Ciao, Ciao, Ciao --- Erin Hollinger and Kathryn Huber

On Tuesday morning, after departing from our humble abode in Como, we had the pleasure of a three hour bus ride to the splendid floating city of legend, a.k.a Venice. Upon our arrival, we were once again awoken to Flavio’s melodious signature greeting “Wakey wakey geerls! Sleeping beauties! And Brave knight!” (Brave knight referring to Julie Mooney’s father). We then made the trek across the lagoon by way of yacht (and by yacht we mean: boat). Stepping off the “yacht” we were greeted by picaresque Venetian houses, mansions and cathedrals with whitewashed walls, marble columns and orange tile roofs…and a multitude of noisy, dirty, smelly tourists. Once again, we were treated to another delectable authentic Italian lunch, followed by our first experience of getting lost in the winding maze of Venice. No worries, we found our way back just in time for a two hour walking tour of the streets and canals of the city, which actually became a history lesson instead. On this tour, we were educated on everything from the façade of St. Mark’s Duomo (Cathedral), to the construction of the gondolas, and finally to the “peegeon sheet” of the city’s public drinking supply.

After that, we were then turned loose upon the city to get lost to an even greater extent than before, where we could deplete the remainder of our Euros. With tired feet and a heavy heart, we returned not so empty handed to our “yacht” with souvenirs ranging from stockpiles of Venetian glass jewelry (the entire Mooney family and Chelsea Lasky) to enormously oversized sunglasses (Emily Mueller) and fabulous semi-authentic Prada handbags (Sarah Milligan). With such goods in hand, we then made our way to the illustrious and extremely unfamiliar Holiday Inn where we served a dinner of pork parmesan, an endless supply of ham pasta and French fries.

Entirely too early the next morning, we were bussed over to the Venetian airport to say our final farewells to Flavio and his brightly colored and super tight pants. By some miracle, Erica Iafelice’s bag was able to pass the weight limit and make it onto our plane (by the way, the miracle was Kathryn Huber). This plane was no ordinary plane, however, it was a plane of tiny yellow and blue plastic seats supplemented with a one of a kind in-plane outlet mall selling everything from Hello Kitty perfume to men’s tailored business suits. This plane also contained specific instructions to remove all our high heels and dentures in the case of an emergency (keep in mind that we are college basketball players and of course make use of both in our everyday lives).


Even though no one actually knew were we were going (Chelsea Peck and Erica Iafelice definitely didn’t even know which country we were in), we made it to Belgium safely and rendezvoused with our new tour guides Yon and Hendrich. They then took us by Fiat minivan on a three hour trip through the winding hills to our homey hotel in Saarbroken. Here we were treated to our first German meal consisting of delicious schnitzel. Following this meal, we headed off to play a semi-friendly game against a semi-German team. Even if it wasn’t the prettiest of matches, Lauren Elkin proved to be the team’s MVP and Erin Hollinger became the team’s first player to foul out, only to make a huge comeback by returning to play the entire second half with six fouls.


All in all, even though in these countries lavatory breaks come with a monetary fee, and gas stations come with their very own Pizza Huts (with slogan reading “Done the American Way”), we have found Italy, Germany, and Brussels (and whatever other country Erica and Chelsea think they are in) to be beautiful, friendly and very good at basketball.

Signing off,

Two very well gelato fed, ankle swollen, and recently smashed by huge German/American/14-year old ballers:

Erin Hollinger and Kathryn Huber