Player Journal: Day 7
By Mira Topic & Whitney Garvens

» European Tour archives

	Can you guess which Longhorns are behind the masks? From left to right - Bethany Howden, Jenny Andrew, Sarah Holloway, Mira Topic and Dariam Acevedo.

Mira Topic …
After staying in Pesaro, we took a three-hour ride to Venice, or as the Italians call it, Venezia.

Nobody was awake on the ride because we had to leave Pesaro VERY early, at 6:30 a.m. Jen Christian was leaving the trip for her high school graduation so we had to be at the  Venice airport by 10:30 a.m. for her flight.

After everybody said goodbye to Jen and we made sure she got through the check-in area, we went to our hotel that was very close to the actual city, in a town called Mestre. The Colorado State volleyball team was also on their European tour was staying in same hotel with us and we met them as we were checking in.

Shortly after arriving in the hotel, both teams were on the way to Venice. The bus dropped us off at a bus stop at the entrance to the city around 1 p.m., and we were told to be there at 11 p.m. if we want to get ride back with the teams’ bus. We also get the day ticket for the bus to get around Venice so we could go anywhere we wanted.

Well, the most interesting thing was that this so-called Venice bus was not a bus at all. It was a boat bus! Venice is city that is actually on a few islands so there is no actual ground transportation in the city. The whole group went to the main island, the one where the Grand Canale runs around it, and the ride on the bus was just beautiful. There were so many different houses, bridges, little canals, gondolas… everything was so old and still so beautiful!

	Venice

When we got more into the city we broke up into smaller groups and we able to walk around the city, but we were told to meet at 5 p.m. in the Plaza di San Marco so we could get something to eat.

Dariam (Acevedo) and I went directly to the Plaza di San Marco because it was close to where we were. This plaza was huge and buildings around the plaza were built in a very unique style. There were also so many pigeons on this plaza! I never saw so many pigeons on one place in my life. People were feeding them and there were few people covered with pigeons. It was nice to see them, but it was too scary at the same time. There were just too many birds in one place!!

Then we went to see the famous bridge where prisoners supposedly had their last view of the world. From there you can see almost all of Venice. Well, not exactly the whole city, but almost the whole thing. We saw Palute and Dariam and I decided we wanted to go there. But that building was one of the other islands. So we bought a map to find out the right “bus” routs so we wouldn’t get lost.

You have to really be talented to not get lost in Venice. The city is big, but the streets are so little and buildings are so tall that you can easily go to opposite direction than you really want to. Fortunately, we got to the right bus and got off at the stop we wanted to, but then we got almost lost on our way to Palute. The one thing about wondering on those little streets, called “calle,” is that you get to know city more and you see more places and buildings than you originally tended to, but you also loose time. It was almost 4 p.m. when we get to Palute, so we decided to go back for meeting at 5 p.m.

And then, instead of going to Plaza di San Marco, Dariam and I went to the Plaza la Roma. This is where we got lost. We were there at 5 p.m., but nobody was there, and although it is beautiful, it was not quite as beautiful as the Plaza di San Marco. But the thing was that by the time we came to Plaza la Roma, we passed the Plaza di San Marco few times and didn’t see anybody.

	Sarah Holloway, Bethany Howden, Leticia Armstrong, Erin Larson and Jessica Curtis on the water bus heading into the center of the city.

So we decided to go back to Plaza di San Marco hoping that we are going to meet somebody and on the way there we got lost in streets again. We were going back to the same spots and same bridges. There must be 1,000 bridges in Venice going over little canals and there are also so many gondola drivers. However, we finally figured out where we were and arrived at the Plaza di San Marco. Of course, nobody was there by that time, so we decided to go more sight seeing.

We took the “bus” again to go to the island across but we end up staying on that boat until the end of its route, which was the place where we were supposed to meet at 11 p.m. anyway.

The boat ride was gorgeous! The sun set and all of Venice was in front of us. So after we saw all the familiar places we had seen all day, we went to get something to eat as we didn’t eat anything for dinner. And that’s when we got very lucky. While we were waiting at the bus station, a boat passed by and somebody was yelling my name from the boat. It was Whitney (Garvens) and Bethany (Howden)! They saw us at the bus dock and were yelling at us to get on the boat. Of course, that’s when we noticed that we were standing on the dock for boats headed in the opposite direction we needed, so we ran to other one. After we were on that boat and found Whitney and Bethany, we meet with rest of the group on the next station since they were headed back to the bus stop as well.

It was the end of the day and everybody was tired. However, it was the great day we had yesterday and Venetia was so beautiful. 

	Erin Larson and Brandy Magee braved the numerous pigeons and knelt down to feed some of the many birds in the Plaza di San Marco.

Whitney Garvens …
Meanwhile, as Mira and Dariam were waiting for the team at the bus station, the rest of us were all gathered back at Piazza de San Marco. Jerritt and CSU’s head coach divided both teams up into six groups and gave us a list of tasks we had to complete. It was our own version of a scavenger hunt in Venice! We were told that the first team to reach the end, a local ‘ristorante’ tucked back in the city, would win.

On the list of tasks to accomplish, we had to find a piece of Murano glass for one euro, try on a pair of Italian shoes (that fit) and get a picture, get a group picture with the Venice famous masks on, get a picture of the group on a moving boat, and finally a picture with the bartender of a specific bar.

Jessica Curtis, a girl from the University of Florida, and a girl from CSU were all in my group. After completing all of the tasks, we boarded the water boat and were on our way to the ‘ristorante’. Needless to say, we were a little too over confident. We asked many street vendors for directions to our final stop, but were pretty much taking our time since we thought we would be the first to arrive.  Finally we rounded the corner and found the square where we saw (head coach) Jerritt (Elliott) and the rest of the coaches. Curtis wanted to make our team’s ‘victory’ known, so she suggested that we all run. As she led the way, pointing that we were #1 with her finger, all of the other groups came running around the corner. We were dead last!!!!

Even though we lost, it was really fun trying to communicate with all of the street vendors and shop owners. Some weren’t too excited that all we wanted to do was take a picture with their merchandise - one lady even tried to charge us two euro - but nonetheless, we had a great time … and were able to give everyone a great laugh at the end.