Day 3
by Joe Caruso - Qunicy University

We got up for breakfast at 8 then had a short practice from 9-10.  The hotel breakfast is pretty good eggs, meat, cereal, fruit, and juice.  You could tell from practice that the team is starting to come together and play some good volleyball.  The bus picked us up at 11.  It was a small shuttle bus but we managed to all fit in without too much of a problem. 

The ride took 2 hrs but it might have been faster if Alex (who is from Bosnia so speaks the Slavic language) hadn’t made a new best friend with the bus driver.  The driver insisted on describing every little detail as we passed through several cities on our way to Klagenfurt.  When we got into Klagenfurt, we split into 2 groups to get some food.  My group went to a nice Italian place and got some pasta and Dante and some others got to practice some Italian with our waiter who claimed to be from Sicily.  After lunch we walked around town for a while, and I found a guitar store which made my day, as I haven’t played in forever because I have been traveling around Europe for 2 months before the tour began.   I strummed a few chords for the rest of the guys, afterwhich we stopped in a sporting good store that had an excellent selection of ice picks. 

Pretty soon it was time to find the bus again to head over to the match.  The Klagenfurt team was very good and included a 17 year old who a few weeks ago won the european under 20 beach volleyball gold medal.  Two czech coaches had also flown down to check out our guys in the hopes of landing one of our players.  I decided to sit the game out due to a strained quad.  It is very important to stay healthy when playing in europe as your options for a trainer are very limited and it is virtually impossible to get ice.  Our split squad team played great and we emerged victorious in 4 games. 25-23, 17-25, 25-22, 25-20.  After the match their coach took us all out to a chinese buffet where the coach informed Chris Mortimer that he was interested in trying out 5  of our players the following week.  (ed. note: Spencer Bemus of UCI had a very successful season with Klagenfurt the previous year).

 Customs on the way back were a breeze and when we got back to the hotel everyone headed down to the pizzeria for a beer and some great story telling.  We have a great group of guys and everyone is having a good time together.  I stretched really well before bed, I want to get over this injury as fast as possible.  We head off to Bled tomorrow and I am excited because I have heard a lot about the town.