Clifford’s Take: Day Three In Spain

Today we visited Palacio Real de Madrid, which was yet another great opportunity for us to be introduced to the Spanish culture, including the food.  The food over here is very good, everyone takes their time to eat and prepare the meals.  Our restaurant experience has been awesome, except the portion of food is not as much as in the states. This is a big adjustment for Ryan [Anderson] and I, who are known to eat in large quantities.
 
My man Frederico took us through the palace and gave us the history of Spanish rulers throughout the ages.  The tour itself felt as long as the years that the palace has been used, but it was very cool to see the inside of such a beautiful creation that took 60 years to build – and my man Frederico knows his stuff.  We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the palace – this was upsetting because at this point we are all professional photographers.  Nevertheless, after journeying through about 100 of the palace’s 1,800 rooms, we were brought outside where we could “finally” take some more individual and team photos – because we surely haven’t had enough of those.  We have also taken a lot of photos with local Spanish residents and tourists of all kinds, which is very fun, especially interacting with them.  They always ask me how many meters in height I am, and my best answer so far is tapping my head with my hand and saying “Pau Gasol,” hopefully motioning that I am as tall as Pau Gasol.  Either that or my answer is so bad that they just give up and assume that I am 2.5 meters or so.  

It was an awesome day with the team and we were again blessed with beautiful weather.  Another good note: our fair skinned players, including myself (especially myself), survived another day without sunscreen.  Also, today we were much more prepared to play and better hydrated for the game (See highlights here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOw9uVg9Trs&feature=youtu.be).  We played a team that was better than last night’s team and beat them.  Everyone played very well through the entire game and really showed the adjustment to the Spanish style of play.  They hung with us until the end, but with some big shots from Ryan and huge plays by Jordan [Daniels], Joe [Rahon], Pat [Heckmann] and Olivier [Hanlan] we were able to keep the lead.  Believe it or not I fouled out with six fouls when you are only allowed five (still haven’t heard the end of that), so obviously I haven’t adjusted as much as I can. However, I am looking forward to Thursday’s game where we play a top tier team from Valencia.

Clifford will be blogging a few times for The Heights throughout the trip to Spain. Check back here for more insights during the 10-day trip.