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 At the airport in Paris, Branigan Fuller (UNCG) Carrie Minogue, Whitney Roth (U of St. Loius) and Lizzy Rondone. |
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July 18, 2008
Greetings from Maribor Slovenia!
Carrie [Minogue] Lizzy [Rondone] and I left the Atlanta airport on Wednesday at 3:30 for a flight to Paris, France. The eight hour flight was smooth and went quickly. We each watched 3 movies and were able to get in a little sleep. When we arrived in Paris it was 6:30 am and we were all exhausted. We had a three hour lay over and we all slept on the floor waiting on the flight. None of us had been to Paris and we hoped to see the Eiffel Tower on the landing or take off, but we didn't have any luck.
We finally landed in Zagreb, Croatia and found our group. We had some familiar faces amongst us. Branagan Fuller plays at UNCG and Carrie's one time high school setter who plays at St. Louis University were there. We had to wait for a few people to come so we went to the airport cafe and fell asleep.
We traveled from Zagreb to Maribor in two different vans. The vans are boxes and the seats are upright. One of our hosts is a CRAZY driver and I almost had 10 heart attacks on our way there. We crossed into Slovenia and we could begin to see the foothills of the Alps. They are a little smaller then our mountains and are pretty in their own way.
The first thing we did was go to practice. By this time I barely knew my name so I knew the athletes weren't going to be able to perform well. I was surprised how well they practiced. We were still missing two athletes from Michigan and one from New Orleans so our team wasn't complete. The night ended pretty quickly. We ate pizza at one of the host's restaurant and they served three awesome different salads and pizza. Both Carrie and Lizzy are picky eaters so they were relieved to eat something they were familiar with.
This morning was our first practice with the full roster. We have 13 athletes and I am one of four coaches. This morning at practice the athletes received a lot of individual attention from the four coaches! We finished practice and had lunch at the host hotel. I thought the food was great, but Carrie and Lizzy would not agree.
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The team is excited to play against foreign competition. We are still working on our organization of defense and offense, but we have such talented athletes on the team that I think we will be able to hold our own. GO USA!
