I met Alina for a ride to Cernusco at the Loreto station at 8pm, Friday October 10th. We had an ultimate tournament for the weekend in Bologna, which was about a two hour drive from Milan. We all met at Cernusco, and from there left on our journey. And of course... I just slept in the car.
We arrived to Bologna pretty late since we left late, and found spots in the gym to sleep in. Apparently, it is common for the host team to rent out a gym to hold the tournament at, so as to provide sleeping accommodations to the traveling teams. We slept on the floor of a gym with sleeping bags, and many people had blow up mattresses, or foam to lay on. One guy had a hammock! Man was I jealous...Chiara so graciously brought sleeping amenities for me since I don't have anything. The Italians call this "camping," and were really surprised when I told them that camping in the United States meant sleeping on the ground out in the woods with only sleeping bags. We went outside to hang out with the other ultimate teams for about half an hour, but we were really tired and slept around 12/1am. We had a big day tomorrow!
We had five 45-minute games on Saturday, with two byes...which is really short compared to the games we play in the States. They thought that 4 90-minute games were way too long... All in all I was still pretty tired, being out of shape and everything...and we only had three subs that day. We were seeded 5th out of 6th, and on the first day we actually beat the 2nd seeded team! It was a lot of fun, and pretty exhilarating. It reminded me of how much I missed ultimate. We went 2-3 the first day.
I'm not sure if I talked about this before, but there's always a post-session after each game. In Europe, it is common for open/women/coed teams that just played against each other, to gather together in a circle alternating team members. Then one person from each team says a little blurb about the game, how fun it was, what the other team did well, and so on. And everyone claps and gives each other high fives. (Hand shakes were given before the formation of the circle...lol) It's interesting how close these teams are. At least for the women's teams, they were all Italian, so everyone knew each other, but they do this all across Europe as well.
And I also learned that the Callahan rule just got introduced here in Europe!
After the games on Saturday, I experienced my first team shower...or shall I say division shower. It was pretty much all of the women's teams showering in a common shower. When I commented on the showers, Vale said : "In Italy, we share everything, even boyfriends." I'm sure she was kidding, but it was a pretty funny comment. I can't say that I'm used to these showers yet, or that I plan to be, but it was necessary...I had to overcome my self-consciousness or sleep dirty...and there was no way in hell I was sleeping dirty.
Saturday night the host team, Bologna, offered us a very fulfilling dinner with pasta and sausages. Of course there was beer, and entertainment as well! 8 teams competed in the "Beer Race" which consisted of four team mates taking turns chugging a beer on an exercise bike, and lots of spinning and running and jumping over things like an obstacle course, and lots more beer. It was hilarious because people would fly into the beers and fall all over the place.
On Sunday we went 1-1. I had an attempted Greatest lol, and in the same game I got this nasty layout scab that won't stop bleeding. It looks horrible... I think I laid out in the one spot where there was no grass...simply dirt.
We got home probably around 10pm, but I really loved it. It was so much fun to hang out with the Milan team, and I felt like I got so much closer to them. While at the tournament, all of Italian women's ultimate had a meeting to discuss the future of ultimate in their country. A lot of the women expressed desires to further the sport; to make it more competitive. I'm really rooting for them; it'll take a lot of time and commitment, but I believe that it's well worth it in the end.
This is the wonderful Milan team that I've been playing with, Extra Yawp!
No comments:
Post a Comment