Adios Costa Rica, Hello Again Macedonia

It's really difficult to explain the strangeness of the the cultural change that I have endured in the past week. There is really not a whole lot of things similar between Costa Rica and Macedonia other than being 3rd world countries. I went from jungles and volcanoes to dry plains and mountains. From speaking Spanish a language I comprehend fairly well, to the Cyrillic jibberish known as Macedonian. From monkeys and parrots to sheep and goats. I had a 2 day vacation in the U.S. to buffer this transition, but it was not enough to buffer the strangeness that I feel having returned to Macedonia. My last few days in Costa Rica were very sad for me. We ended our season with a heartbreaking loss in the finals. Panamanian Isaac St. Rose banked in a three pointer with 8 seconds left to take a 1 point lead and end our season. While having the one player in the basketball world who I truly hate end my season was extremely frustrating, the fact that he did so with a lucky falling down bank shot truly was an emotional punch in the junk. Having a coach who I truly like and respect, announce that he would no longer coach and begin to cry would tug on my emotions in my final days. I knew that things would never be the same and that I would probably never come back. Yet as I was about to leave I realized how much I really liked Costa Rica and the people there. We had a couple end of the season parties including one on my last day at my favorite place on earth: Hooters (best sponsor ever). I also hung out with the karate girl on my final day. I am really going to miss her even though she is probably very crazy. Because of the language barrier it is really difficult for me to determine her level of craziness, but I know its there. Despite this she is a really cool girl, and I enjoyed kicking it with her(pun intended). Still I had to go because I accepted a player/coach/GM role with a missionary sponsored basketball team in the same city I began my troubled pro basketball career. Amazingly I started receiving job offers immediately after I committed to go to Macedonia. After months of unsuccessfully searching, everyone all of the sudden wanted to see my resume. It figures.

Playoffs?!! Are you Kidding Me??

So we are currently entrenched in the middle of the playoffs for the Costa Rican basketball championship if you can call it that. I end that sentence with uncertainty because I really dont think anyone is certain how the playoff format really works. I will do my best to briefly explain it. We finished 3rd in the regular season, which entitled us to a first round bye. We ended up playing the winner of the 4th and 9th seed in a 3 game series. That meant by the time we started the playoffs there were only 3 series going on (bear in mind that this is an odd number). Obviously the 3 winners advance but also the highest seeded loser. Anyway, we won the first round and ended up setting up a semifinal series sandwiched around Halloween. As the Escazu Witches, how we did not schedule a home game on Halloween has got to be one of the biggest publicity fopahs ever. If I know one thing about Costa Rica, its that there are no shortage of hookers. How hard would it have been to go to downtown San Jose, find a few old run down women of the night, desperate for work, and dress them up as witches. We already had these models (pictured right) walking the baselines to advertise. By the way, models on the baseline make it very hard to concentrate while shooting free throws. Yet there were no spooky Halloween decorations and no hooker witches. Hell we didnt even bring out our weird looking witch mascot for our game the day after Halloween. I was very disappointed by this. However, I cant argue with the results as we won both games and advanced to the finals. Actually its more like a quasifinals because if we win the series we will have to play another 5 game series against the exact same team. This is because this is considered the closing tournament and Barva won the opening tournament when I was in business school constructing spreadsheets, this has the potential to be a 10 game series. Today is game 4 and we are down 2 to 1 with the last 2 games of this series on a neutral court. Elimination time and its not over until the dama gorda sings. Playoffs?????!!!!!

Bad Boys, Bad Boys

Yesterday afternoon on my way out of Escazu I was passed by several police cars. By several I mean about 40, and I thought to myself that something pretty serious must be happening, probably a bank robbery or a shoot out. After watching the news I discovered that an OIJ officer (which is kind of like a Costa Rican FBI) was murdered by some Jamaicans. Yet with all these officers flooding the are, the criminals were still on the loose. They found some other Jamaicans, but they were not sure that they were the right ones. I have yet to be arrested in this country, so I don't know much about the police force here. I do know that when shit goes down, cops here arrive in force. On Costa Rican independence day, I was in downtown Heredia, where a full out party broke out in the streets. (Pictures posted later) Soon a barrage of police in riot gear came and even though they were being pelted by beer cans and other objects, they managed to shut down every bar, clear the streets, and avoid a riot. Still I cannot give them too much credit as when my passport was lost/stolen and I went to the Escazu PD to file a report, they took down my information in what closely resembled my 2nd grade science notebook and sent me on my way. I am not holding my breath for this crime to be solved.