Greece is less than 24 hours away, which means it’s cooking day!!! My name is Joy Bergstrom and I am a freshman here on the South Dakota Women’s Basketball Team! My team and I are so grateful to have this opportunity to travel overseas to compete and learn all about Greek culture! Personally, this will be my first time abroad, so I feel incredibly lucky to be able to experience this with such a great community. This trip allows me to experience many of my “firsts”. Not only am I traveling overseas for the first time, but I’m also playing in my first collegiate basketball game! I think everyone can guess that I am at least a little nervous to experience this once in a lifetime opportunity. However, I am much more excited! Our team has worked so hard this summer training to be the best we can be and now we are able to make it count!
Overall, I’m excited about everything about this trip. Some of the things we can do and see don’t seem real to me. Specifically, I’m looking forward to visiting the Parthenon, because it’s a central place for Greece. Other than that, I’m really excited to see what the beaches and water are like in Greece. I love the beach and being outside so this is something I’m really looking forward to. The team and I learned a lot about these specific places we will be visiting from two students here at USD who came and talked with us. They had the opportunity to study abroad in Greece, so we were very lucky to hear about their experiences and give us tips on what to expect! One thing I really took away from their presentation was to enjoy the time we spend together as a team and make the most of whatever we are doing at that particular moment. They reminded us not to focus on “what’s next,” and instead to appreciate what is currently happening in front of us. Finally, the food! This trip will definitely make me, and I’m sure many others, branch out and try new things. I think it will be really interesting for us to see what all the different types of food are like in Greece and what makes it so different from the US. together. We were also joined by Tasos, who is from Greece and plays on the men’s basketball team here with USD. He taught us all about the different types of dishes we will see and try, and even assured us that they will be even better in Greece! I believe this was a great opportunity for our team as well because we were able to ask Tasso questions about Greek words, restaurants, symbols and just everyday things that we don’t experience here.
Finally, this trip to Greece will allow the entire team, program and community to grow as one. So many people have worked so hard to make this happen, and we are all so grateful. This being my first year here, I feel like our team is already getting really close, no matter how different it may feel. I am very excited for this additional opportunity to get even closer to my teammates and really bond with this amazing opportunity. Wish us luck and we’ll be thinking of our entire Yote community back home! Please also wish me luck with the packing, I’m an over packer and it shouldn’t take me so long…
