette to head over to the Eiffel Tower. It is rare that something as iconic and hyped up as the Eiffel Tower actually lives up to the hype, and it did. It was magical, and one of the best nights Nikki and I have had. We watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle, and just had a blast. We struck up conversation with a mom and daughter from DC. The daughter is looking at colleges and mentioned Madison as a possibility which excited Nikki. She gave them her pro-Bucky spiel, and they were fun to talk to. We grabbed a couple crepes and called it a night. In the morning, we grabbed Johanna a couple of things as a thank you and finally had the hot chocolate. Worth. The. Wait. We had a great breakfast at Carette's and headed out.

Vibe is an underrated aspect of what makes a city fun to visit. Paris had amazing vibes in this way in that it was fun to be in. A bunch of cool shops, buildings, monuments, and areas to be in. We will definitely be back. We returned to Leiden to Nikki's sister, Morgan, being here. We grabbed some dinner at a Latin American restaurant in town and had a couple of drinks. They had a flight early Monday to visit Dani and Adrija in Bari, Italy. I had to stay back because of the ol' 9-5. Fun couple of weeks!

Top Meal of the Week:

I already talked about it, but the meal Nikki made for the team was unreal. I am kicking myself for not taking any pictures of it because it looked amazing too. This blog has been long so I will keep this part short!

One Thing I Miss About the States:

I miss my fam. No fault of the Netherlands, but it has been a while since I have seen my family. My parents and possibly Everett are supposed to come out here in March, so I am pumped for that. I missed a lot of our Christmas traditions, but like I said, spending it with Nikki was amazing. Thanks for reading the double blog!