Hello from Italy!

PHOTO GALLERY FROM DAY 1 IN ITALY

Hi guys,

We have finally made it to Italy, and it's so pretty and we're all so excited to finally be here! Here's the recap:

After arriving to JFK we had to wait a long while before boarding for our flight to Rome, which is never fun anyway. On top of that, JFK is a very confusing airport, and for 20 minutes we had no idea where we were going and what we were doing. So that was a great time...
 

Then we were, or at least I was, expecting JFK to be fun and exciting with cool stores and delicious restaurants but nooooooooo... Three of the girls and I had to settle for a not-so-delicious restaurant with poor service, and on top of that, no ranch dressing and no soda on tap! What has this world come to?!?

Next, we waited and waited and waited some more, and then finally we boarded. The plane was huge and had a first, second and economy class, which I thought was pretty legit. The whole team was scattered around the entire plane so I didn't get to see them at all. I know some slept most of the way, but others weren't so lucky. I was lucky enough to get a window seat, so I slept most of the time--not that that is a problem for me anyway--but a window seat really helps me get comfortable. I know Deej got stuck in a middle seat with two random people, so you see how things can get uncomfortable sometimes. We were also fed pretty well during the flight, and the flight crew took pretty good care of us, which made this flight much easier.

In the morning we were all ready to land and finally get to Italy. Once we landed, it was about an hour until our next flight to Palermo, Italy, so that went by quick. We also met our tour guide, Tim, there. Our flight to Palermo went by very quickly also, then we got our bags, got on a bus and went straight to our match.

 
We arrived a little bit late for the match, so we had to get ready very quickly, warm up and start playing. The match started out kind of shaky. Our serve-receive struggled for a couple sets before it started to improve. We lost the first set but won the second, third and fourth. By the third set we really started to show up and play like we know how to. We began to have a lot more fun and improve in all our skills, which helped boost our confidence, allowing us to take the match in four. The team we played found our weaknesses and really pushed us in those areas, so they were very good in the way that they made us earn every point, and also how they made very few errors. All in all this has been a great experience so far, and it's only the first day! I can't wait to see what we come across these next couple weeks!

Stayed tuned :)
Izzy Gaulia