Most random night ever: Botaş (from Turkey) verses BC Horizont (from Belarus) Women’s professional basketball game.

This story started last night when I was on the plane back from Manchester. I was sitting next to a young-ish looking man in a sports coat and tie and he was chatting with a really tall woman. You could tell neither’s home language was English, but they were communicating via English. When they realized I was not Turkish and was, in fact, American, the man introduced himself as one of the managers of the Botaş women’s basketball team. Apparently the woman was from Serbia, and was being flown in to referee the game the following night. As we were exiting the plane, the man suggested I come to the game the next evening and bring all my friends. Turns out the gym is about 2 minutes from our apartment, so I took his card and told him I’d give him a call!

The next day I told Micky about it, and she was all for it. I shot Bircan an email and at 6 pm, we were sitting (for free!) in the VIP section watching the players warm up!

The game was great – lots of action and the teams were well-matched. There were even two American girls on the Turkey team which was fun. Obviously they were awesome 🙂 my only complaint was at half-time, they played the Turkish national anthem exclusively… 15 minutes of the same song over and over again was mind-numbing. But all in all, pretty damn cool!