Tuesday, May 26 - Urbino, Italy
Kristen Dealy - Rising Sophomore - Santa Barbara, Calif.

Greetings everyone! What a day we had in the beautiful Urbino, Italy; it could have been perhaps the most thrilling experience. Ever.

I spent the majority of my day today with the best roommates ever, Stephanie Slatt and Christina Kaelin. When we walked into our room last night, we were so excited to see only one bed for the three of us - later to find out that there was a connecting room. We entertained ourselves fabulously, spending the majority of our night flipping between True Life: I am 800 Pounds in German (Megan Fesl translated oh so beautifully), and Top 40 R&B Songs in Italian.

This morning, we woke up and feasted on croissants and Nutella in the courtyard of our hotel, washing it down with perhaps the most bitter grapefruit juice ever, but hey, when in Rome ...

Kaelin, Slatt and I retreated back to our humble abode for a quick catnap, and then jumped on the town bus. We learned quickly not to stand in the way of the bus's electric door after Kaelin got squished and moved out of the way, and my reluctance to move resulted in it clamping me down next to a large Italian lady.

As we walked into town, we met Angela Puente, Beth Wildermuth, Megan Barnicle, and Frenchy Silva (they got an earlier start and had pretty much seen the whole town) who were so excited to have found a bookstore that sold English books. This store was our first stop, where we each purchased a bargain book (so clutch).

From there we went to the Palazzo Ducale, and roamed around a museum containing many fabulous old artifacts and paintings - SO COOL. Absorbing all of this superb culture made us pretty hungry, so we dawdled over to a small walk-in pizzeria where we made best friends with the worker (who had a perfect faux hawk and also, obviously, spoke English). We ate delicious pizza, which became 10 times more delicious when it was only one Euro a slice, so we of course decided to have seconds.

With our appetites satisfied, we determined it was time to conquer one of Urbino's top attraction: the Botanical Garden. With help from Kaelin's shrewd directions, we found the garden and entered. We were at first a bit confused, seeing as it seemed to be a Botanical Garden for ants (if I may quote the famed Zoolander himself). I won't lie, the place was smaller than expected - but the view was pretty, the gardens quaint, and hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?

We then followed the map to find Fortezza Albornoz (assumed English translation: "The Albornoz Fortress"). In order to get our destination, we had to climb a monstrous mountain-road. It was then, as old Italian women were passing us by, and we retreated to "looking around" in a home decor store to catch our breaths, that we realized how these people can eat carbs all day and still be in better shape than all of us. Hot, sweating, and heaving, we came to the clearing with a smaller version of the castle we saw in San Marino and beautiful view of the city of Urbino. When we found out we could not actually enter this fortress, we decided to catch some rays on top of one of its walls, setting up on a little landing whose edge was a straight drop a very long way down (I know, we are so daring, but the view was fantastic).

After surviving a few awkward encounters with other tourists who came to snap some pictures directly over us, we cruised back into the city for a gelato, which is, of course, food of the goddesses. We took the little bus back to the hotel, met up with the group, snagged another slice of pizza (well come on, we need fuel!), and got ready to play. Sadly, the team we were set up to play couldn't make it, so we took vans to a gym to have practice. (Perhaps my favorite part of the day was getting into the van and hearing Bob Marley's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" playing on the radio - EPIC.) Sheila, a player from the Italian team, joined us for practice. She knew absolutely no English, and despite having no idea what was going on in the drills, she was a total baller. (Note: the gym was most definitely not air-conditioned, and after quite the competitive practice, we were sweating like there was no tomorrow.) Even better, after practice, we had a "light" work out, which sent poor Fesl into dehydration mode and whooped the rest of our butts, thanks to Mandy, who was running the show.

Tired, red faced, and sweating profusely (again) we came back to the hotel, showered, and I was so delighted to see we were being served the Italian version of mac & cheese in the hotel restaurant. After dinner, I finally realized the brown splatters on my shirt were from slapping my chocolate flan desert with a spoon, in case anyone was wondering.

Well, I hope you have gotten some insight into the day of the life of Notre Dame volleyball as we rampage all of Italy. Peace out!