Good with the balls

"We have talent. We are four and a half millions. We have a lot of great talent. Soccer, handball, volleyball. With the balls, we are good with the balls." - Goran Ivanisevic, on Croatians

Okay so for those of you with limited reading knowledge of Serbo-Croatian, Croatia won the semifinals of Davis Cup over Russia this weekend, which made me quite happy as I am sure you can imagine. Croatian sports never cease to amaze me. It's such a tiny country. I like how Croatia's favorite sports are mine too: soccer (they're going to beat Sweden again next month and qualify for World Cup!), tennis (amazing. I cried when Goran Ivanisevic won Wimbledon, and when he was down 2-1 in the semis, and when Karolina Sprem beat one of the Williams sisters, forget which, and Ljubicic and Karlovic and Ancic are amazing and they're in the Davis Cup FINALS), basketball (I grew up on a steady appetite of Chicago Bulls, and, not wanting to be mainstream by liking Jordan or Pippen, my favorites were always Babyface BJ Armstrong and the Croatian Sensation Toni Kukoc), and waterpolo (I think I cried watching, at 3am in Zoe's basement in Seattle, Croatia lose to the States last minute in Olympic water polo last year). Anyway, the final's going to be in Slovakia, instead of Argentina or Croatia, which is a little sad, because I can't go and because it'd be better if they won at home. Ah well. Croatia will just have to win Davis Cup again at home when I'm living in Croatia.

Also, Chile vs Pakistan was fun. I miss tennis. Playing and watching. Next semester I'll try to take a tennis class. It was no-name players on both sides and it was really fast because Pakistan is not exactly a tennis powerhouse if you know what I mean. There was one semidecent 6-4 set but otherwise never more than 6-2, so it ended up being less than 2 hours of tennis for 2 matches, but it was fun. Next time I'll know to skip my Friday class and go when there's live rubbers. If Chile plays at home in December I shall go. It might also be cool/scary/dangerous to go to a World Cup qualifying match when Chile plays Ecuador in October. Eliza, Helen and I had a lovely smoked salmon sandwich (what? not ham??!!) and went to Cerro Santa Lucia afterwards, which is a big hill/park in the middle of Santiago which allows you to get a good view from high up on the ugly city (at least when there's not too much smog). 'Twas fun. We discussed BBC World and geography, and I drew another freehand map of all of Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia (accurate and thorough but a little wanting in scale and neatness) for Eliza because she wanted to know where Georgia was. I could so be a cartographer.

Wow I am a dork.

(No wonder I have no Chilean friends.)