Canisius College Women's Basketball Italian Tour - Day Eight
Today was the most anticipated day
of the entire trip, we got up, had breakfast and left at 9:15 a.m. for
beautiful Firenze (Florence). A short 45-minute bus ride later, we arrived and
met up with a tour guide. We were all given maps and the final destination and
meeting point was at 3:45 p.m. at San Croce. That left us approximately 5 hours
to find all the leather purses, backs, jackets, wallets and clothing we had all
been eagerly awaiting. I remember my mother saying to me, "Micayla you better
be right, you have told me to wait for Florence with almost everything I tried
to buy since the beginning of this trip." Let's just say, at the end of the day
my parents along with everyone else on the trip had nothing but smiles and
heavy backs to show for their day spent in gorgeous Florence. It was funny
because after we left the tour guide and our initial meeting spots we all
gathered in small groups and headed our separate ways, but at one point in the
early afternoon we all ran into each other at the leather market.
They had everything you could
imagine and more - leather belts, purses, watches, shoes, wallets, Italian zip
up sweaters, pashmina scarves and jewelry. At one point, my father's back hurt
so much from caring all of our bags that was had to stop and take a short break
and grab some food. My parents along with Coach Gwin, Mrs. Lee, Tasia, Coach T,
and Erin purchased beautiful leather jackets, all for reasonable prices. Coach
Zeh also snatched a handy new brown briefcase for work. I would say today was
the most successful shopping day for everyone on the trip. Steph, Britt and I
bought zip up hoodies for $15 Euro, we are definitely a great bunch of shoppers
because everyone talked about how much they bargained and the great prices they
all got for the quality of their goods. After a long day in the sun, we headed
back to the hotel for our pregame meal then left for our game around 6:15 p.m.
As we walked into the gym, the man
who manages the building and who kept the score, started screaming in Italian
for us to, 'STAY OFF THE COURT' as Alessia translated to us. No one was to step
onto the court without wearing basketball shoes. This was strange to all of us
after warm-up because the court was covered in dust and super slippery. The
other team arrived looking very intimidating, the one girl had tattoos on her
neck and was covered with facial piercings, but most of them rolled in with
style. Within the first 3 minutes of play, we had about seven traveling calls,
four fouls and seven points. We were all slipping and sliding everywhere and
every time someone touched the ball a travel was called on them. It took us about
10 minutes into the game to get going and before we knew it we had a 30-point
lead at halftime.
We were able to work on a bunch of new offensive plays and
were able to execute new things out of our offense, which was nice to see. The
gym manager used some type of liquid floor cleaner at halftime that smelled
like really bad wine mixed with peroxide, but it did help with the dust a
little bit. We ended the game with 99 points, one shy of our ultimate goal, but
were once again extremely successful. On Friday, we head to Rome for our final
two days of our 2009 Italian tour. I cannot believe how fast this trip has gone
by, I wish we could stay in Italy forever!
Ciao!
Mic
