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USA Select Team We arrived on the night of December 27, 2006 at the Venice airport after missing our flight in Frankfurt, Germany. We took a bus and raveled from Venice to Izola to our hotel, the Hotel Marina. After checking into the hotel, we met one another and we were separated into two rooms. The team was exhausted from the flights, so we tried to get to bed early in order to prepare for the next day and our first match against Austria. The team woke up early the next morning to eat breakfast in the hotel, however, we were not used to seeing the food choices that we were given. The food was not as appetizing as we had hoped, but it was decent enough to get us by till lunch. Next, we walked to the gym, where we were to play Austria. The Izola town was beautiful and I took many pictures of the scenery. Once we arrived at the gym, we were told that the warm-up and game procedure would be quite different than what we were used to. The team did the usual warm-up until it was time to hit. The hitting was only done on the left and right sides and everyone had to hit in the same direction because the opposing team would be hitting on the other side of the court. The game began shortly after and we had to stand outside the court until we were called on, which was the same setup for timeouts. The first game was close, however, we lost and the final score was 20-25. The second game was rough, as we did not play very well, in which we lost 13-25. The third game was much like the first game, for we did play better as we got to know each other on the court, but we ended up losing 20-25. We had not practiced with one another before the match, which did play a role in the outcome. After the match, the team walked back to the hotel to shower and eat lunch. There was time to rest before we had practice at six o’ clock. After practice, we walked back to the hotel to shower and eat dinner.We went to bed not much later after dinner, for we had to play two games the next day. On Friday, we woke up to eat breakfast in the hotel and got our stuff together so we could begin to walk to the gym. Our first game was at eleven o’clock against Slovakia. They had a solid team and there was good competition between us. In the end, we did lose all three games and we worked to get ready for our next match. After the match, we walked back to the hotel to quickly each lunch and change for our match against Croatia. Once again, we walked to the gym to prepare for the match, for Croatia was one of the best teams in the tournament. Croatia had a strong team and we played our best so far, for we got better game after game. We lost to Croatia in all three games and we each learned new things about the European style of volleyball. After the match, we walked back to the hotel to shower and change for dinner. The team chose to walk to a restaurant for dinner, instead of staying in the hotel. We ate pizza at a local restaurant and on the way back we stopped for dessert. When we got back to the hotel, our team went into one room to play card games. After a couple hours of cards and talking, we went back into our rooms and went to bed. This morning we woke up earlier than usual because we had to play a final match at nine against Hungary. We had breakfast in the hotel for the final time and we walked to a separate gym for our match. The first two games against Hungary were not as close as the third game, which we played point for point. We lost to Hungary and we walked back to the hotel to pack our luggage. Once we got back to the hotel, we showered and packed up all of our bags and walked them to the bus. After loading our bags into the bus, we walked back to the hotel to eat lunch. Following lunch, we walked back to the gym to watch the USA Youth National Team play Croatia in the championship match of the tournament.
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