A day at the beach

PHOTOS FROM DAY 3: THE BEACH AND PLAYING MODICA

Hey all!

It's Michelle here reporting on the third day of our European tour, and our first full day in Modica. Right now we're headed toward the beach, which is about 30 minutes from our hotel, but on the way, us girls are anxious to get a bit of shopping in, so we'll be taking a pit stop in the town. The drive to the main drag of the town is all downhill, and I am still in awe how our bus driver is able to maneuver this huge bus down these narrow winding roads without hitting anything.

Shopping was a great success! Chocolate was the main priority, and that was not an issue to find since Modica is known for their chocolate. There are so many exotic flavors that we will be coming home with, such as lemon, cinnamon, café (coffee) and even peperoncino (jalapeño)! Many of us struggled to communicate effectively, but we're learning more every day. In one boutique, Izzy learned the proper term for a girl in the Mafia. It's Maffiosa. We couldn't help but to laugh at this, and the vendor got a kick out of it too because she then proceeded to bid us farewell by smiling while waving and saying, ‘Maffiosa!!’ Some of the girls found a leather boutique where we were able to watch the products be handcrafted. We'll be coming home with new leather wallets, belts, calendar holders, keychains and more. Now we're off to the beach, and I'm excited to report back in a bit :)

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So just finished up our day at the beach. It's about 2pm here, and we had a blast. Brie and Deej rented a canoe/kayak-looking thing, and despite the slightly breezy conditions managed to not tip.

A few more of us took turns taking out this awesome paddle boat that had a water slide on it. Tom offered to rent it as long as each of us used the slide. So the first crew of four took to sea (Dana, Meg, Iz and Kels). Dana was the first brave soul to test the waters and Meg followed right behind. While the next group tested out the paddle boat (Carlie, Sam, Bestie and myself), Tom and Brook decided to show us all up by going for a nice long run on the beach.

Salvatore ended up meeting us at the beach, and as always we all had fun chatting and goofing around with him. He was calling us out for the varying levels of tanness on our team, referring to the pasty white gals as "mozzarella"(don't worry, it's only the beginning of summer, girls) Iz was "cappuccino,” while Sam was "café." Now it's time to start getting pumped for our match tonight against the Malta National Team!

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CSU with the Malta National Team.
CSU gave away its jerseys to Malta after the match.

We pulled off our second win of the trip tonight. There were several highlights, but the number one by far was Marlee getting back on the court for the first time since November. She played AMAZING, and the crowd went wild when she got a dynamite kill (or at least all of us Rammies did! :) ) After the match we were able to take a group photo and give away some Colorado State gear to the Malta team, and they were ecstatic! We wrapped up another amazing day in Europe by having a dance party on the bus and a nice dinner. Can't wait to see what tomorrow's adventures bring, but I'm going to get going for now . . . I have some laundry soaking in the sink that I need to hang up around my room for the night.

Ciao,

:) Michelle Smith :)