Wednesday 18 January 2012

Paris- Brussels

After concurring East Africa the ISK LIONS Varsity Basketball Girls team, headed into untapped territory, when visiting the Paris Rebels. Our basketball coach having worked in Paris years before, took us to Paris to play the Paris Rebels and also Travel down to Belgium and play the
- American School of Paris
- British School in the Netherlands
-St.John's International School
As the trip was very short we only have limited about of time to visit the sites, however some how we managed to visit every important historical site from the Arc de Triumph to the Eiffel Tower.
This was a crazy experience as we traveled to Europe to face teams we had never played before.  On the day we arrived after a crazy 9 hour over night flight, we played the Paris rebels. As we were all dreadfully tired and unable to compete or preform we ended up losing the game. This trip was a chance for us to broaden our horizons and expand our knowledge of the world. As international students we get exposed to different cultures all the time,and the Parisian culture is definitely a new one to me.

From this trip to Paris i had hoped that our team would grow closer together as friends and also as team mates. I had also hoped that we would improve our basketball skills and rise to the challenge of the teams that we would face. To my surprise this trip turned out to be a GREAT bonding experience for the team and surprisingly we ended up rising to the challenge greatly and defeating every team we faced. It was a lot of hard work and injuries but we came back champions and better friends than we were before.
This experience gave us confidence as a team and enabled us to be secure and confident in our team and our individual abilities. We encountered so many difficulties over the course of this trip and before the trip. Due to injury we did not have enough players so come on the trip, we had to in the last few weeks pull up two girls from JV and in a short amount of time teach them our offences and defenses. These two players played remarkably in Paris and were very helpful to the team. As a team we are very glad they were able to accompany and thank them greatly for taking the time to learn all our plays. Other difficulties we faced were injures, half our team went on this trip unhealthy and/or injured, however we were all able to compete and rise out of our injuries and keep them from holding us back. This trip really signified how far and how successful our team could be and is at the moment.

In between games it would be a rush to get ice bags and pain medication.

This trip, helped us as a team and helped the ISK community, as we were able to travel to a whole other continent and represent the ISK name in proud stature and people regard ISK as a great establishment.
If i would have this experience again, i would not change a thing, this was the perfect experience and i am so proud of the girls.
We were able to gain new friends and hopefully an exchange program can be built through this initial experience leading to bigger and better things between ISK and and its Global Counterparts
ISK LIONS and ST.JOHNS LIONS :)

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