The Valley of Temples

PHOTOS FROM THE VALLEY OF TEMPLES

 

Ciao Ram Fans!

It's Kelsey here, and we are in Modica, Italy! So far we are having a fantastic time! Today we started out in Agrigento, Italy. We woke up in the morning and toured the city there and did a little bit of shopping. The city was very different; it almost felt like I was in a movie. The streets were made from brick and very narrow. I was amazed at how well our bus fit through the streets. Also, in one of the shops, it was three stories, but instead of going up, it went down into the ground. After that, we went and toured the Valley of the Temples, and they were gorgeous. All in all, the valley has eight temples, but we only saw three. At one of the temples, we saw a statue of a winged man that was green and blue. He was missing his legs from the knee down and most of his arms. And he was very naked . . . it was a bit of a shocker! At the last temple, me and a few others sat on some rocks and listened to Salvatore explain to us how the education system works in Italy. One thing that I learned was that the colleges are very specific, meaning that if you wanted to study sports medicine, you would go to a college that only offers courses in sports medicine and nothing else. After touring the Temples, we took a two-hour drive to the city of Scicli. 

Scicli was a small little town that went up. So in other words, instead of the roads being flat, they were like ramps and lead to a place where you could climb to a giant cathedral. We explored the cathedral for a while and ended up on top of the mountain. It was very pretty up there, and we could see the whole city. After that, we walked back down to the main part of the city and we noticed that there were water bottles in front of the doorways. We asked Salvatore (he's kind of our information man) why they were there since we hadn't seen that before. He said that because there are stray dogs, they put them there so that they "don't make pee-pee on the doorway." We all thought that was pretty interesting.

Once we got to the bottom we went and explored the city a bit. Meg, Kaila and I went to a few shops and walked around the city. It's kind of awkward though, everyone stares at us. We thought that it was because we were wearing shorts, and none of the other women were. So as usual, we asked Salvatore if shorts were acceptable for women to wear, and he said that yes it was, but it' still cold for them. It's like in the high 80s with clear blue skies . . . But again, according to Salvatore they are used to over 40 degrees Celsius, which is around the 100s. When we went shopping, Bestie, Sam, Carlie, Marlee, and Deej all decided to go in to a cathedral and get kicked out. It wasn't because they were misbehaving, but because they were wearing shorts and tank tops, which is not allowed in the cathedral.  Once we all were done touring the city, we hopped back on the bus and drove like 15 minutes to Modica. 

When we arrived in Modica, we had about an hour to relax, then dinner. One fun fact about how they serve the meals here in Italy is that your appetizer is pasta, then your main course would be a type of meat with vegetables and dessert would be either fruit or a salad, or what we would think of as actual dessert like ice cream. Today at lunch, we had cannolis . . . Oh my goodness they were so good!!! As you could imagine, we were so full after dinner, but we still went and toured the city of Modica for 30 minutes. Most of the shops were closed since it was like 9:30 p.m., but we still managed to completely fill our stomachs with gelato. After that we came back to the hotel, and everyone went back to their rooms to relax and sleep. Tomorrow we will be going to the beach—which looks absolutely beautiful—and shopping. We also will be starting our tournament here, which should be a lot of fun. And someone new will be telling you about those fun adventures tomorrow, so until then ciao!

Love,

Kelsey Snider

P.S.  I want to say hello to my family and boyfriend . . . I love you guys and miss you and can't wait to see you when we get back!!!