It’s so nice to see our basketball coach so comfortable in his role and confident in his team, but damn sure not content.
In 1994, after working abroad for three years, I spent a summer on trains around Europe before moving to Chicago. By the time I got to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in mid-July it was hot as Hades, and the humidity was stifling. No a/c anywhere, the hangover of the Soviet collapse omnipresent, grown men having fistfights in the street in broad daylight over trivialities, palpable desperation and resignation everywhere I went (except Prague, which was a complete party), roach-infested dirty hostels. Just a rough, unpleasant environment in so many places and ways.
I finally got out of there and headed north to Sweden to end my trip. Took a daytime train from Krakow through balls-hot Silesia in southern Poland. I still remember rolling through the steel mill town of Katowice, where the complexion of everyone I saw was literally gray from decades of unmitigated Soviet steel mill pollution and many probably died before they turned 60. (Years later I had a colleague who worked in the Peace Corps in Katowice and confirmed just how horrible a place it was.) Ended up in Wroclaw, where I stood nearly alone on a platform awaiting my night train. On the neighboring platform, which was packed, a train pulled up and a wave of humanity tried to board it, climbing in through windows, people pushing, shoving and fighting for seats. It was anarchy, a bad dream.
I fell asleep not long after the overnight train departed for Dresden and the Baltic coast. I'd been relentlessly sweating, staying in hovels, and surrounded by social misery for the better part of two weeks. At one point the Polish transit police shook me down for $20 in cash and threatened to jail me. In the Czech Republic a very, very strong drunk tried to assault the two mothers and their three young daughters I happened to be sharing a train carriage with and I (not anywhere near the strapping lad I am today at 56) had to fend him off for an hour.
I wondered why the he!! I'd ever left Switzerland and Austria and veered into Eastern Europe to begin with.
In the morning I woke up as the train rolled onto a ferry headed for Trelleborg on the Swedish coast. It was much cooler but overcast. By the time I'd had sufficient coffee and a good meal, I was on a train headed north for Gothenberg and the clouds had dissipated. When I got there, I dumped my bags in the local hostel. It was clean, spacious, and every conceivable surface was covered with smooth blond wood. The clerk at check-in was friendly and offered advice about the city. They had a sauna out back.
I showered. I ate Nutella, and had some sort of scone with lingonberry jam. The coffee, freshly-brewed, was dark and strong. I walked outside and there was not a cloud in the sky. The humidity was low. It was perhaps 75 degrees. I took a tram to the end of the line at a seaside suburb. I sat on the rocks by the harbor. Everyone looked healthy, radiant and happy. All the women were beautiful. I felt as if I had entered nirvana.
When I watch a presser that BU or BB give these days, I'm mindful of how long Illini fans have inhabited Eastern Europe c. 1994. And that we are now in Sweden, basking in the late July sun. Cleanliness, good food and drink, beautiful women (and men) everywhere, a cold beer in hand. And dark, relentless winter nowhere on the horizon.