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

FIRST GAME!

Today we had our first game,
I woke up this morning and successfully walked to the store by myself (Lynnea was sleeping) and bought stuff I needed to cook lunch. Then came back home, cooked myself some pasta with tomato sauce, and started to learn some Italian verbs. Lunch was fun, I sat in the kitchen with my Italian verb work book and worked on the first lesson, common verbs ending in -are. Maria was downstairs too cooking, and she sat down and was helping me, and repeating them in English.

After lunch, we all rested and got ready for the match. It was our first match (Lynnea and I, that is) and it was home! We weren't sure if we were going to be cleared to play, but we must have been because they put us in! It was interesting to see the different cheers that the team does, and we don't know what they are saying. Luckily, when they shake hands with the other team they say Ciao, I can handle that!

It was a great game, everyone worked hard and played awesome volleyball! It felt good to be playing again.

We haven't really figured out what they do for Halloween around here, we know that they celebrate it because we have seen children dressed in costumes, and stores have decorated, but just really really young kids, doesn't seem to be a holiday that older children take part in.  We have been told that in the bigger cities, like Roma, they celebrate it more.

That is all for today, tomorrow, I will work on taking pictures of the new apartment to post! Until then:

Italian word/phrase of the day: vincere  "to win" (haven't gotten to -ere verbs yet, so I don't know how to conjugate it)

Day Trip

Today we had the day off, so we took a day trip to Rome with our coach to watch the men's volleyball team play!
I think our expectations of what games were like were a little different then what actually happened.
When we got to the gym, it was just that, a gym, no bleachers, not much sideline area, and very little room for spectators to even stand and watch. Luckily we got their early enough that we were able to snatch the one and only bench on the sidelines!
We also noticed that the crowd is very different from what we expected, I think we both pictured everyone cheering and yelling etc, there was a little bit of that, not a lot. But the game was tons of fun to watch, it was super intense. Although our men's team lost, it was an exciting 5 game match.

Now it is time to prepare for our game tomorrow, which we were informed that we (meaning Lynnea and me) might not be able to play in because we have to wait to be cleared by the volleyball federation, and from what we understand they aren't able to do that until Tuesday, and if we do play (and win) and we don't have all the papers needed by the federation, they could take away the win. So we will just have to wait and see what our coach decides to do.


Italian word/phrase of the day:  dammi cinque  "give me five!"

I'M BACK

Well, I'm back!
So much as been happening since my last post. We were informed that we would have to take a quick trip back to the U.S to get our visas. Because of the arrangement Italy has with the U.S we must apply for visas in person, at the Consulate in the region of your birth...luckily we have an Italian Consulate in Detroit so we had to pay them a quick visit. But all is good and we have obtained our Visto! We are now back in Fondi, and are ready to start playing. We arrived on the 27th.

While we were gone, our team's season started, they had two games and won both of them! That is super exciting news! They also picked up another middle hitter, she is from Brazil but has been living and playing in Italy for a couple of years now and is doing rehab for her knee and should be ready soon.

So since we have a new player, we had to move apartments...AGAIN! We moved out of our apartment over looking the traffic circle and moved down the street into a Bed and Breakfast (in the summer). It is 4 levels.
The first level is where you enter and it has just some room for storage and the entry into the garage. On the second floor there is the kitchen and one bedroom. On the 3rd floor there are 3 bedrooms, each with their own bathroom and double beds! Yes, a bed I can fit in! That is where I am, I am on the 3rd floor, right at the top of the stairs, kinda tucked back in the corner. Then on the top level, there is the laundry room, and a huge covered balcony which is used to hang the clothes to dry! It is awesome!

It is interesting, now we are living with 4 people, sometimes 5 (our teammate from Rome stays some nights) and we don't know Italian and they don't know a lot of English, so it has been very hard to communicate and has been kind of separated. But no worries, I came readying this time, armed with bunches of Italian books, ready to learn and use it whenever I can!

So that is what has been going on with me lately, my body clock is super messed up and I find myself sleeping...all the time. I sleep when it is night time here, I sleep when it is the middle of the day. And I am tired at all the wrong times. I really need get on the right track because we have a game this weekend, and I want to be ready.

Pictures of the new place, coming soon..

this is the truth..super hard to adjust 

Scrimmage

Yesterday, we woke up at 7am to get ready for school....yes, school on a saturday!
 Ha but this time we were supposed to walk, and it was pouring rain, so we called our coach (who also teachers there) and asked him what we were supposed to do, he said just wait, and we would go in with him at 10. Well i was already up and dressed, so I just laid back down and dozed off.
When we arrived to school at 10:20 we only had 2 classes to go to, the first was our class with our coach (it was gym class) we headed down the the gym and we watched our coach run his class, then we sat through an italian history class, and then it was time to go. On saturdays they don't go the whole day, I guess.

So after we got home at about noon, i climbed back into bed and slept until our scrimmage at 4:30.
The scrimmage was fun, it was interesting to finally see how things were coming together and see how our team actually was. And like any team we had our good moments and had our bad moments, i guess that is what pre-season scrimmages are for, now we know what we need to work on.

After the scrimmage, we went bowling with our coach and his girlfriend. We wanted the rest of our teammates to come with us, but they were all too tired to go :-( maybe next time. The bowling ally is about 25 minutes away, and when we got there it was like a sports bar, bowling ally, arcade with a dance floor and DJ all in one, it was pretty awesome! When we got there, we sat down and ate, then put our name in to bowl and waited for our number to be called. While we waited we went over the the arcade section and played two games of foosball, Lynnea and I against Davide and Fiorella, we lost. After that we played air hockey! Little do they know, I used to play that all the time in the ice rinks waiting for my brothers, sooooo, i'm pretty good, ha. I WON! it was tons of fun.
After we played the games, it was our turn to bowl, they had the same glow light bowling here, but the tables were really cool. They some how reacted to the black lights and would leave shadows of whatever was left on the table, it was cool! It was a lot of fun listening to music, bowling, and just hanging out!



Italian word/phrase of the day: come ti chiami  "what is your name"

View from my classroom! 

bowling! it was a strike..

cool table that reacted to the black lights those are shadows of hands! 

Back to school

This morning Lynnea and I woke up at 8am and got ready for school. We were dreading it and excited at the same time because we wanted to finally see what the school was like.
Once we got to the school, we went into the office and enrolled, they have an english class at this school so we met the english teacher and she explained to us what we were doing and was actually our first class of the day.
After we went to buy school supplies....yes school supplies.....we went to our first class, English (of course). It worked out for the best because everything they were learning in english, our teacher was able to teach us in Italian....so i'm actually able to understand what is going on. It was really funny because everyone in our class was super excited to have us, and ask us questions in english.

After that class, we were done for the day, and as we left we were handed our schedules, tomorrow, we have to go at 8:20am...WHAT!
Tomorrow we start off with Italian (either grammar, history or geography of Italy) the we have some kind of economic class, then we have physical education (with our coach Davide) and then another italian class. So our school goes from 8:20 until 12:20.....WOOF.  I'm only looking forward to our italian class!

Our schedule changes daily, on monday we have Italian class, back to back, then economy, then another italian class. And on tuesday, wed, thursday and friday we have science, french, math, english, social studies, it changes daily.

Sooooo we are thinking this is a high school type school, but everyone we ask tells us it is a private school, and it is the school you go to to become a teacher.....sooooooo awesome! some how i am learning to become a teacher....at least i will be learning italian, and keeping up to date on my french!!!

Today after school, we went back to our apartment and rested because we had practice tonight and we have a scrimmage tomorrow!!! Tonight at practice we played ALOT! it was awesome! But my legs and arms were SUPER SUPER tired because we have done weight training, some type of jump training every day this week.  MY LEGS ARE SHOT. It was really really hard to jump and at one point i'm pretty sure I tried my hardest and I didn't get off the ground at all....it was funny, my coaches looked at me like what?  I just pointed to my legs and said STANCA (tired)

Well off to bed for me....we have school tomorrow (yes SATURDAY) at 8:20am....oh yeah and a scrimmage at 4:30


italian word/phrase of the day: da dove vieni?  "where are you from"

Ready for school! ha

New Student?

I was just informed that Lynnea and I have to go to school tomorrow!? haha we are so confused.
So to make a long story short, we are going to be students again, and we have been told that this is a specialty school, and one of our coaches is a teacher there of something similar to sports science, so we were like ok, we can do this, shouldn't be bad. BUT THEN he continued to explain to us the ages of children that go to this school and how they teachers switch from class to class, the students don't move, and that we are learning different subjects.....sooooo we aren't too sure on what type of school this is.....i guess we will find out tomorrow!

Good thing is, he told me they teach french! so i can at least understand one class! YES, I can refresh my french skills in Italy.

GREAT! I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow....



Italian word/phrase of the day: dichi e questo "whose is this"