Little Late Day 1

8:45 am: Breakfast at the Hotel
We began our day heading to the little cafe inside our hotel. They had a really diverse spread of Italian cuisine: croissants, prosciutto, ham, different cheese, questionable scrambled eggs, and NUTELLA! It was definitely different from an egg McMuffin form McDonald's, but it seemed that everyone had no trouble finding something they enjoyed.

10ish am: Depart for Practice #1
We all piled into the bus for practice and were on our way to our first practice. When we arrived, it was clear that we weren't in the states anymore. We walked back towards a building that appeared to be a worn down, dome-like, shack. But to our surprise, upon walking in there were two BEAUTIFUL volleyball courts. We split into groups, hitters and setters on one court and the liberos (including myself) on the other. We, meaning the liberos, were instructed by Italian coaches, in Italian (aka they spoke Italian)! It was an amazingly unique experience having to communicate with a coach that we couldn't really communicate with, but it was very cool to see that the few english words he knew and a few physical motions, we knew what he wanted us to do. Well, for the most part.

12:30 pm: Lunch!
The restaurant we went to was a cute, dainty place. We entered in and they ushered us to the back in our own little room as if they knew we would be too loud :) They brought us quite an array of food including a delicious form of hamburger helper (it didn't compare, but I'm just trying to be descriptive), also a rib of pork and a small salad. The best part was the tiramisu!!! It was a little individual ramekin of happiness!

7:00 pm: Depart for Games!
The group I was in headed to play an italian team. When we arrived at the gym there was a girls youth basketball game taking place and it was a cute reminiscent moment of the days when I personally used to play basketball oh back in the day. The score was 4-1. It was so cute.
We headed to the locker room to get ready for our game. With white jerseys with red lettering, we took the court. We had a good looking warmup and did our best to make sure our communication was at its finest due to us never playing together.
Each lineup we had was awesome! It was really cool getting to test our skills of working together. The Italians had some heavy hitters and solid ball control, and as one teammate would describe it, "they were scrappy lil' suckers" (Sarah Roberts).
Out of the five game match, we won two. Our coaches were very helpful and gave informative feedback. They kept us calm and gave everyone an opportunity to play.

Day one was great! We are looking forward to what tomorrow has in store. Sleep tight Italy. Ciao!