Scrimmage

Yesterday, we woke up at 7am to get ready for school....yes, school on a saturday!
 Ha but this time we were supposed to walk, and it was pouring rain, so we called our coach (who also teachers there) and asked him what we were supposed to do, he said just wait, and we would go in with him at 10. Well i was already up and dressed, so I just laid back down and dozed off.
When we arrived to school at 10:20 we only had 2 classes to go to, the first was our class with our coach (it was gym class) we headed down the the gym and we watched our coach run his class, then we sat through an italian history class, and then it was time to go. On saturdays they don't go the whole day, I guess.

So after we got home at about noon, i climbed back into bed and slept until our scrimmage at 4:30.
The scrimmage was fun, it was interesting to finally see how things were coming together and see how our team actually was. And like any team we had our good moments and had our bad moments, i guess that is what pre-season scrimmages are for, now we know what we need to work on.

After the scrimmage, we went bowling with our coach and his girlfriend. We wanted the rest of our teammates to come with us, but they were all too tired to go :-( maybe next time. The bowling ally is about 25 minutes away, and when we got there it was like a sports bar, bowling ally, arcade with a dance floor and DJ all in one, it was pretty awesome! When we got there, we sat down and ate, then put our name in to bowl and waited for our number to be called. While we waited we went over the the arcade section and played two games of foosball, Lynnea and I against Davide and Fiorella, we lost. After that we played air hockey! Little do they know, I used to play that all the time in the ice rinks waiting for my brothers, sooooo, i'm pretty good, ha. I WON! it was tons of fun.
After we played the games, it was our turn to bowl, they had the same glow light bowling here, but the tables were really cool. They some how reacted to the black lights and would leave shadows of whatever was left on the table, it was cool! It was a lot of fun listening to music, bowling, and just hanging out!



Italian word/phrase of the day: come ti chiami  "what is your name"

View from my classroom! 

bowling! it was a strike..

cool table that reacted to the black lights those are shadows of hands! 

Back to school

This morning Lynnea and I woke up at 8am and got ready for school. We were dreading it and excited at the same time because we wanted to finally see what the school was like.
Once we got to the school, we went into the office and enrolled, they have an english class at this school so we met the english teacher and she explained to us what we were doing and was actually our first class of the day.
After we went to buy school supplies....yes school supplies.....we went to our first class, English (of course). It worked out for the best because everything they were learning in english, our teacher was able to teach us in Italian....so i'm actually able to understand what is going on. It was really funny because everyone in our class was super excited to have us, and ask us questions in english.

After that class, we were done for the day, and as we left we were handed our schedules, tomorrow, we have to go at 8:20am...WHAT!
Tomorrow we start off with Italian (either grammar, history or geography of Italy) the we have some kind of economic class, then we have physical education (with our coach Davide) and then another italian class. So our school goes from 8:20 until 12:20.....WOOF.  I'm only looking forward to our italian class!

Our schedule changes daily, on monday we have Italian class, back to back, then economy, then another italian class. And on tuesday, wed, thursday and friday we have science, french, math, english, social studies, it changes daily.

Sooooo we are thinking this is a high school type school, but everyone we ask tells us it is a private school, and it is the school you go to to become a teacher.....sooooooo awesome! some how i am learning to become a teacher....at least i will be learning italian, and keeping up to date on my french!!!

Today after school, we went back to our apartment and rested because we had practice tonight and we have a scrimmage tomorrow!!! Tonight at practice we played ALOT! it was awesome! But my legs and arms were SUPER SUPER tired because we have done weight training, some type of jump training every day this week.  MY LEGS ARE SHOT. It was really really hard to jump and at one point i'm pretty sure I tried my hardest and I didn't get off the ground at all....it was funny, my coaches looked at me like what?  I just pointed to my legs and said STANCA (tired)

Well off to bed for me....we have school tomorrow (yes SATURDAY) at 8:20am....oh yeah and a scrimmage at 4:30


italian word/phrase of the day: da dove vieni?  "where are you from"

Ready for school! ha

New Student?

I was just informed that Lynnea and I have to go to school tomorrow!? haha we are so confused.
So to make a long story short, we are going to be students again, and we have been told that this is a specialty school, and one of our coaches is a teacher there of something similar to sports science, so we were like ok, we can do this, shouldn't be bad. BUT THEN he continued to explain to us the ages of children that go to this school and how they teachers switch from class to class, the students don't move, and that we are learning different subjects.....sooooo we aren't too sure on what type of school this is.....i guess we will find out tomorrow!

Good thing is, he told me they teach french! so i can at least understand one class! YES, I can refresh my french skills in Italy.

GREAT! I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow....



Italian word/phrase of the day: dichi e questo "whose is this"

Update

Well....i guess it's time for an update! and as usual not much has happened since the last time. We still sit in our apartment from day to day, watching the different cars go by and the people on bikes just miss being hit by cars, waiting for practice time to arrive.

But practices have progressively gotten better, and i am excited to see how everything comes together! We still do mega conditioning and jump training type drills before practice, but we have started to do ALOT more volleyball in practice and it is getting very fun! This saturday we have a scrimmage, and this time it is actually happening! I am super excited to see how our team is against other teams.

We are learning more and more italian daily from our coaches, our house mates and our teammates, but in Fondi, there is a type of slang that is spoken and our coaches don't want us to learn it because it isn't "italian." understandable, but its hard because our teammates like to teach us slang words and have us repeat them, and it doesn't go over too well with our coaches. But i always learn the correct way to say it, along with the slang term!

Italian term/phrase of the day: cosa voi  - literally means what you, but you say it like what do you want
che voi - another way of saying it, and then che vu - is the slang term, and it is not lady like at all....

Soreness

Yesterday we got up at 9:30 and walked down to a little cafe to meet our coach before weights and grab a coffee. But the little store, called Illy, (these are the best around) was closed, we have figured out that stores close for full days because they want to. So we went to another cafe down the street had a coffee and then headed to the gym to workout. When we got there, it was closed...of course, so we waited until 4. Weights was pretty intense. Right now we are only lifting one time a week so we do total body, intense total body. We do squats, along with multiple leg machines, we do back, arms and abs. Our coach likes to pick the weight for us, and thinks it might not be a problem...well sometimes it is, i'm super sore and some muscles are a little tight today.  And we Lynnea and I are starting to believe that not many girls here lift, because we are clearly in our own group and clearly lift WAY more then others. And we continuously, especially me, get comments about how strong we are, and how people are afraid of us, i think i even got a comment about how i could be a bodyguard....and we are like really...have you never seen a fit woman before, guess not. Its kind of funny, but gets old at the same time.

Today we met with our coaches to discuss our visas, this was on their lunch break so of course when they got done, we had to eat and nothing was open. So we decided to walk to the little town center where some cafes are and see if anything was open. We found a little cafe that had some chips and little sandwiches and we sat in the square. It was very peaceful and quite because no one was out, except ALL of the old men of the town. We were able to get wireless, and we just sat there and enjoyed our meal!!

Then we went home, got picked up by Antonio and went to the grocery store to get groceries! We had been very limited in food for the last 2 days because we didn't make it to the store. After grocery shopping we went to practice.
Tonight we practiced in the main gym in Fondi, the place we will be playing our matches. It is very nice! The floor is wood, and there are seats that surround the floor and it has a very nice atmosphere!! I am really excited.  Today's practice was a lot of fun and when we got done was very satisfied. We did a lot of volleyball!
I learned several different slang italian terms and it made the girls and myself laugh, it was tons of fun!
We have both saturday and sunday off this weekend, thought there might be a scrimmage but the other team has a conflict so there is not.

Until next time!

italian word/phrase of the day: noi stiamo andando da (supermercato)  "we're going to (the supermarket) (the first sentence i spoke to my roommate and she didn't even think anything of it, she just said ok, ha it was perfect!)

Reconnected!

FINALLY!!!
These last couple of days have been filled with excitement but I haven't had an internet connection to share them with you :-(

First, we have moved into our new and permanent apartment! Its nice, it is right on the corner of the main traffic circle, so it is pretty loud all the time. There are two rooms, a laundry room, a kitchen, bathroom, a study and a little extra room! We live with one of our new italian teammates Maria! And sometimes our other teammate from Rome stays with us then leaves early to catch the train back to Rome.  And guess what? There is a washing machine!!!!!!!! no dryer, but that is fine, there is a washer! yay no more wrinkly hands!

The first night we moved in, Lynnea went to plug something into the wall and then decided to pull the plug out, and the whole outlet came out of the wall, and the lights went off with it, ha, so we were without lights in our room for 2 days. It was very interesting getting dressed and trying to find things in our closets without light. And once the sun goes down it is pretty much pitch black.  HA it was an adventure

Living with Maria has been a great experience, we use google translator and dictionaries a lot but in the end we figure out what each other is trying to say and have lots of fun! She has a car, which is nice because she can take us places and is usually willing to do so, and she knows off all the good places and towns around here to shop, and says she will take us sometime!

On sunday, or day off, Maria took me to the beach in a town called Sabaudia, which is like 30 min away. It was very nice and it felt good to relax! I met a lot of her friends, and we ate at a little place on the lake on our way back home around dinner time.
On monday we had our typical practice, but we were informed that we would be having a scrimmage this weekend, on either saturday or sunday, we aren't sure which day, but finally we get to play some volleyball!
Tuesday we had the day off, and Maria went to see some of her friends, so Lynnea and I decided to walk to the supermarket that we hadn't been too yet, it was closed, forgot things still close from 1:30-4 or 5 (guess that isn't just a summer thing). So we walked around the town and explored what was around our new apartment and waited for things to open. After going to the store, we walked down in the castle area (where we used to live) and looked at all of the different shops, and found plenty of things that we liked! I bought a new robe! I love robes and this one has a hood, even better. After our walk around the town, we went back home and relaxed for a while then decided to go out for dinner, we went to the gym to see if any other teams were practicing and the guys volleyball team was, so we sat with our coaches and watched them practice for a little.

our entrance area 

It has been very exciting because each and every day we are understanding italian more and more and are able to speak more and more of it! Every time we successfully order in italian or speak to our teammates or coaches we are super excited about it!


italian word/phrase of the day: io vado a dormire / i go to sleep

View from our balcony on a rainy day

our bedroom! my bed is the orange one!

our kitchen

view from our balcony on a sunny day!!

Packing, yet again!

This morning when i woke up, It was time to start packing!!! We are finally moving into our new and permanent apartment tomorrow!!!! We are moving in with one of our teammates who is Italian, so we are very excited to see what it is going to be like, we don't know how many rooms, we hear there is a tv and a living room! I can't wait!!!

At practice, not many people showed up and we were in a smaller gym, because other teams where practicing in the gym we normally use. But today at practice we did a lot more volleyball then we have in the past!!! we did more block and hitting drills and we did 4 on 4! it was a lot of fun to finally start playing. We also found out that we are going to have some "preseason" type matches in the next couple of weeks, that will be good for us to finally see how everything is going to work!!

The other day we found out that scooters don't cost that much here! So Lynnea and i are determined to figure out how to at least get one, so we can have some sort of transportation! I think we have to take some sort of driving test, which here the driving test for scooters aren't in english, only for cars...soooo this could be a little difficult.

Now off to finish packing then moving tomorrow morning!!! I AM SOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!


italian word/phrase: po'alto "little high"  good to know when trying to communicate with my setter!

FIREWORKS!!

Today, I woke up and did some laundry, once again my hands got super wrinkly....and note to self: don't let laundry pile up when you have to wash it by hand.

After laundry we sat around and wondered what we were going to do, then we remembered that tonight there were fireworks by the beach. We contacted Antonio and he came and got us around 10pm.
We drove to the town overlooking the sea, Sperlonga. We walked through the town and there was like a little fair type thing going on. There were vendors selling different types of jewelry, children's toys, books, food, fake purses, etc. It was a lot of fun to see all the people.
After the walk through the town we went and sat on the beach at one of the Lido's and waited for the fireworks to start. Little did we know, there were right in front of us, literally. When he said there would be two big bangs then the real fireworks would start....he really meant BANGS, we were not ready for how close they actually were!  These fireworks were amazing, they even had some blowing up off of the water. They were shot from the shore, to the water and then blew up on the water, it was awesome to see.

Castle in Sperlonga overlooking the Sea

Italian word/phrase of the day: buon divertimento "good fun"

the town of Sperlonga at night!

The little fair like booths and all the people

Lynnea and I waiting on the beach for the fireworks

Fireworks off the water, right in front of us

another friday

Today, Friday, all we had was weights, I was a little more excited about today because our plan was wake up, go to weights at 10:30ish, go to the beach and then come back in the evening. BUT weights got postponed until 4:30, so again, because everything is closed from about 1:30-5, I found myself learning more dances! haha i'm gonna be an awesome hip-hop dancer when i get back, I should get my own dance crew for the next season of America's Next Dance Crew. hahah 

After weights, lynnea and I came back, showered, and walked around the town trying to find something to eat. Well, we couldn't seem to find the restaurants that we always drive by, so we ended up at this little cart that serves sausages, hamburgers, hotdogs, with your choice of mozzorella and all the toppings you could thinks of. And yes, what i did read on the sign, Hamburger patitine (hamburger with fries) means that the hamburger actually comes with fries on it, and the hotdog and the sausage....ummmm alrighty?

The little cart we ate at for dinner

After we ate, our coaches told us that the mens team was practicing, and since the stand we ate at was right next to the gym, we ventured over there to see what their practice was all about. Apparently practices aren't mandatory for men either, cause there were only about 5 or 6 players there too...

tomorrow, we scrimmage....can't wait to see what is going to happen!

italian word/phrase of the day: il braccio, le braccia/ il gamba, le gambe "the arm, the arms/the leg, the legs"

ooohhh italy

The last couple of days have been pretty hilarious! haha we have not really done much during the day, because we have already seen the town and have no car to go outside of the town, so we come up with things to do in our house to pass the time until practice. This week we practiced normal on monday, tuesday and wednesday and then wednesday night, right after practice we went to a hotel near the beach to celebrate one of our teammates 20th birthdays. We ate, drank wine and champagne and listened to music with out coaches and teammates.
Thursday we had off, we thought we were going to end up going to the beach, but with our little communication problem apparently that didn't happen. I was going to do laundry but when my roommate was in the middle of doing hers the water in our apartment (and I guess all of Fondi) shut off. SOOOOO there went that idea. So I decided to youtube dance moves! I mean I already know how to Jerk, so why not continue and learn others? Thank you YOUTUBE! Which we decided we need to start video taping our adventures and our interactions to share with everyone because they are hilarious and keep us sane, and always laughing!!
After sitting in the apartment with no water, we decided that we needed to get out.....and we both really wanted some fries, so we texted our coach Davide and asked him if there was a McDonald's close by that he could take us too (we knew he would be up for it, because he loves McDonald's).  So at 8:30pm (standard dinner time) Davide and Fiorella picked us up and we headed about 25 min down the road to Formia, and I got my french fries, and a McFlurry with smarties (don't let that fool you, they are really M&M's). After that we went to walk along along the sea near the Navy Port. It was very pretty, in the distance you could see the outlines of the mountains and the lights from the city across the sea among the mountains. The weather was perfect, and there were little handmade jewelry carts along the boardwalk to look at.
On our way home we were driving through the mountains and i looked out my window, only to see that we were driving by another mountain fire. This time we figured we would ask Davide and Fiorella why this happens, and after alot of interpreting and translating, i'm pretty sure they were trying to say that people want to build houses in the mountains and the government won't let them because of all of the trees and wildlife, so the people set fire to the mountains and say ha, no more wildlife and trees so now i can build a fire. But like before, doesn't seem to be of any concern to the locals. So i guess i'm not worried about it.


Italian word/phrase of the day: lui vogli il gelato "he wants ice cream"