January 3, 2009
Arrival in Rome, USA vs Italy YNT
By Stephanie Holthus, Club Fusion
The day began with a knock on our train door at 6:30am. I must say, it is pretty difficult to get a good night sleep when your train is constantly making stops to pick up more people with the breaks screeching along the way. With droopy eyes, we all made our way from the train to a couple vans that brought us to the Italian Olympic Training Center just outside the center of Rome. When we arrived we went to breakfast in the cafeteria, which was somewhat unsatisfying (i.e. the frosted flakes I chose to eat were not frosted flakes at all, they were just flakes! Needless to say, they were not so GREEEEEAT!).
After breakfast, we received our room assignments, dropped off our luggage, and ran back to the vans to go sightseeing. We were dropped off in the Piazza del Popolo, walked down to the Spanish Steps and immediately began exploring and doing some much needed shopping! Common items for most of us players were sweatshirts and T-shirts that said things such as "Italia" and "Roma" printed on them. As others were buying many souvenirs, I began my search for a cute pink sweatshirt that had the the word "Italia" written on it. After searching high and low in many Roman shops, I came up empty handed in the end with only a black T-shirt to show for all my efforts!
By far, the coolest Roman structure we were able to see was the Trevi Fountain, which was also featured in "The Lizzie McGuire" movie. The fountain is so unbelievably huge and amazing! It's hard to believe that it was built such a long time ago without the advanced technology that we possess today! We were also all able to experience the delicious taste of the famous Italian gelato! (For those of you who don't know, it is the best ice cream in the world, literally! It's even better than my favorite "Homemade Chocolate Chip Ice Cream" which I eat every night before I go to bed!) At 12:30, it was time to end our sightseeing to go back to the hotel for some much needed rest and relaxation.
Because we were so tired, most of us took naps! However, I was rudely awakened to orange peels being thrown at my face by Tori, telling me that it was time to get ready for practice! All I have to say, is that Tori better watch her back, because one of these days I will definitely seek revenge!
During our hour and a half practice, we worked a lot on defense and moving our feet to the ball. Being as though we were all so tired, it was definitely not our best practice! Once again, we went back to our rooms and rested some more until it was our time to play against the Italian Youth National Team, who is one of the best teams in our age group in the world!
In the beginning of the first game we were up 12-4, however, Italy showed their mettle and came back and we almost lost the first game! We ended up winning 26-24. Unfortunately, our serve and serve/receive game hit the dust and we ended up losing the last three games 23-25, 28-30, 18-25. We also played a friendly fifth game and ended up winning 15-9. During this game, I was able to show off my outside skills, by hitting .250 with one kill in four attempts. It was pretty intense going up against their big outside hitter who is 6'7!
After the game we came back to eat another great Italian meal, and now I am off to bed! We have our last match of the trip tomorrow, and we all hope to be ready to beat Italy this time!
Jim Stone: "In spite of our all night train ride, and people being tired, we won the first game and were in positions to win games two and three. We have to build on that and continue to improve. We have our last match tomorrow... Let's see if we can come up with a little more effort and finish this tour with a win."
