Monday, November 17, 2008

The Keelin and Klingenberg Guest Blog Returns




Well..... we have arrived here in Chillan and are definitely settled into our surroundings. Our first night here we walked around a bit to get our bearings in the new city. We’re really close to a park, and there happened to be a festival going on with bands and dancers and what not. It was pretty good timing on our part. Naturally we stayed to see what was going on and take in some local flavor.

It was really funny. The band started playing YMCA and our team was super excited that we knew the song, but apparently no one else knew it. We were doing the dance and screaming and everyone looked at us like we were idiots. It was more like Y….. isn’t anyone doing this?

We were then tricked into going onstage. Keelin served as the translator. She haven’t taken Spanish in three years. We thought they were just going to give us front row seats but those seats came with a price. She thought she was doing a pretty good job of translating but all of the sudden we were going up on stage. Baxter, you know I don’t speak Spanish (name that movie). Apparently people here love us though so that’s nice.

People here seem really interested in the tournament. There are signs everywhere promoting it and everyone knows who we are when we’re walking around. When we pulled up on the bus from Santiago, there was a huge crowd waiting for us. There is also quite a bit of media attention as well, including an insert in today’s paper all about the tournament.

We went to the market, which was cool. We don’t really know how anyone does any business because they all sell the same things. Really cool things, yes, but it’s mostly the same in every shop. We bought a few things, including a sling shot. Later we used the sling shot to shoot Tootsie Rolls at inanimate objects – that made the maids laugh. We’re going to try to get marshmallows to shoot at people.

Other than that we’ve been doing a lot of homework. Keelin also plays the guitar a lot and is teaching Nikki Washington how to play a few things. She’s only been playing for three months so her Mom told her she had to learn how to play a Christmas song. For some reason she thought Silent Night would be a good choice but it really wasn’t. She is trying really hard to hit the high notes though.

So, our game is apparently on ESPN2. Live. That’s freaking sweet. We hope all of our friends and families to be able to watch. It’s a really big step towards getting people at home interested in this tournament and we couldn’t be more excited about it.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Anchorman

julie@greatwool.com said...

Great post. You make me want to set my Tivo and buy a bag of marshmallows.

Freezing fan in MN

Mary Jones said...

;) Great!! Yes, the game was on ESPN2, and also played online at ESPN360.com. I'm sure your coaches have made you watch too many of your own games, but if you're interested, ESPN360 has it fully archived. They also has a couple of the other ones (China vs. Argentina; New Zealand vs. Nigeria).

Good luck Saturday!! Praying for you girls!!