First Practice

This morning when we woke up, we went to the store with Antonio and bought lots of food for our apartment, so we wouldn't have to go out all the time and can cook on our own. We bought a lot of meet, fruit, pasta, potatoes, etc.

After we got back to our apartment, i decided it was time to wash some of my clothes. WOW was that an experience. There are no washers or dryers so I had to use a little bucket with a scrubber and some snuggle laundry detergent and wash them by hand. Then I had to squeeze as much water out as I could and hang them off of our little balcony to dry. Its a good thing the air is so hot, because there was no sun at all shining on our balcony to dry the clothes. I only decided to wash my spandex, sports bras and socks, things that dry fairly quickly. We will see what happens when I decide to wash cotton shirts, jeans and other real clothes. I have a feeling those will take a little longer.

After I washed my clothes, Lynnea and I walked around the city a little bit looking for a bite to eat before our practice. We successfully ordered ourselves some food!!!! Thank you to the little Italian phrases we learned and pointing!

After that, Antonio showed up at our door with lots of goodies! We got 2 practice shirts, a pair of spandex, a zip up warm up jacket, pants to match, and a HUGE bag!!!! Its awesome! Then we walked to practice, which is like 5 min away. We watched the men's handball team finish up practice then we started.

Our warm up was probably like 30 laps around the court, well it was probably more like 15 or 20, but it felt like a million. Then we sat down, stretched and some of the girls did abs, and everyone just kind of got ready in their own way. While we were warming up, our coaches were measuring our height, standing reach, and approach jump. All measured on like the walls and a "mini basketball" hoop.

After that, we warmed up with some hitting lines, which were a little different then in the states. Here we toss our own ball to the setter, which is a little difficult for a middle, but I got used to it and everything worked out.  After hitting lines, we played a little six on six off of a free ball. We started practice around 8:45 and ended around 11. That practice went by so fast it didn't even seem that long.

All of the girls are super nice and I am excited to get to know them better. It is going to be a challenge because none of them speak english, and only a couple of them understand it, so we find ourselves speaking to each other in our native language, using a couple english or italian words here and there, with hand signals and then walking away hoping we each understood what we were trying to say. It was very interesting, but in the end it all works out! So first practice is over, and now i'm not so nervous.

italian word/phrase of the day: ci vediamo domani "see you tomorrow"

Washing my clothes

my clothes hanging to dry

me in my new shirt and spandex!