Still in Florence!

Last night we had an awesome dinner at a local restaurant. We were downstairs in a somewhat wine cellar type setting. It was really pretty. We tried a choc dessert that only made it around the table one time before it was gone haha. Afterwards some of us ventured out for some Florence night life. We met some kids from KU which was nice to be able to speak some English!..Today we got up at started another tour at 930. We went into The Academia and saw David, It was amazing how large the sculptures are in real life. We ended up getting stuck in some rain with no umbrellas so the tour was cut a little short. While still walking we were asked if we wanted to buy umbrellas for "cheap price, 3 euro" about 20 times by 20 different people. They are pretty persistant about selling things here! Now we had some lunch and stopped at Mary Lou's to write and then we are going to do some shopping at the local markets because it is our last day in Florence before we head to Rome. Hopefully the sun comes out soon and hopefully everyone is enjoying the blog. We hope to be able to put more pictures on soon but if not we all have PLENTY to show you guys when we get back. We are greatful for this experience and are truly enjoying every minute.
Miss everyone!
<3 Trisha

FIRENZE...aka Florence!

Hello All!

We just got back to the hotel from our 2nd match of the trip. We played a "B2" team from Florence that will be a "B1" team next year and the players will get payed to play. They had some very talented young women on the team and the bottom line is they were just more physical than we were. After we got beaten pretty badly the first game, we made game 2 a little tighter, took game 3 from them, and lost a very hard fought game 4. It just goes to show that a little heart and consistent play will make even lesser teams compete against anyone! Jamie and I were very pleased with the persistency of our team and the improvement throughout the match.

Today we started the day off with a 2 1/2-3 hour walking tour with a great local guide. She was awesome! She met us at the hotel around 10 and then we walked all around the city (pretty dang far!). I don't have a map next to me right now to tell you all the highlights, but we went to St. Mark's Plaza, some really neat old palaces that are now museums, Michelangelo's childhood home, some great churches, the Ponte Vecchio (Gold Bridge) , and Michelangelo's palace that sits on top of a hill with some killer views of Florence. I know we did more...but this is what I'm remembering for now. Probably the highlight of the tour, or maybe lowlight, was when Katie Legg decided she was tired of holding her giant water bottle when we were in one of the old palaces and she absentmindedly set it down on a 5-600 year old table! I thought the guard lady was going to chop off her head!!! It was priceless.

After the tour we split our ways, Jamie and I went to this little Italian restaurant with our tour guide Joseph, the girls went to eat somewhere else in the city and I think we all just pilled around a bit and went in some of the shops. Some people came back for a siesta before we left for the match around 5. It is just such a great experience for these girls to soak all this culture in and also get to meet some volleyball players from a different country!

We are now heading to eat some dinner at the Italian place that my friend, Mary Lou, took us to yesterday. Mary Lou and Rich are my college coaches', Kim Kelly,parents who live here in Florence. They have been great to us so far! Being that they are from PA like myself, I am actually going to head over there after dinner and some live music to watch the Penguins Game 1 of the Stanley Cup, which will be on live here at 2am. I don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight!!

Tour tomorrow morning of some more fantastic sights in Florence at 9:30 then the afternoon free. I may be able to write tomorrow evening from Mary Lou's, but if not the girls have to pay for interenet, so we probably write when we get into Rome on Monday.

Until then...GO PENS!

Megan

Arrived in Florence

Hello All! We arrived in Florence around noon. We got our rooms and went to meet Megan's friend, Mary Lou. She took us to a local restaurant and treated us to lunch. Megan, Jamie, Whit, and Nat went to a monestary founded by Irish monks located in a town of ruins above Florence with beautiful views. The rest of us went shopping for a while and took a rest. Then some of us went out for gellato and others enjoyed Florence's nightlife. Will post pictures tomorrow after our tour of Florence! Ciao, Tay

Day 4 in Pesaro!

Hey everyone we are all in Pesaro today and the day started out with a bang! We all got to sleep in this morning, which was excellent (we all needed a good nights sleep). After another buffet breakfast us girls took a trip to the beach. But this was not your normal beach trip, it was windy and cold. Believe it or not the water was warmer then the air. So we just took a lot of pictures. After some fun in the sun and a restful after noon we went to the parish in the middle of town. The parish was a bunch of kids (and families) that were a part of an after school program. We taught all the kids from ages 4-13 how to play volleyball. They all caught on very fast and we all enjoyed working with all of them, though there was a language wall that we had to hurdle it was still a good experience and we all got to see what it was like to work with people native to this community. We did not have much time to rest after we had been playing with the kids, we almost went directly to the gym were we got the chance to play with the Italian Nationals teams. This was probably one of the most fun things that we have done this trip. We interacted with them as much as we could (language hurdle again) and enjoyed pizza after the game with the other team. The game went very well from the start. We started off well, serve recieve was doing well and we were putting balls away. When the game was over we ended up not quite beating them. We fell 1-3. But all games were lost by 2 or 3 points. After the game while we ate pizza the Italian girls gave us books that were made to tell people about their team and their sport, they also gave our captians one of their very own warm up jacket and a flag. On the ride home we had some awesome girl talk and we gave each other nicknames! (I wont go into detail, but they are all from "The Land Before Time") Now we are all back at the hotel just about ready to turn in for tonight! I hope that everyone reading this know that we miss all of you and hope to see you soon!! We love you!

Love,

"the freshman"

Epp, Hall, and "J"

Pesaro

Well, I looked for a girl to have write a little now, but I can't find them! Not to worry, I believe they are out exploring this amazing little beach town we are staying in along the Adriatic Sea! The name of the town is Pesaro, which is where we came yesterday after visiting San Marco. We all went out to dinner last night in this amazing little local restraunt. We had some very good food, lots of laughs as always, and a fun time overall. Some of us went to a local cafe afterwards and hung out, finished watching the big Manchester/Barcelona soccer game, and danced to Michael Jackson songs that were played for us! Good memories as always. We met some local young Italians so it was fun to speak "Italish" with them!

This morning we all slept in a little, still getting over the time change, we ate breakfast and then were free to explore as we wanted. I know the girls really wanted to just lay on the beach, but it is very windy and the water is pretty choppy and chilly. I am not sure what they ended up getting into. Natalie and I decided to use the free bikes from our hotel and explore the town on wheels! We road around for about 2 hours and really had an enjoyable time. The town is very nice, with old coblestone streets and lots of old buildings, typical for Italy! There is an old castle that had a moat around it and we were able to ride our bikes around the trail outside of it. We also explored some of the local shops.

I will have one of the girls write more later, we are meeting in about 30 minutes to head to an orphanage about 10 minutes away to teach the children volleyball, that will be our service part of the trip. We will then come back to the hotel, probably eat something, and head out to our 8pm match against the Italian "C" league champion. Apparently, this match is a pretty big deal and the team is strong, because we made the local paper today! Not sure what we are in for...we will let ya know!

Til then,
Megan

ITALY is BEAUTIFUL! Venice was so HOT but today in San Marino was just perfect! We having an AMAZING time! Were going to the beach tonight and to a bar to watch the futbol game.

Sorry mom and dad.....but we're all moving to San Marino! It was amazing! The view was breath taking... and our guide said it was only a 1.5 out of 10 today! San Marino is a separate country within Italy. They have their own govenment, own taxes, and everything. It is a republic with 30,000 people on top of Mount Titan. The weather was great today, much better than yesterday's heat in Venice! We spent our day shopping and spending. The shops were really neat, and we could have spent all day there, however out deadline was 4pm...which worked out perfectly because the second we stepped on the bus it started hailing! But, we made it just barely! So now we are enjoying ocean front views from our hotel rooms in Pasaro! We'll be going out on the town tonight! Can't wait! We love Italy!
-Whitney

Safe and Sound

We arrived in Venice this morning after a 8 hour flight. Our tour guide, Joseph, greeted us after some of us stamped our passports (for the first time) and got our bags. Because our hotel would not allow us to check in at that time (a shower would have been nice), we went from the plane to a bus to a boat to VENICE. Tired but excited to see the sun (it was 90 degrees), we walked around Venice taking photos, exchanging money, eating lunch. Then our Venice tour guide spent an hour and a half telling us about the rich history and the detail regarding Venice's architecture. All of us hit a wall around 3pm, so we are now showering and relaxing in our hotel. Jamie

We are off...ALMOST!

Getting ready in the office to go get the van and head off to the airport! Say some prayers for us and also that we don't kill each other from lack of sleep on this first night!!! We will post as soon as we can when we get there.

Megan

Will we experience culture like this in Italy?

Less than a week until we land in Venice!

Greetings followers! We are getting very excited about the trip...the girls are finishing up their semester and now time to focus on ITALY! Jamie and I have been in the office this week making our final preparations, one of which on my list is creating this blog! So here you go, we will blog as much as we can on the trip, I'm hoping each girl will take a day and journal. Happy Following!

Megan

While the girls are figuring out excactly what to pack right now, Megan is trying to figure out how to pack a single 30-35 year old Italian man in her carry on for the trip back!! In sincerity, I am quite stoked to get lost in Venice, to learn some new Italian history via our tour guide Joseph, and to eat some quality Italian food (like the real DEAL in Italy).

Jamie