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Team VolleyHut’s Sibillini Journal 2005
Volume 3: Comunanza Day 1, Opening Ceremonies
By Erin Virtue, University of Illinois 2001-2005
This is my fourth year on the Sibillini tour and I just can’t seem to watch a summer go by without spending a week in this beautiful area with such wonderful people!
Our author with GianLuca Biondi
Sunday morning we packed into our large air-conditioned bus and ventured out to Comunanza. The drive was only about 2 hours up the mountain through some of the most amazing landscape I have ever seen! We passed field upon fields of sunflowers and mountains as far as we could see. Once we arrived in Comunanza, we greeted our Italian friends and met some new people who are helping out with this year’s tournament. The girls on the team are learning bits of Italian and are practicing with our bus drivers Fausto and Massimo.
Team VolleyHut with our bus driver
We ate a traditional home-cooked Italian lunch at Ristorante Futura, which consisted of pasta, risotto, and slices of turkey with tomatoes. After lunch we drove up to Montemonaco to get settled into our home for the week, "Casa Gioisa", or as the say in English, "The House of Joy." With a quick turn around we were back on the bus to head back to Comunanza for dinner and Opening Ceremonies for this 12th Edition of the Sibillini Tournament.
Dinner at Ristorante Futura
After having been on the Sibillini Tour three times prior to this year, the Opening Ceremonies is always something to look forward to because the entire town of Comunanza is outside watching as each team parades through the town as if they were rock stars! We had two little girls carrying our team sign, Martina and Julia, they led the way as Team VolleyHut.com waved to each person on the sides of the streets. Once all of the teams have paraded down the street, following an Italian marching band, and have lined up, the Opening Ceremonies began with Sandro greeting the entire crowd and all the teams. Every team was announced along with the playing of their national anthem. We hung around the town, Katie (my sister) and I went around and saw all of our friends from past years in Sibillini! I think between the nine girls on Team Volleyhut.com we probably took about 200 pictures of the gorgeous sights around the Sibillini Mountains! Opening Ceremonies was as fun and exciting as always and it is always fun for me to see everyone in the town of Comunanza!
After the ceremonies, we went back to Casa Gioisa to find out Monday’s schedule and to finally get some sleep!
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