ESPN America, yeah we don't have it...

It's been a while again, so sorry, I just haven't done anything exciting to write about, but I guess I will just fill you in on the last week and a half...

Me, Lynnea, and Adri

After our practice with about 5 people, we had the rest of the week of practices with everyone there, and they were very good and productive practices! They were practices where I left feeling like we actually got better. We played on Sunday last weekend, with Saturday off, so on Friday night after practice, my roommates invited us to go to a little pub for dinner, since we really didn't want to cook. Well we got out of practice at 11:30, so we were leaving for our dinner around 12; haha interesting schedule I have, I know! We got to the little pub and there was a couple of the men's team players there, finishing up eating.  So we sat with them and the people that could communicate, communicated, and Lynnea and I provided our own entertainment, as usual, listening to Italian, trying to figure out what they were saying, and of course, watching the music video channel they always have going. That was a pretty fun night, even if we don't always know what they are talking about!

Me and Lynnea

On Saturday, Adri and I walked around and looked for Valentines Day gifts, there are a couple stores that have stuffed animals and cards so we walked around and looked at pretty much all of the possibilities. The one that I really wanted was at this party store and they had it blown up inside a balloon as a display. Thinking they would gladly pop the balloon to sell the stuffed animal inside of it and redo the display later, Adri asked them to do that, of course the answer was no, I would have to buy the whole display of balloons and everything, so that was a no go, valentines gift idea fail #1. After walking around for the rest of the night, looking at stores and going in and out of all of the other shops in Fondi, we didn't find anything for valentines day, and I was on a tight schedule because I had to send mine back to the US. Adri said that I would find something on Monday and send it then, leaving a week to get there, plenty of time.

On Sunday, our game was away, so that meant another bus trip to Rome. We left at 2:45 this time, we all piled in the little green bus, and headed to Rome. We have started our second half of the season now, so we are playing every team for the second time. This team that we played on Sunday was our teams first match, and we were not there for it because we were in America getting our visa's. The match was good, we won 3-1, probably could have won 3-0, but our team likes to keep it interesting. This game was very good our team was working to fix the things that didn't work in the game that we lost! You could see that those last couple of great practices were really showing. After the game we piled back in the bus and headed back to Fondi.
Sunday night was the Super bowl, as you all know, and our president reminded us of that on the bus and told us that someone was probably going to be watching it, but we didn't know who, they didn't invite us, not a surprise there, and we knew there was no way we were watching it because our TV's a.) didn't work b.) we don't have those channels and c.) are in italian. When we got back we were trying to figure out a way to watch it. At first I tried a website I use to live stream shows, but of course my internet isn't powerful enough for that, so it didn't work. Then I had the brilliant idea of video chatting someone on skype and having them turn their computer toward the TV so we could watch it. Lynnea tried with her friend, but for some reason that didn't work, so then I remembered that my parents were probably watching it, so I called them and asked them, and they DID! But again, because our internet is not strong, it was a very delayed picture and not clear, so we were basically listening to the game and commercials with my parents commentary! It was hilarious.

Monday was or day off, and it just so happens to be the day that EVERYTHING is closed, and I mean EVERYTHING. So valentines gift idea fail #2. Adri went to Napoli to visit her boyfriend for his birthday, and Maria stayed in Rome to eat after the match with her friends then went home for her dad's birthday. So Lynnea and I were all alone in our apartment, with every single store closed and absolutely nothing to do. I would say this was one of the most boring days EVER! The TV's were not working, so we couldn't even watch Italian TV.  Lynnea has playstation and I luckily brought my Nintendo DS so we were both sitting on her bed just playing our games, looking up Super bowl commercials, talking to people and enjoying the company of each other. Then Antonio came to fix the TV's and decided to inform us that he watched ALL of the Super bowl on Sunday evening except for the last 5 min, on ESPNAmerica, and we both said "OH YEAH, we don't get that channel." And for some reason, even though he has worked with our TV's a bunch of times, he thought we had the same channels as he did at home. I was at a loss of words.

On Tuesday, Lynnea and I went to another little store that I saw a similar stuffed animal in, and it was still there, a little bigger then the other one, but the exact same, with NO balloon display in my way, so I bought it and we headed to the UPS store with our president to mail it back to the states. Excited that my valentines gift was going to work out after all.... Well first, the man told me it was going to be 85 Euro to send it....yes 85! But later I was informed that was to send it by express to get there on the 14th. So I said, it wasn't a big deal when it got there, so the price went down to 75 Euro, still WAY to much. So we asked for a smaller box, its a stuffed animal, it can be squished. He came back with a box and Lynnea and I knew we could still go smaller. That brought the price down to 50 Euro, WHY is it so expensive to send things to America, sheesh. So, in our minimal Italian we communicated that we could stuff it into a smaller box, so he came back out with a smaller box and we made it work, only to find out the price to send that one was only 43 Euro, not much better. So valentines gift idea fail #3, depressingly my great idea will not work due to the outrageous prices of the shipping system.


Italian word/phrase of the day:  peluche   "pretty much anything that is a plush (stuffed) thing"

"WE TALKIN' ABOUT PRACTICE...."

Today at practice we walked into the gym and got ready and started to stretch, only to realize that 5 people were there, plus 1 setter from the younger team they brought up to have two setters; so total of 6 people. YEAH 6 people...WHAT are we supposed to do to get better with 6 people? Of those 6, 4 of us aren't the ones that need the practice (and could actually use some rest, because of injuries), and 2 of them don't really come off the bench....just saying, why did we even have practice? Well we weren't the only ones upset about it, Maria (our italian roommate) went OFF on our coach, I didn't know talking back to elders, and coaches was ok...but she WENT OFF. Not sure exactly what she was saying, but I understood some of it, and from what I got, she basically was saying, this is not ok that people aren't showing up to practice, and we need them to be here because they need to get better and blah blah. And our coach definitely wasn't happy about it either but he sat there making excuses for them, saying oh well her back is hurt, this girl doesn't play, she has a conflict, she will be late...I'm just thinking SO, a team is a team, this girl could be playing if she practiced more often, we need everyone to run a successful practice...

After a loss, you would think that the practices would be geared toward working on the little things we need to do to get better, and really focusing on those things to make sure it doesn't hurt us in the future, yeah I thought that too. Well tonight we spent about an hour passing with a partner (this would be ok if the coach was correcting things fundamentally with people, but that wasn't happening). Then we spent some time doing individual serve receive, this we really need (well TEAM serve receive, not individual) but at least it was better then not doing it at all. It was a typical practice, with only 5 people, and nothing specific was worked on, so all I can do is hope everyone was trying to get better at practice like I was, and just hope they perform in the game. We only have 13 games left, so something better happen quickly.....


Italian word/phrase of the day: mi annoio "I am bored"

First Loss

Yesterday we had an away game in Roma against one of the 2nd place teams (we are in first and there are about 5 teams tied for second). We were told the whole week of practice this team is going to be difficult and have a tall outside. Well they were right, this team was very good, I would say we were very evenly matched, they definitely had better ball control then we did, which helps a lot on offense. But we lost the first two sets and it was not pretty at all. We decided to show up in the 3rd and 4th sets and won very close sets, both coming from far behind and winning! It showed the fight that our team can have and how well we can play when we really have the heart and will to do that, now I just have to figure out a way to tell them that....ha, google translate? Anyways, after winning the 4th set you could see that the other team was very down and had no momentum, they even took out there two best players, but they also had really good players to replace them with. We lost the 5th and final set due to several mistakes on our side.
Hopefully this will serve as a wake up call and people will start working a little harder to become a little better at things in practice. Let me just say, when you are hiding your libero and your middle blocker has to step in on serve receive there could be a problem....After talking to Lynnea we have come to the conclusion that things that we pick up on in the matches, they may not (and by may not, I mean don't), which makes it very difficult for us to share with them, and also very frustrating because we are thinking if we are seeing it, isn't everyone else? ummm NO.
But oh well, we are still in first because we only have one loss and we go by points, I guess. Which means, if you win 3 games to 0 you get 3 points, if you win 3-1 you get 3 points and the other team gets 1, if you win 3-2 then you get 3 points and the other team gets 2. So because we lost in 5 games we got 2 points, which means we really only missed out on getting 1 more point, and we were very far ahead of the other teams because of our record....so if we are able to pick up our game and improve then we will be alright! Sometimes the only way to learn about your weaknesses are having them exposed by another team.

Italian word/phrase of the day: sta qua  "is here" I heard one of my teammates give that answer when our coach asked how here knee was doing....I LOVED IT!

blocking

You can't eat that now!

Its been awhile again...I know.
This past weekend we had off, we didn't have any games or practices after Friday, it was really nice to be able to rest!
Adri had planned us going to Napoli to see her boyfriend's basketball game on Saturday, but that didn't happen, after practice on Friday she was too tired and her knee hurt really bad and she didn't want to get up early to take the train, AND she was planning a surprise for their anniversary for when we returned Saturday night and she didn't want to do it Friday after practice. So the whole day Saturday we walked around Fondi and picked up the last minute things she needed to make the surprise complete, then I helped her set up her room. She wrote in balloons on the wall Ti AMO, which means I love you, and she had a pillow screened with a picture of them, and got some chocolate. It's a good thing I was helping, otherwise the A and the M would have been majorly deformed. It was really just TOO CUTE. So after we set up the room, I went downstairs to figure out what I was going to eat, and she insisted that I eat with them, because Maria wasn't home and she didn't want me to eat alone, she didn't like that, ha. We ate at about 11pm by the time he got there. Then on Sunday and Monday it was pretty much just the same old daily routine that I do, we walk around the town a couple times, go to the store, and sit a home. It has been fun cooking every lunch and dinner with Adri, she is too funny, she always texts me and asks what I plan on eating for lunch, if I want to eat with her, and what I want to eat for dinner, etc. It is interesting to see the different kinds of foods they put together, it always ends up being good, but different.  Its funny, because it is ok to mix hotdogs and eggs together and eat it with rice, but you can't eat fruit before dinner....yeah, keep reading...
Usually after practice I am super hungry and while we are waiting for the food to cook, I will peel a kiwi or a clementine and eat it, I'm not the only one who does this, I have seen Adri do it plenty of times. Last night while our fish was cooking, I sat down to eat a kiwi and Valentina looked at me and was like "NOOOOO you can't eat that now," and I was like "uhhhh why not?" her response, "you can't eat fruit before fish, or dinner, fruit is after dinner, it is sweet" I'm sitting there thinking to myself, I didn't know there were rules on when I could eat what, I didn't respond, I just shrugged my shoulders and kept peeling, at one point I thought she was going to take the kiwi out of my hand, it was hilarious.

the final result! 

Italian word/phrase of the day: ti amo "I love you"


Got a lot of photos from a couple of our games, I put a bunch up on facebook, check them out!

Houses in the Mountain

Hello everyone!
I know it has been a while again since a blog post, but really nothing too interesting has been happening; this past week I have woken up every day and had something to do, mainly going to work out or walking around the town with Adri. But, on Wednesday Adriana asked me to go to Rome with her, so I did, I mean what else did I have to do. So around 9am Antonio picked us up and we headed to Rome (Adriana needed to go to the Italian Volleyball Federation building). On the way there we talked about several different things including our upcoming trip to Latina; we were planning on going Thursday, but we are waiting to get paid, and that hasn't happened yet, so we couldn't go. But every time we go to Rome we pass this outlet mall, IT IS HUGE! It is called Castelo di Romano and it is an outlet of designer stores, and I mean it is absolutely HUGE. On the way there, I pointed it out to Adri and told her that if we wanted to go, Seba (our coach) said he would take us one day.  We got to the building, Adriana did what she needed to do, and we headed back, it was a very quick trip, most of it spent in the car, with me nodding off in the back seat. But on our way back we stopped at the outlet mall to have a look around. This is the season of huge sales, so every store has a ridiculous discount and all these awesome items. As we walked into one of the entrances we were like kids in a candy shop, eyes wide, mouth pretty much dropped to the floor. Adriana looked at me and said (in italian, mind you) we are not going to Latina when we get paid, we are coming back here. And we hadn't even seen the whole thing, we just went down two little walk ways, I think there were 3 more "piazzas" as they call them. IT IS AMAZING!

After that, we stopped at McDonald's for Adriana, because she loves it, and has been looking for one for a while. Then after that we headed back to Fondi; right down the street from Fondi, on the way out of town, there is a little town that is up in the mountain, and I mean, literally, houses built right into the side of the mountain, and every time we pass it I am just amazed on how beautiful it is, and apparently so was Adri; so Antonio took us up to the top of the town to look out and see it. The name of the mountain and the town is, Monte San Biagio. We drove up what was basically a one lane road, that snaked back and forth along the mountain, with buildings rising high next to us. Then we stopped at this little look out and you could see EVERYTHING, the lake, all the way to the sea, and the little towns below, and I will let the pictures I took do the rest of the explaining....

View from the top of the town 

view

view of the houses from above

view of the houses from the backside of the mountain

 Italian word/phrase of the day: ti voglio bene  "the way you say love ya to a friend"

again, view of the mountain from the backside

New Friends

It's been awhile since a post, so here we go, I will update you on this last week of mine. It isn't too interesting, just the same old same old, sitting around day to day and practicing at night.

Last Wednesday night (the 12th night of Christmas) was the arrival of the Italian "santa claus" La Befana; a women who flies around on a broom placing presents or coal in stockings for those children good and bad. (Again you can read my previous blog and click on the link if you want to know more about La Befana). But unlike santa claus, she is believed to be a person of the bible, that the 3 Wise Men met on their travels to see Baby Jesus; they apparently asked her to join them and she didn't, but later thought she should have so left on a broom to find them but was never able to, so she is still searching to this day for the Baby Jesus, that is why she leaves gifts in each child's home because she isn't sure where Jesus is. Again this is all taken from looking it up online. I guess Thursday is considered to be her birthday, so there is some sort of celebration for that. But last Thursday, Adriana and I sat in the house and made lunch and dinner together and talked (in broken Italian) because we both thought that everything was closed (because usually on holiday's the town shuts down). But around 11pm Antonio came by to fix our TV's and he decided to tell us that everything was actually open today and there was a HUGE celebration and market like thing in the center of town, and he thought we knew, yes you are probably thinking the same thing I was thinking (now how could I have possibly known that everything was open? I don't know how this town works.) So Adriana and I just laughed because we both realized that we had been sitting in the house the whole day, going CRAZY!

But this whole week Adriana and I have become pretty good friends! We have gone to the weight room together, sat on the bus near each other and talked, made several meals together, gone grocery shopping, planned our next day off. Its pretty funny, seeing as she speaks NO english, and I speak very little Italian, but she seems to know that and will make her sentences very simple and usually just asks me yes or no questions, and it works!!

Yesterday (Saturday) we had an away game in Rome, close to the airport, we won 3 games to 0! I guess that team is in last place or something, and I can see why. So now we are 11-0 and I think we have played everyone, or almost!

Well thats all for now...

Italian word/phrase of the day: hai dormito bene?  "did you sleep well"

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"