October 19, 2006

Well hello everyone! I, Ashley Battle, will be entertaining you all this off-season with my great adventures here on the Canary Islands in Spain. I will elaborate on some of my day-to-day events and I'm sure there will be some great stories to share with you guys back home.

Since this is my first time writing, I'm going to tell you a little bit about my team. I am one of two Americans on the team - the other is Kaayla Chones, who played at NC State. She claims that we played against each other when I was at UConn, but I don't remember. It must not have been too memorable because it was just another win for the Huskies! She and I get along really well - she's just as silly as I am. Having someone to relate to definitely helps me not get too home sick. Most of my other teammates are Spanish, and we also have a girl from Hungary and another from Finland.

Most of my teammates do not speak English, but they try really hard - and let me tell you it's actually pretty funny. I have one teammate, Pilar, who is 36 years old and has the energy and mindset of an 18 year-old. Everyday she is very upbeat and lively. I don't think I've seen her frown once. She happens to be one of the people who does not speak English, but she wants to communicate with Kaayla and I. So one way that we communicate is through songs. They know a lot of American pop songs, like Britney Spears or Disney songs. So one day, in order to keep everyone's spirits up, she broke out in song and started singing "La Bamba." Now I only know the main part - "ba la la la la lamba" - but there we all were singing "La Bamba" at the top of our lungs warming up for practice!

I've been here in the Canary Islands for about a month now, and so far so good! . Although my team has gotten off to a bit of a slow start - we are 0-2 right now, but we play again this weekend so hopefully we will get our first "W." Right now I'm having fun, playing hard, and always thinking about getting back to New York!

Until next time -

AB