Russia (#10) 4-6-2004, An afternoon at the Pedagogical University

    My notes for this day are proving to be insufficient -- cryptic, sketchy. On days like this, there are too many holes in my cryptic jottings to be entirely filled in. So much for my own insistent admonition to the group to set aside time for the journal and keep the information basic rather than ambitious. Nevertheless,  on the afternoon of our tour of the old city, we traveled for a game at the Pedagogical University, and a number of things stand out in memory.

    One thing that stands out was the playing floor -- pink in the center from foul line to foul line, a darker pink in the key, yellow in the side lanes, and green along the sidelines -- a real eye catcher. In addition to vividly functional, colorful paint, the floor showed its age. It was safe, but occasionally the ball would bounce oddly on a pass or a dribble. It reminded me of the old Boston Garden parquet floor with its "dead spots" that gave opposing teams fits . . . nice to look at but tough to play on.

    While the whole gang made the trip, only the boys were scheduled to play. It was a tough game. Our high school sons played a university team, which made for an interesting match-up. Our guys played well but ended up losing. My notes say we lost by 3; Skip's official email home for this day notes we lost by 2 after leading most of the game. Either way, we lost, so who's quibbling: it was a good game, fun to watch. 

    I remember finding a seat in the balcony that overlooked the court, where I chatted with Andrew before the game about what we had seen that morning and about the Pedagogical University. Just before the game started, Andrew said he'd be right back and he left. 

    Almost immediately I found that students began filling in all the neighboring seats, including Andrew's. That was OK -- except that I didn't know what to say to my new neighbors; my page of "common Russian phrases" didn't seem all that useful. Just before he excused himself, Andrew told me that a student behind him wanted to know what I thought of my experience so far in Russia. I pulled out my sheet, located the word for "excellent," which I believe phonetically pronounced "Aht - leech - nah," which I said with enthusiasm. I hope it was heard with the measure of intensity and clarity I had intended. But starting a conversation once Andrew left was not likely to happen.

    The other memorable tid-bit from that afternoon, as I noted earlier, was the multicolored gym floor. It was quite spectacular.

    None of the photographs I have in my possession quite capture the way those colors dominated. After the game, as a gesture of our friendship, our boys gave the Russian players a bag keepsake gifts, and then everyone posed for pictures.

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    The real point of the encounter was that the Russian team joined us for dinner at our hotel. We had a translator at each table to facilitate conversation. The idea was to"break the ice" with these guys, to let them see us a people rather than competitors, and to create interest that folks from the Ministry Center could follow up on.

    

     My notes for the day make no mention of what we were served for these friendship dinners. But my notes do record that at our devotional time that evening, Andy Norton asked us "Why are you here?", to which Mason Sorsensen immediately answered, "To see a pink gym floor for the first time!"