Friday July 13, 2007
Day 4 – Pula
By: Kaiti Wachter
Northern Lights 16-1
We started our fourth day in Europe with a breakfast downstairs at our hotel. There was a wide variety of foods but none tasted like good old American food. There were eggs, croissants, and a buffet of other foods. To drink there was water, juice, milk, and coffee. The juice tasted like watered down sunny D and in Europe they don’t put ice in anything so the water and milk was a little warm but I guess anything tastes good when your hungry.
After breakfast we were greeted in the lobby of our hotel by a woman named Maria. She was going to be our tour guide. We all loaded on to the bus and Primos drove us there. When we got there we walked around the coliseum and Maria talked about the history which had taken place there. It was very interesting. We got to go underground and see where they made the olive oil and the pots they kept it in. It was very well preserved for being around 2000 years old. Our guide also talked about the gladiators and the spectators. I learned so many new things while I was there. Then we walked down the street a little ways and Maria explained some of the architecture and told us which time period everything was from. You could obviously tell when one started and one stopped. We also saw the 3 distinct architectures that are visible in Pula, the Austrian/Hauptsburg era, the Mussolini era, and the communist era.After the tour we got to look around for a little bit at all the different little shops that were along the streets. But we didn’t have long because we had a match to play.
After our fun and educational tour, we went to play the Italian A-2 youth team. Me along with all the other girls were excited to play. After all we are in a different country playing girls anywhere up to 21 years old on this team. None of us were quite sure what to expect. It started out kind of slow, we didn’t talk much on the court and it seemed everyone let their nerves get the best of them. It ended up going to five games; we lost the first three and won the next 2. I know that the matches that we play in the future are going to be much better now that we have gotten that “warm up match” out of our systems. We started our match at 1:00 and went until 3:00. After walking around and practice the night before we were all tired. But that didn’t stop us from shopping.
Came back to the hotel and got our beach wear on and headed toward the Sea. That’s right we went to the Adriatic Sea it still hasn’t really hit me that we are in Europe but its true. At the beach there were some pretty interesting people. Some women decided that it wasn’t necessary to wear a top but only a few. Also the men in Croatia, well in Europe for that matter like to wear Speedos not swimming trunks which I find much more tasteful. Yes, even the older men. Let’s just say there were a few girls on the team who were very shocked at the mere sight of these people. Instead of there being sand on the beach there were rocks. OUCH! I didn’t really like that but I guess it was part of the experience. Greta unfortunately stepped on a sea urchin while exploring with Maddie and some other girls. But don’t worry she is fine and well now.
After our match we came back to our hotel and got dressed to go shopping. When we got there Curt bought the team some ice cream, which was amazing! Then he brought us into the middle of all the little shops and we split off into small groups and went shopping. There were so many little souvenir shops. There were also stores such as United Colors of Benetton and stores like that. It was a lot of fun. Then when it was time to leave Maddie saw this miniature sculpture of the coliseum and decided to get it. Little did she know that it was an ash tray, oops! When we got on the bus everyone asked her why she got an ash tray and she was a upset, she had no clue what she bought. All she knew is that it was “cute.” Haha there is Maddie for ya.
When we finally returned from a long day of sightseeing, playing, shopping and being at the beach we were all pretty wiped. So we were all just in our rooms and hanging out but then we went downstairs and this woman approached me and asked if I wanted to play a game with some boys who were sitting at a table near by I said, “ok sure why not.” She didn’t tell me what I was going to be doing so I made Katie and Anna join me all the other girls wouldn’t do it. We ended up playing a game of musical knees. We played a game much like musical chairs except that there was a girl and a boy paired up and the girls were on the inside in a circle and the boys were on the outside in a circle and we walked around and when the music stopped you had to find your guy and sit on his knee and the last one to do so was eliminated. Katie and her guy were the first of the three of us to get out then Anna and then me. I would have won except one of the girls pushed my guy onto the floor. But it was fun while it lasted. After all the fun and games all of us were ready to hit the bed. So that’s just what we did.
