Playing the Americans!!

I'M BACK! I know, I know, I've been gone for a while and haven't posted anything, for that, I am sorry. But for the last 10 days I have been in America enjoying the holidays with my families and friends! It was a emotional trip to get there but I got there and had a wonderful time.

I got back to Italy on Jan. 2nd and I don't seem to be having that hard of a time adjusting to the time change as I did before! On the 2nd, when I got in, Antonio picked me up from the airport and we headed back to Fondi to eat lunch at his mothers house with his mother and his sister and family (I guess this happens every Sunday). It was a lot of fun, and the meal was wonderful, just like any other home cooked authentic Italian meal!
After lunch I went back to my apartment and slept for a little, then went to the hotel to meet the American girls that came on a tour, I ate dinner with them and chatted about some different experiences I have had.

They have two different age teams here, today their younger girls played our under 16 Fondi team at 11:00 am and after that I took them to lunch at a little pizza place in the center of town, and then showed a couple of them my apartment and answered some more questions. After that it was time to get ready for our match against the older team. It was made up of a couple college grads, a couple going to college next year and then a couple still in high school.

Our team with the Americans! 

When we got to the gym I wasn't expecting there to be a whole big party thing, but then again I forgot that it is still the holiday season for them, here they celebrate the Epiphany so they are still giving candy and having holiday parties. So when we got to the gym, there were two little courts of the mini-volley teams (children under 7) and they played for a little while, while a milk company had carts of yogurt in the lobby. After the mini-volley was over and we were getting ready, they have a hip-hop dance team and a breakdance team perform, I have decided I need to go to those classes during the day, haha. After that it was our turn to play, we had an announcer and everything at this game, they really made this into a HUGE deal. They were handing out little stocking shaped bags with candy and befana on them, it was super cute and such a fun thing to experience! We introduced our sponsors and got pictures with them, and then played our game. Some of our original starters were injured and not playing all the time, so it made for a very interesting and not so good match, and I hate to say it, but we were not successful, but no worries it doesn't count against our record, just a scrimmage, hopefully we will be able to learn from out mistakes and stay strong as the season progresses.

After the game, I went to the hotel to eat with them again, and talk to some of the girls who are thinking about playing somewhere in Europe. It was a lot of fun to have a group of people I could talk to and show around!


Italian word/phrase of the day:  fegato  "liver"