Our second day in Rome… after a good nights sleep it all seem real now… yesterday everyone was in a travel induced FOG…. I vaguely remember what we did and where we went…. But when others start talking about what we did… I remember it…. Vaguely… thank goodness I took photos.
It is 8am we are at breakfast… Breakfast simply means that
there is food in the morning…. Gone are the eggs, hash browns, bacon, etc…
Breakfast here is coffee (in several forms but still coffee…) hot chocolate…
(very chocolaty ) croissants, breakfast bread, corn flakes, orange juice… and
some sort of melba type toast… But when
one is hungry… it is not bad…
We all re-grouped at the hotel for our trip to our first competitions.
We were picked up by our motor coach at about 5:30pm and made our way to the gym. The gym is a BUBBLE DOME gym and a very nice private facility … but because it is filled with air (like one of the blow up jumping areas at the fair) only 4-5 people can enter the equalizer chamber at a time to enter the gym… then the next 4-5 enter and so on. Once inside it is a large clean space with a soft floor. The Blue team played first and jumped out to a 10 point lead.... and then started to get a little over confidant and were trying to run plays that were a little to complicated for a group of players who just met the day before... Suddenly the score was tied at 22 each.... After a time out we played a little more disciplined and basic... and won 25-23. The Blue team played next, and the score was pretty close up to about 12 -12... one of the Italian servers went back and served about 8 straight points ... making the score 20-12...We tried to fight back but the score was too much to overcome we lost 25-15.
For the 3rd set ... we started with the blue team playing the first 12 points .... then the Red Team would sub in for the final points.The Red team fell behind 12-6 before the Blue team came onto the court.... And unfortunately the Blue team did not have any any time to warm up after sitting out a game and a 1/2 and found them selves behind more that 6 point most of the way thorough the game. The combined team lost 25-18.
It was a very good night.... lots of energy... lots
of talking.... and good contributions by all players. Following the games we went to pizza with the local team toe Ristorante Maia... a short drive away from the gym. The fixed menu included beverage, a fried rice and cheese ball, bruschetta, Pizza... all for 12 euro. IT as great.... We had our 34 people plus about the same number of Italian players and parents.... If you can imagine 60 teenage girls trying to talk all at the same time.... the noise level and energy levels were ..... very high..... fortunately... we were just about the only ones in the ristorante...We finished up at about 10:30pm... made it back to the Hotel by about 11:15pm... and everyone was exhausted.... and went to bed....
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