The Moment We Have Been Waiting For...CHAMPIONS!!

Today was the final match of the playoffs, the team who won this match would advance to Series B2. WE WON!

Lynnea in her seat belt on the bus

Saturday afternoon, we boarded this bus with not enough seats for everyone and headed to Bolsena, the town where the finals were being held. It is a town about 3 hours away right on a lake, the lake is pretty big, but nothing compared to the lakes in Michigan!

View of the lake and little area by our hotel in Bolsena

Valentina on a ride, we later got it to work

The bus ride was pretty fun, Maria was apparently telling jokes, i guess they were really funny, we finally figured them out later that day when she slowed them down for us; they actually were pretty funny! Once we got to Bolsena, we checked into our hotel and then headed to the gym to get a little practice in. After that we had a nice team dinner, walked by the lake and then went to bed.

After what was probably the worst night of sleep, we woke up and had a nice team breakfast, a couple of us walked by the lake again and enjoyed the view, then had a team lunch. Our game was at 4pm, so after lunch we headed back to our rooms and packed our things and then left for the gym. The anticipation leading up to the game was crazy, for some reason I had "butterflies" in my stomach. Never before have I felt this way before a volleyball game, a track meet in high school, yes, but a never a volleyball game. I was so excited for the game, and I think nervous at the same time because I think I knew how much the team wanted to win this and advance to B2. We were also playing one of the "best teams" we have seen all year and I was nervous because we frequently have "off days" and I knew that if today was one of those days for some people on the team we wouldn't really have a chance.

Our city organized a bus for the fans that left Fondi this morning at about 11am, they got there right when we started warm ups, I would say it was the most amount of fans we have had all year. They brought all types of air horns and noise makers as well, it was awesome!

We won the first set, and got pretty far ahead in the second set, but we got a little too relaxed and ended up losing the second set. We pulled together as a team, and rolled on with determination to claim the third and fourth sets, winning the match!! Our managers and presidents and important people of the club came running on the court with us and joined our celebration!

We had to get off the court pretty quickly because there was another final right after ours, but we celebrated off to the side and took pictures with the fans, and they played "We are the Champions" by Queen and we sang it in a big circle! It was such an amazing feeling!

After we showered we stayed to watch a little bit of the next match then got back on the bus and headed back to Fondi!

Lynnea and I with some members of the "Under 13" team

Valentina and Me

Marzia and I on the ride back

Italian word/ phrase of the weekend:
1. GRANDI RAGAZZE  "literally translates to big girls, but used as a way of saying great job ladies!"
2. non mi sfottere "do not tease me" one of the few "sf" words I can pronounce!