Feeling Good

On Friday, we had so many leftovers that we were able to basically have another Thanksgiving meal with Valentina, our teammate who comes from Rome, she was excited to share the meal with us and again I was super happy I could share with them Thanksgiving!

On Saturday, we had an away game, in Albano, which is really close to Rome. I didn't quite understand why, but we didn't have all of our players coming to the game, but we made it work. Valentina told us that there is a city close to there that has the BEST meats ever, so of course we went there afterwards with Davide, Fiorella, Valentina and her boyfriend, and Maria. They ordered a selection of meats and cheeses and what they said the BEST wine ever, and we feasted on tons of food. The wine was pretty good, it was very very sweet compared to the other wines I have had. After that, we headed into Rome to a disco that is said to be one of the most popular discos in all of Rome! And I would believe it, even though it was pouring rain, there was a line outside to get it, and it was super crowded. They had two rooms, with two DJ's, both playing nothing but house music. And let me tell you, there was a lot of two stepping and fist pumping going on! These Italians LOVE their house music.  We headed back to Fondi early this morning (Sunday) to enjoy our day off, which is rainy of course.


Italian word/phrase of the day: dimenticare "to forget"

THE GREEN MACHINE-as Lynnea and I call it

The wine we drank, they thought I needed a picture with the bottles....no clue why

The dinner crew! 

Thanksgiving in Italy

First of all, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
I can't say this was my first Thanksgiving away from home, because I actually had every Thanksgiving in college at UNC, but, I can say this was my first Thanksgiving away from my friends and family.

I wanted to try and have as close to a tradition Thanksgiving as possible, so Lynnea and I decided that we would cook dinner for our roommates, who have never had a meal like this. So this morning we got up and went to the store to get some last minute items that we forgot to get the other day.  But unlike at home, we started cooking later in the evening.

We sat in the kitchen, chopped several different vegetables, I dried bread in the over for stuffing, first time I can say I've done that, it was amazing! And we listened to music and just chatted about who knows what. We cooked several different dishes and have tons of food left over. On the menu for tonight was:
Mashed potatoes, green beans with bacon, stuffing, chicken breast, turkey wings, and potato salad! It was a ton of work and we had to start eating while the turkey was still cooking, and by the time the turkey was done all four of us were stuffed. That is fine, we have plenty of food left over for the next couple of days, seriously.

our Thanksgiving meal!! 

We sat at the table and explained to them what type of holiday this is in America and that people eat big turkey's not chicken and we talked and laughed the whole night! They loved the meal and it was so much fun to share with them our Thanksgiving! I was smiling the whole night! And I couldn't help but think how happy I was that I was able to share Thanksgiving with my new family! And even though we don't speak the same language we are able to communicate and have fun together!

I am Thankful for all of my friends and family at home and for all of the new friends I am making here in Italy.  Tonight was just amazing and I can't get over the feelings I had sitting at the table watching everyone enjoy Thanksgiving!

Italian word/phrase of the day: Sono molto felice! "I am very happy!"

Friendly Match...SAY WHAT?

Today we went grocery shopping because tomorrow we are going to attempt to cook some sort of Thanksgiving meal. We went to 3 different stores looking for sweet potatoes, no luck. Although I did come across potatoes called "patate dolci" which literally meals potato sweet, they were not orange and I didn't want to attempt to make candied yams with non-orange sweet potatoes, so I guess I will just have to do without those this year. BUT I expect them for Christmas!
Anyways, we got picked up at 10:50ish, knowing that we would be in a rush because Antonio had a meeting at 12. Well after going to two stores, it was noon, and Antonio had to go change the lights in the gym or something, so we rode along with him, so he could take us to another store after that. So as we go to the gym we see this type of company maintenance van outside of it with a ladder on the van, and we are thinking that Antonio just has to tell them what lights need to be changed. But no, I guess they just drop of the equipment for you to change the light, but you actually have to do it yourself, then they pick it back up, because the van drove away and Antonio had to change the light bulbs himself, then the van came back and got the ladder. Yeah, still kind of confused about that.
So after that we went to another store, called Oggi and Domani (today and tomorrow), where we met Maria and Adri, our other roommates, and we found TURKEY, well not a whole turkey, but they had turkey legs and turkey wings, I was told, so we got some chicken and then the turkey wings to cook! And we got the rest of the items we needed for dinner along with just some regular day to day grocery items.
Then we got in the car thinking we were done grocery shopping, but he didn't head home, and we pulled into the parking lot of the home store, there we got much needed laundry baskets, little rugs, and just little house hold items that we needed! The store had tons of Christmas decorating items and I kind of wanted to buy them and decorate my room and the house, since thats usually what you do the weekend of Thanksgiving...But we did find these awesome masks, and as you can see, we were definitely paying attention to the discussion that was happening about the items we needed for the house. ha

Lynnea

Me

The two of us! 

After all of the shopping, we went home, unloaded all of our bags. I decided to change my room around. I just wanted to move the bed up against a wall, so I had a little more space, but that is kind of hard to do since here, they place a light switch and outlet on each side of the bed, so when I moved my bed, one switch is behind the bed, and the other is pretty much unreachable. BUT I am going to make it work because I like the way my room feels now! And I have a cute little rug to put in front of my bed!

This evening, during practice time, we had what they call a "friendly match." We have determined that means scrimmage, but for us, even a scrimmage isn't friendly, and we still want to win. So we have a hard time calling it a friendly match! But we played a team who is still in the same series as us, but in a different division. And they are probably going to win their division. Because it was a "friendly match" we didn't play the normal line up and mixed it up, which is totally fine. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't easy, but we ended up winning in five games! Even though it didn't count for our record because it was a friendly match I still am happy to have won it, and without one specific line-up!

Thats all for tonight, I will blog tomorrow about the Thanksgiving meal, but I am excited to cook for our Italian roommates, and share this tradition with them!

Italian word/phrase of the day: subito "immediately"  commonly used on the vball court

Sunday Funday

Today was game day, another home game! So I did the usual, rested during the morning, made myself some pasta for lunch, then got ready for the game! We did not really know what type of team to expect on the other side because in our scouting talk, we both interpreted the talk differently. I heard they aren't very tall, they have a couple girls that came from a higher series, and Lynnea heard, they are tall, and those girls who came from the other series are good, so we did not know what to expect, seems to happen a lot.

This team we played was pretty good, they had really good passing, but they only had two or three hitters who were good and they were the outsides, and like what I heard, they were not very tall at all. I was very happy with the way our team played! And this time our crowd got into it (well, more then in the past games) they were cheering and I believe I even heard my name a couple times when I was serving...that was exciting! We won the game in 3 and were done again around 7:20. I love how quick these games are!

After the game, we asked people in the locker room what they were doing that night, and Dorotea, our libero, responded that she was going bowling with her friends, then she invited us to come with her! Since we didn't have any plans (shocking, I know ;-) ) we took her up on the offer. So we went home, showered and changed and got ready to go bowling. Dorotea and her friends picked us up and we headed to a little pub to have some dinner! Then we headed to a place called UNICO, it is bowling, a dance club on saturdays and a pub all in one area. In the bowling ally they had tons of arcade games as well. Dorotea's two friends went and played some arcade games while we bowled. We bowled one game, and then left. It was fun, I bowled a 146 and got a turkey (3 strikes in a row), man guess I should look into bowling for often!

Italian word/phrase of the day: carina "literally nice, but used as cute"

Dorotea

yup, thats me

friends! 

Weekends are Fun!

Thursday we had the day off, and we were supposed to go to Rome, but a couple of my roommates weren't feeling that great so we didn't end up going. So I had another day around the house. Maria cooked a nice meal for our house and the four of us all sat down and had a little "family meal." After the meal, Maria, Lynnea and I got out the poker set and played some poker and drank some wine! It was tons of fun. That was my first time actually playing poker and I had a blast! Maria was hilarious, and when she won she would sing I am the Champion (to the tune of Queens We are the Champions). She provided us with several laughs that night.

Friday I decided to get up and go to school. I wanted to go to the English class that was at 11:30 because that teacher teaches us Italian while the other kids are learning English. Lynnea and I got up and got dressed, walked to the cafe around the corner, got some coffee, then headed to the school. We rang the little buzzer at the gate, and told them we were the American girls (in Italian), then headed up the steps to our classroom, to find that it was empty. The woman in the office pulled us in and was said "hi, do you want to speak to the president?"We told her no, that we had just come to go to class. She got the english teacher to come in and explain to us why there was no one in the class. Still not too sure on why there wasn't any class, but from what I understood from the teacher, that day happened to be the day where they get together and discuss the problems happening in the school, or something along those lines, and the kids have what they call an assembly. So all the kids of the school are in one classroom. So when we heard that, we figured someone would be leading some sort of class or something, so we went down to check it out, WRONG. Apparently when this happens, they put all the kids in one room, with no teacher, and a couple of the older students lead the class. Which we discovered is hardly any type of lesson, all they did was pass around little pieces of paper where the students could write whatever they wanted on it anonymously and then they would put it in a hat, and read it aloud in front of the whole class. Interesting, yes, we didn't quite understand what was happening, we were waiting for a teacher to come walking in any minute, but nope, didn't happen.

Today, Saturday, I woke up and decided I was going to figure out what cinema was playing Harry Potter 7 in English. One of our teammates lives in Rome, so she was able to tell me what cinema was playing and at what times. So since no one wanted to go with me, I hopped on a train at 3:00 and ventured off to Rome. When I arrived in Rome, I got to the main train station, Termini. At this station you can do everything, leave, shop, catch the metro, get buses, etc. So I got on the Metro and headed to the stop that went by the Piazza del Popolo. When I got there, I walked through the Piazza and found my way to the Metropolitan cinema, only to find that the movie at 5:15 was sold out, but no worries there was one at 7:15, still leaving me time to see it and make it back to the train station to catch the train back! So I bought the ticket and them headed into some of the shops around the cinema. I went into this H&M which I remembered is the same store that Megan, and Morgan (teammates at UNC) and I went into when we came on our team trip! It was crazy to me that I had found the exact same spot! In some of the stores, I was able to successfully communicate with people, and then they would send over someone who spoke english, without me asking.
After the shopping, it was movie time, I went into the cinema and it was fun to see all the different people there to watch the film in English, there were people from several different countries. It was interesting, for one, at the cinemas here you have assigned seats, and they are super super comfortable seats with plenty of leg room!

After the movie was over, I got back on the metro where I met a nice couple, they were speaking in English, so I decided to ask them where they were from and we had an awesome conversation as we exited at the same stop! They were super nice and fun to talk to! Then I got back on the train and headed back to Fondi, where Maria picked me up!

Italian word/phrase of the day: fa freddo  "its cold"

view on the way to school

Piazza del Popolo 

and again! so pretty! 

Fun Weekend!

So after our game on Saturday, our friend, Layne Brosky, who plays in Montenegro, decided she was going to hop on a plane, a couple of trains, and make her way over to see us! I was super excited! I met Layne on the January Bring It Promotions tour and we have been friends ever since! She was on this last August tour with me as well.

So on Sunday morning, I got up, called Antonio and arranged to pick her up at the train station in Formia! Although we didn't have much to do, it was still fun to show her around, and have her there with us so we could talk about our different experiences! We walked her around our little town center and got some gelato. Valentina, my teammate, told us that we needed to try the Pistachio flavored gelato, so on Sunday night, I did! It was actually ALOT better then it sounds, and is probably one of my new favorite flavors!! The men played a home game on Sunday, so after we got gelato we walked over to the mens game and we introduced her to all of our coaches, teammates and managers. Then afterward we took her to the pub that we went to last week with our teammates, RED's, to get some dinner.

We were thinking we might get invited to do something by our teammates but turned out we didn't, so it was a pretty relaxing night at home again just talking about things that have been going on in our life!

Monday, we woke up early and we had to go to the police station to get everything squared away for our residency and visas, but apparently they made us an appointment not knowing that the person who does the finger printing wasn't working on Monday, oops, so we had to go back on Tuesday.

After that, Layne and I walked around the town again, I was going to take her to some stores here, since they are significantly less expensive then her stores in Montenegro, but I forgot that everything is closed on Mondays, not just from 1-4pm, but for the whole day. So we went to a little cafe, and got some coffee and cappuccino, then I continued to show her around and she took pictures. After a nap it was time for practice, she went with us, and although they wanted her to play, we didn't force her, and she sat in the gym and watched us! Then afterwards we took her to the paninoteca, so she could experience the "american" food that is served here. A couple of our teammates came along with us and we sat there and ate and talked about anything we could.

This morning, we woke up early again, took Layne to the train station, put her on a train to Rome and headed to the police station once again to get everything settled. I had a ton of fun having her visit and hopefully we will be able to make a trip to Montenegro to visit her!


Italian word/phrase of the day:  lei sta fouri "she stays out" (basically meaning, she is out of her mind)

Lynnea, Layne and Myself at the mens game 

Just warming up

Talking about what we need to do

Playing some SICK defense! 

Another WIN!

on the GREEN MACHINE!

Today was an away game, in Rome, like most of our away games. So we got up at 9ish, and our house of 4 walked into the square and got cappuccino and then walked around and went into all the little stores together. It was fun, we chatted in our broken languages, us speaking broken Italian, and them English when necessary.

We loaded the bus (which Lynnea and I have nick named The GREEN machine!) and headed to Rome. The seats are very small, allowing almost no room for anyones legs, let along mine. Not all of us rode the bus for whatever reasons, but all I know is that when everyone does ride the bus, we will have very little room for any type of movement! Can't wait to experience that. Good thing I brought my awesome panda neck pillow, I wrapped that thing around my neck, turned on my ipod, and took a nice little nap on the way to Rome!

Takin a little nap! love the panda pillow

Our game was at 4pm and we arrived with a good 30 min. to warm up! That was new, in college, arriving 30 min before a game would NEVER happen, or even be thought of. Here, we arrive, warm up, play, and leave, no need for any extra time, get there get it done and go home. I like it!
The team we played is last in our division, I think, which always leaves for a dangerous match, because we have everything to lose and they have nothing to lose. And that is exactly how the match went. We won the first two matches, they were very close, but we were able to pull them out. The beginning of the third match wasn't any different, we got ourselves into a hole, but unlike the first two matches, this one we weren't able to get out of. So we went into a fourth game, and again, we were able to pull it out and win, making out record 5-0!
For more updates on the club, check out the link to the clubs facebook page on the side of the blog!

Now I am just sitting at home, wondering what I am going to do tonight, everyone already seems to have plans, and since we don't have a car, we aren't really able to meet anyone anywhere, and both of our roommates are out of town! We will see what comes of it....

Italian word/phrase of the day: spingiamo uno "we push one" haha my way of trying to explain what we say in the US when we need one point to finish the match....they understood! who says I need whole sentences, simple words are enough!

these pictures were taken from an album on facebook, not sure who, but here is the LINK to the full album

me hitting

team

ready to block

serving

hitting again

Game 2

As most of you probably know, we had our teams 4th total game last sunday (my second). AND WE WON in 3! So we are still in first in our division! I guess the teams we have played the last 2 weeks have been the tougher teams in the division, so it is good that we beat them! I felt that this team we played this past sunday was actually not as good as the team we played our first match, but others seem to think this team was better (or maybe they were supposed to be going into the match) not really sure.

Our game was at 6pm and we got done and back to the house around 7:30. I figured out what was missing in these games, there is no break between the second and third match like in the U.S. You show up, warm up and play how ever many games you need to play to win, with no 10 min breaks in between any of the matches. It is kind of growing on me, I enjoy just playing, and not having to warm back up.

After the match, Lynnea and I got back to our apartment, showered and then went out to find some food and gelato! We ended up at this little restaurant right outside the main square, and I had some awesome Caprese! Then some stracciatella gelato (which is basically chocolate chip), my favorite kind!

I don't have any more pictures from this past match, but here are a couple videos from our september scrimmage, and our match 2 weeks ago.  In the match footage, we are the team that has a player (the libero)with the white jersey. It is hard to tell but we are wearing the blue, white and red jerseys. I am the middle with the white knee pads, not the black...Enjoy!

Italian word/phrase of the day: stasera, che cosa fai  "tonight, what do you do?"

Team Time!

Today was another great day!
This morning when I woke up, Lynnea and I walked to a store that was similar to our Best Buys and bought ourselves phones that will work here, so I can now contact my teammates and coaches! ha, about time.
After that, we ate lunch at our house with all of our teammates. Maria and Valentina prepared a lot of food, and all of our team came over to eat! We had Gnocchi with vegetables, sausage, pork ribs, rabbit, potatoes, and some sweets! It was so much fun to have all of our team members in our house, talking and laughing, it was wonderful!

Then after we had lunch, we drove to Rome with Davide (our coach) to watch a team we will be playing next weekend. Then after that, we went to watch our men's team play as well.

Tomorrow we have a home match against another one of the top teams in our league!


Italian word/phrase of the day: oggi, io compro un telefono  "today, I buy a phone" (since I don't know past tense, I just speak in present and they understand me! past tense will come later)

teammate, Valentina, and me at a rest stop on our way to Rome!

Good Times!

Today was pretty much like any other day I have here in Fondi. I woke up, opened my windows and the shutters to let the wonderful sunlight shine into the room, grabbed my laundry, and walked upstairs to our top floor laundry room and did some laundry; 2 loads, all by myself without asking which setting to put it on!
At practice, we prepared for the team we will play on Sunday. Before the practice we sit down and talk about the other team, scouting report, kinda like watching video in college, but there was no video. Then we get on the court, do a little fundamental passing and serving then go right into playing! Tons of fun, but for some reason my legs were super tired, probably still recovering from lifting, good thing we have tomorrow off before we play on Sunday.
Then after practice, some of the girls invited us to go to a local pub to get something to eat, so we got ready in the locker room, and 6 of us headed out to the pub! We ordered our food and drinks, everyone got beer, but I am in ITALY, so I got a glass of vino (Wine)!

Our food came, and we sat and ate and talked about several different topics, just getting to know one another and how things worked in the different countries. It was tons of fun! And the language barrier didn't seem to be a problem, we were all able to understand what one another was saying.

As we were leaving we saw some of our other teammates and one of the girls asked the table what we were doing tomorrow, and I was so excited because I knew how to say it in Italian, so I told her and she looked at me like, nope, don't understand, not a good answer, and Maria my roommate, who told me it was a good sentence laughed because she knew how excited I was, to try out my new sentence!  But it ended up to be a great sentence and she understood it after we discussed it, I am totally proud of myself, I thought, and spoke a full, comprehensible sentence in Italian!  So here it is:


Italian word/phrase of the day: Domani, Io vado a Roma!  "Tomorrow, I go to Rome"
Because tomorrow we are going to Rome, our coach wants us to go and watch another one of the teams that we play next weekend,

Valentina, Simona, and Maria at the pub

Lynnea, Me and Maddalena

All of us at the pub after practice

Getting settled!

Today was a very fun day!! We woke up and went grocery shopping with Antonio, got all of the foods that we need, figured out that we are allowed to go to Pronto Freddo (store of our team owner) and get food and they will just write down how much per month! After that we came home and cooked lunch, and I studied my Italian books, took a nap and waited for our house meeting with all four of the girls and Antonio.
In the meeting we addressed what we needed to do as roommates to live peacefully and transfer that to the court, it was pretty simple, just hard to know if everyone was on the same page before because we can't really communicate.

After that, we went to practice, I don't know why, but for some reason it was tons of fun! We did a couple of positional defensive drills, so when it was time for the right backs to dig, middles got to set!!! MY FAV!
Then after that, we played more wash type drills and I got to play more back row, and I was very satisfied with how it went. Then we scrimmaged, and at the end of practice, I was soooo tired that I really couldn't jump anymore (didn't help that we did major legs in weights yesterday) but it was very satisfying!
We came home, and as a house ate dinner! I don't know, it was fun to all sit around the table and eat. We had caprese, Maria taught me how to make it fresh, as if there was any other way. Caprese, for those of you who don't know, is fresh mozzarella and fresh tomatoes seasoned and put together! You slice the mozzarella and tomatoes, and alternate layering them (mozzarella, tomato, mozzarella, tomato, etc) then you put a little pepper, salt, oregano and olive oil over it  and then you eat it! and you can eat it just like that, or you can place a slice on some bread and eat it! LOVE IT!
After that, Maria and Valentina (our teammate from Rome who stays with us some nights) asked us to play cards! The game ended up being just like texas hold 'em, so luckily Lynnea was able to explain it to me!  We didn't have any chips so we just used fake bets, but Maria is going to bring some back with her when she visits home this week. It was so much fun to sit around the table and play! What an ending to a great day, I will be going to bed with a smile on my face!


Italian word/phrase of the day: io vinco "i win"

finally...these are pictures of our new apartment! It is used as a bed and breakfast in the summer, it is 4 total floors, the first being where you enter and the top floor a laundry room and covered balcony to dry the clothes...

my bedroom! double bed! 

My own bathroom

stairs going up to our laundry room

my room straight back, left doorway leads to two more rooms

stairs leading up to my room from 1st floor

kitchen and dining area

kitchen