For those who cannot speak Luxembourgish - and count me among them! - the title of today's blog translates to Hello! How are you? I'm happy to report that the Lakeland men's basketball traveling party has arrived safe and sound in Western Europe, and we already have a terrific day in the books!
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| Freshmen Mark Gryszkiewicz, Mitch School, Joe Whalen and Travis Kell at O'Hare Airport. |
We had a very smooth trip from Chicago into Brussels in Belgium, and that's where we spent the first half of the day. We bused from the airport to the Grand Place, the central square in Brussels and this city's most important tourist destination and most memorable landmark. It's an amazing collection of classic European architecture and history. The team photo above shows the guys in front of the famed Brussels Town Hall, which was started in the early 1400s, stands 315 feet tall and is capped by a 12-foot statue of Saint Michael slaying a demon.
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| Coach Aaron Aanonsen (second from right) with some of the guys in the town square of Brussels. |
We strolled around Brussels for about four hours, first as a group and then we split up for lunch. If you're a chocolate lover, a trip to Brussels needs to be on your bucket list. The Grand Place is surrounded by shopping, and it seems as if there is a chocolate shop every other store. A lush taste treat is a Belgian waffle topped with fruit, warm chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Junior Joey Burris sure seemed to like it!
And no trip to central Brussels is complete without seeing the landmark bronze sculpture Manneken-pis ("Little man Pee"), a 24-inch tall sculpture dating back to 1619 depicting a naked little boy urinating into a fountain's basin. The boy is dressed in various themed costumes throughout the year, and a schedule is published on the fencing surrounding the fountain. It's another very popular tourist stop!
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| Manneken-pis |
From Brussels, we took a two and a half hour bus ride to Luxembourg, our home base for this week. We arrived in Brussels at 9 a.m., but our body clocks were still seven hours behind, so nearly everyone took a welcome nap. We checked into the Parc Hotel in Luxembourg City, unwound a bit, then gathered in the hotel dining room for a wonderful welcome meal for the whole traveling party. One of the special parts of the trip is many of our players have been joined by their parents and other family members, and tonight's dinner was a chance for everyone to come together over a meal and look ahead to what will be a terrific week! Our tour guide, Kevin Wester, executive director of the Luxembourg American Cultural Society, has gotten an assist in planning our adventure from Robert and Marianne Johanns, who live here in Luxembourg and are involved with the Society. Robert shared a lot of great information about Brussels today, and we know he'll be sharing more as we dig into Luxembourg tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, we have a very FULL day planned! We'll be taking an extensive walking tour of Luxembourg City, followed by a reception at Lakeland's sister school the University of Luxembourg. The day is capped off with the Muskies first game against a Luxembourg U18 National Team. Be sure to visit this blog again tomorrow and we'll share the sights and sounds of our day.
Each day of the trip, we'll be talking to the players to get their impressions. Today, we chatted with sophomore Brandon Hagenow.
Manneken-pis is so on my bucket list.
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