Day 9!

Greetings from Venice!

Here we are on our final day in Europe...it has been quite a trip!  It feels like all of the days have gone by so fast.  We awoke this morning in Rovinj, Croatia, and had a beautiful seaside breakfast before departing to Venice.  Once again, the "2.5 hour" bus trip turned into a 4 hour adventure.  The girls slept for the majority of the trip, while we (Kim and Jodi) plotted our preseason training regimen in the front of the bus.

Side note:  Jason Wudi won the over-under on the number of new dresses and footwear that the girls would wear this morning.  If previous blogs haven't indicated, the weather here has been a bit cooler than what we expected.  So, at the first hint of sunshine and warm weather yesterday, most of the girls wore dresses and sandals while Kelly and Lo sported coordinating gelato-inspired shorts.  Again this morning, the sun was shining, which resulted in more dresses being pulled from the bottoms of travel bags.

We were greeted in Venice by a steady rain, which resulted in yet another wardrobe change.  This time, the sensible side of our girls won out over fashion, as most ventured out in jeans and jackets with umbrellas drawn.  Except Tommy, who dressed to impress the Italian ladies in khaki shorts and a classy v-neck T.

The rain deterred none of the girls (and Steven and Tommy) from spending their remaining Euros on anything from gelato to Italian apparel to vino...Jodi and I can't wait to send our kids on European vacations so they will bring us the sweet gifts many of you will soon receive!  We snapped some quick pictures of Saint Mark's Square, Doge's Palace, the Rialto Bridge, the Bridge of Sighs, and lots and lots of random bridges over canals or narrow streets lined with beautiful old buildings.  Some of the girls were offered beautiful red roses from Italian men, which they readily accepted...not realizing they needed to pay for them.  Imagine Heni's surprise when they blamed her for not warning them that men might be peddling flowers and not just randomly giving them away to be nice.

A dinner of lasagna and tiramisu, followed by some last-minute purchases was the perfect end to our Venetian adventure.  Our journey on a crowded public bus would not have been complete without a bus-surfing competition between Kelly S, Lo, Tommy and Jason, with Steven as judge. Kim won*. Actually, it was incredibly entertaining to watch these very athletic people attempt to keep their feet in the same position and not touch any other object or person while standing on the "hinge" of the moving bus.

As we write this at 2:15 a.m., almost all of us are attempting to stay awake all night in order to better adjust back to the Central Time Zone since we need to be on the shuttle to the airport at 4:45.  Jodi and Kim are accomplishing this through writing this blog, drinking some Coca-Cola Lights and telling ourselves we are funnier than we are.  The young ones are playing dice, surfing their 2-euro internet, eating snacks, and drinking shots of espresso.

We could not have asked for a better 10 days than those we have just experienced - with a fun tour guide and a great group of college students who not only represented themselves well on and off the court, but who made us proud to be their coaches once again.  Thanks to all of you for an amazing trip!

Work hard this summer, and we'll see you on August 16!

Kim & Jodi