Day three of monastery life and the girls seem to be getting the hang of life out in the mountains. We were given a crash course in pluming as my roommates and I arrived back at the monastery to find that the shower had flooded and reproduced the canals of Venice on the floor of our room. Invoking our problem solving skills we created a dam out of our extra bed sheets and swept the rest of the water into the hallway, authentic European problem solving skills.

We celebrated the fourth of July in typical American fashion; we loaded up onto the bus and headed to the local beach. This was our first official day at the beach so we were sure to make the most out of it, playing in the beach volleyball tournament, swimming in the Adriatic Sea and tanning (or burning) in the Italian sun.

After our beach day, we loaded back onto the bus and headed straight for practice. A half hour later we arrived at the gym ready to practice and get some volleyball in, however, no one had informed us that the street the gym was located on had recently been repaved, and many of the girls got stuck in the tar on the way up to the gym. When we got up to the gym we quickly changed and got ready to scrimmage against the local Italian team. Since we are in the pool of three (the other two pools have four teams each) we had the night off from the Sibillini tournament. We played three games to twenty five, and one game to fifteen, the scrimmage was a great opportunity for our team to work on what our coach Mitja calls “the little details”. During the scrimmage our team also tested out some new strategies, such as having the middle blocker set the second ball, this was very confusing at first but we eventually got the hang of it, and came together to win all four games.**

When we finished with our practice we headed back up to the monastery to shower and change so that we could go and cheer on the Cincinnati team. The Cincinnati team decisively won their match in three games, after which both teams headed to the restaurant down the mountain to have dinner.

Editor’s addition: We also ate with Cincinnati’s opponents, a team from Italy. It was a fun environment since Italy was playing against Germany in the Semi-finals of the World Cup soccer tournament. The girls didn’t get to see much at dinner as neither team was able to score a goal in the first half, and the girls were antsy to leave the restaurant. As they headed back down to the monastery, however, they stopped at a bar and watched the rest of the game. With 3 minutes left in over-time Italy scored its first goal following with another just forty seconds later to close out the match.

**Editor’s note: Every once in a while the girls on tour have the opportunity to be coached by a European. In this particular tournament they are being coached, for the entire tournament, by a Slovenian. It’s a great experience for the girls to not only compete against European teams, but learn from their coach first hand the differences in the style of play. Mitja is trying to teach the girls to be better all-around players working on all skills of the game. In the university system, coaches are allowed sixteen substitutions, allowing them to train players on a smaller skill set. International rules only allow teams three substitutions forcing the players to become better at all skills.

For more information, and some great photos, please see the past years journals: