USA vs Austrailia

Here's a picture of Spencer and me holding our flag up during halftime. The picture was taken courtesy of our Austrailian friend Simon!

(Can I just say that the US flag is beautiful?! I loved holding it up and cheering on the team)

I went to the "Redeem Team's" second game in Shanghai against Austrailia on Tuesday the 5th. While it was a thrill to see the individual players of Team USA, that is also how they played... as individuals. Austrailia sliced up the US defense with great cuts, great passes, and great shooting. The was a game the US could have lost, and perhaps would have lost had Austrailia's best player, the 2005 #1 NBA draft pick Andrew Bogut had been playing. If the US plays like this in the real games, they can forget about the Gold, and maybe even forget about a medal.

If anybody knows why a healthy Carlos Boozer sat the bench for the entire game, please let me know. With three minutes left in the game, Austrailia went to the free throw line and in between shots, when it was quite quiet, I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Hey Coach K, we want Boozer!" I know the entire team heard it. That must be frustrating for Boozer...

At any rate, after we took the picture above, two young Chinese ladies came down and asked me if they could take a picture with the flag. I agreed and gave them the flag and turned around to talk with Spencer and Simon. Simon then said to me, "You're not getting off that easy. I'm sure they want the picture WITH you." Sure enough, a couple of seconds later they tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to be in the picture as well. So I got a picture as well. All in the name of better international relations, right? That's what I'm here for...



Getting home was a mess. The subways had stopped running for the evening and we were on the other side of Shanghai from our homes (30 miles). The taxis that were available were not willing to use their meters, they wanted to charge us higher rates. Spencer came through for us. He told us to hang back for a couple of minutes, negotiated with a driver to use his meter, then as he got in the car he motioned for us to get in. The driver was furious because he felt that us foreigners should pay higher prices and he refused to drive. Spencer didn't back down, told him we weren't getting out of his cab. Eventually we won and the driver did his job: driving us home using the meter. The total bill? $31. Not bad for 30 miles and 1 hour and 20 minutes of total driving time (including the huge traffic jam getting out of there).