The Augustana basketball teams are in Brazil this week and are blogging on the trip. Tayvian Johnson is blogging for the men’s team and you can catch their blog posts on the D3hoops.com Daily Dose. Chaney Tambling is blogging for the women’s team.

Waking up today was a struggle for many different reasons. First, the game last night was very taxing on us. It was a hard fought game and a few guys, including me, were pretty banged and bruised. Despite that, however, last night’s game will be a game that will never be forgotten.

Not only did we play the best 22-and-under team in South America, we were playing in the same arena where the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards will be practicing for their exhibition game in early October. On top of that, the USA men’s and women’s teams will also be using the facility during the 2016 Olympics.

A man named Daniel Soares also attended the game and he is one of the two men employed by the NBA to arrange the game between the Bulls and Wizards. That was one of the best game experiences we could have asked for to end our trip.

After the game we cleaned up and went to another all you can eat Brazilian pizza restaurant. It also had the fantastic cinnamon banana pizza that our team has grown to love.

After dinner we went out with our tour guide to a local dance club. We took the city bus to the club and odd enough it was very similar to an American city bus besides the man that got on about half was through and was singing loudly in Portuguese.

The club was fun and after that we had a handful of guys who attempted to stay up and watch the sunrise. Only about half actually made it and I was not one of them. After the struggle of waking up, we made it to lunch a small diner where I had the best meal of the entire trip – filet-de-frango at Madelom. We then packed up and after stopping at the market to get some local soda and doing some last minute shopping it was time to head to the airport.

Being at the airport now is bittersweet because while I miss my loved ones I have nine of the best days of my life to remember. I’ve made memories with my team that I will never forget and we are a better team after this.

I love Brazil!