Senior forward Bri Flanders will blog on the daily happenings of the women's hoops team as they visit Italy. Check out the latest post and photos from their journey abroad.
If you are on facebook, also be sure to check out Bri's photo album.
January 2, 2010 - Last Entry
Today was our last official day in Italy. We spent most of it in
Milan. Milan is such a pretty city.
Elena told us that a lot of the city had to be rebuilt after World
War II, so a lot of the buildings are very modern. We began our
visit to the city with a guided tour. It lasted about an hour and
we saw the Sforza Castle, the Galleria, La Scala and the city
square, and the Duomo Cathedral.
After the tour we were able to explore the city on our own for
about 4 hours, the most time we have ever had in one place. A lot
of the travel party went off on their own, visiting museums,
shopping and having lunch in a local caf. I managed to visit the
Duomo Cathedral, La Scala and the museum in the Sforza castle.
The Duomo cathedral was magnificent. It was so large and had so
much detail in its construction. The cathedral is Gothic, so there
are tons of sculptures and spires around the facade. Typical gothic
structures have multiple flying buttresses to help distribute the
weight of the marble walls, the Duomo cathedral has massive columns
inside to help keep it standing. The inside of the cathedral was
gorgeous. Huge tapestries and paintings lined the main sanctuary
and there was stained glass everywhere. Above the main altar was a
red light. This light was showing where the church housed a nail
from the cross that Jesus was crucified on. Apparently, the nail is
removed only during specific times and shown to the public. The
rest of the time is held in the wall during all other times. Some
of the girls were able to wait in line to go to the roof of the
cathedral. They had spectacular views of the surrounding area of
Milan they had great pictures. I will send those in once we get
back home.
Once we were done at the cathedral, my mom and I headed back
through the Galleria, which is a large collection of stores all
contained under a high glass ceiling. We had walked through this
place on the tour and had stopped to look at a mosaic on the floor.
The mosaic depicts a bull, which has significance to Italians
because Turin (with the root of the word being toro, which means
bull) was the first capital of the country. Throughout the years,
it has become a belief that if someone puts their left heel in the
groove in the middle of the mosaic and turns around, they will get
good luck. Of course, many of us did it, hoping that there is some
truth to this belief.
After the Duomo and the Galleria, I visited La Scala, the famous
Opera house in Milan. It was beautiful. I was so impressed with the
intensity of colors within the performance area even though the
building is so old. One bit of history that we learned while on the
tour was that during the unification of Italy, the square that La
Scala is currently part of actually had houses on the land. These
houses were demolished and the city hall and other public buildings
were built. The rest of the museum in La Scala had backdrops and
costumes worn during previous shows held in the theater.
After La Scala, my mother and I sat down for lunch at a local caf
called Caf Dante. The caf had a seating area outside with space
heaters. It was nice, but I was really thankful for the heaters
since today was the coldest of the week, even though it was the
sunniest day. I had gnoccheti al pesto and my mother had ravioli
with asparagus. Both pasta dishes were so good. That is definitely
going to be one the things I most miss about Italy: the great
food.
After lunch, we continued down via Dante back towards the Sforza
castle. The museum in the castle holds many of the art that was in
Milan throughout the citys existence. Some of the art dated back to
the fourth century AD. The highlights of this museum included work
by Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo.
The Da Vinci work was a fresco painted on the wall of tone of
the rooms within the castle. I was slightly disappointed with
piece. I guess I was expecting some sort of Madonna painting, but
all I got was fragments of a painting that looked like bricks on
the wall. They were obviously Da Vinci, but still not what I was
hoping for. The Michelangelo piece though was really interesting.
It was the Pieta Rondanini, one of the last sculptures that he
worked on before he died. It was really cool to see the different
approaches that were being taken. There was one completely detached
arm and Mary had two faces. According to the summaries,
Michelangelo changed the subject of this sculpture from a depiction
of the Deposition, to the more complete depiction of Mary holding a
limp body of Christ.
The rest of the time spent was done doing a little shopping for
last minute gifts. The team returned to the hotel and had a entire
travel party end of trip dinner. After dinner everyone returned to
their room to pack for our 3:30 am departure for our flight. Im
pretty sure the team has decided to stay up until then, almost to
ensure that we will sleep at some point during the 10 hours we will
be in the air tomorrow.
I hope that this blog has been helpful for all our friends of WSC
Womens Basketball out there. I know the girls and I have had a fun
time trying to explain what we have been doing and the fun things
that we have experienced. If you are a member of Facebook, please
check out all the photos from our week long trip to Italy. Im sure
that the rest of the team will have their pictures up just as soon
as we wake up after getting home tomorrow evening.
Please come help support us as we begin our second semester
games against Eastern Connecticut State University on Wednesday
January 6th at 7. Any questions about our trip or upcoming events,
just let us know!!!
Arrivederci!
Bri
Photo Captions: The first three pictures are of the Sforza Castle, La Scala and the inside of the Domou Cathedral; the next photo is of Da Vinci's sculpture in the Sforza and the last photo is the Pieta Rondanini
January 1, 2010
Today the travel party visited the city of Turin (Torino) in North Western
Italy. After the festivities from last night, we were all happy
with the 2 hour bus ride because we were able to get some more
sleep. The strange thing about the first of the New Year is that
the majority of stores are closed since it is a holy day. According
to Elena (our tour guide), most stores will open on the 2nd and
have major sales. The visit was not a total waste for shopping as
there were many sidewalk stands selling scarves, hats and gloves,
and miscellaneous jewelry.
I was excited to visit Turin because it was the last city to hold
the winter Olympics back in 2006. I was hoping that there would be
some things left over from when the city hosted the events, but
there was nothing left, so I was a little disappointed.
We only had two hours to spend in the city, so most of the group
just walked around the square and had lunch at one of the few cafes
that were open. Others went in search of nearby churches and
visited the numerous castles that Turin has in its center from when
it once was the capital of Italy. In the middle of the main square
were two castles. The Palazzo Reale, is the bigger of the two in
the immediate center, stretching along an entire side of the
square. The castle housed the Savoy family. The Palazzo Reale is
standing on land that previously had 3 churches on it. In the back
of the courtyard, there was a mosaic floor of a map of the world
and Wheel of Fortune that was found when construction was taking
place. It was really interesting to see. Professor Semerjian, Mrs.
Liberatore, and Professor Brownlee all made comments about the Da
Vinci Code being connected to this mosaic but I somehow missed the
connection completely. The mosaic was actually located behind the
Duomo di San Giovanni Battista, or the Chapel of the Holy Shroud. I
know very little about the history of the Shroud of Turin, but this was the
chapel that the shroud is held in. Unfortunately, like most of the
local shops, the church was closed because it is the 1st of
January.
My mother and I were able to walk around the castle and explore
its gardens, which had a temporary ice skating constructed in it as
well. I find it funny that in almost every city we have visited
there has been an ice skating rink. While in the gardens, I got a
great view of the Mole Antonelliana, which is a giant steel
construction that is the Italian equivalent to Paris’ Eiffel
Tower.
On the ride back from Turin, again most everyone slept though not
before we saw a great view of the Swiss Alps. These mountains
seemed larger and had much more snow covering them, than the other
ones we had seen. I may be completely mistaken and they could
possibly be the same mountains just with more snow – it has
been raining here lately.
The rest of the night was spent relaxing in the hotel, having a
lot of team bonding time. We ordered room service for dinner (again
because the local restaurants and shops are closed) and afterwards
just hung around.
Tomorrow we head to Milan for the day for massive amounts of
shopping!!
Arrivederci per ora!
Bri
Photo Captions: The photos in their order are: the Plazzo Reale; Duomo di Giovani Battista; Mosaic of World Map & Wheel of Fortune; Mole Antonelliana
December 31, 2009
Today was a pretty relaxing day. Unfortunately it was very gray
and dreary and rained all day. In the morning, we had no official
plans, so some of the travel party walked to the center of Cantu.
There were several streets lined with clothing stores and small
cafes. Some of the girls bought some pasta or Italian pastries
while some bought souvenirs. The center also has a very nice church
that was built during the 10th century. Stasia and Kaleigh were
able to go inside and hopefully a few of us will be able to attend
mass in the morning.
After visiting Cantu, the whole travel party took the bus to Como.
The city is very nice and extremely pretty. We got to the city a
little early so we were able to explore the markets before meeting
up with our tour guide. Like in Verona, the city had constructed a
skating rink. After the tour, Coach (Tessmer) and her young
daughter Lily went skating and said they had a great time.
We met up with our tour guide Robbie, who gave us the option of
taking a boat tour on the Lake. Obviously the group voted to go on
a boat tour. During the tour we were able to see many of the villas
that line the shore of Lake Como. Unfortunately because the weather
was not the greatest we could not see all of the mountains. I had
mentioned yesterday that we would not be able to see where George
Clooney lives. While on the boat tour, we were only able to see
where he lived, but not the actual houses (he owns 3). The only way
we would have been able to see the houses was if we took the 3 hour
tour. We also got to see Sophia Loren’s and Versace’s
homes. We also saw the villa that was used in the movie Ocean's
Twelve starring - you guessed it - George Clooney!
After the boat tour, we headed further into the center of town to
see Como’s prized cathedral Duomo (not to be confused with
the famous Duomo in Milan, which we will visit on Saturday). The
most interesting part of the cathedral is the mixture of
architectural types. The cathedral has themes of medieval, gothic,
Romanesque, and romantic. It was obvious that resident’s of
Como hold this cathedral in high regard. Robbie often referred to
the church as “her’s”. Inside the cathedral was
beautiful. There were multiple tapestries and paintings lining the
walls. Also the gothic vaulted ceilings were painted with blue and
gold. Everything in this cathedral was so beautiful. In the front
of the church were two massive altars. They nearly reached the
ceilings. It was so beautiful and so interesting, since the church
was being set up for night mass.
After going through the cathedral, we had more time to explore the
city on our own. Most of us went further down the streets away from
the lakeside and stopped in the local stores. So far everywhere
we’ve been has been somewhat expensive, but we are hoping
that once we head to Milan on the second there will be many sales
because of the new year.
For our Italian New Year’s celebration, we had dinner at the
hotel restaurant with the entire travel party. It was a wonderful
meal, as all of them have been so far. We had pasta with cream
sauce and prosciutto, a chicken dish with potatoes and salad, and
chocolate cake for dessert.
Around 11:30 the team walked to the center of Cantu where we
were told a celebration usually happens with local music. When we
got there, the entire square was deserted except for a few locals
throwing noise makers around. We continued to walk around, but all
the stores and most of the local cafes were closed. We waited until
midnight, where the locals continued to shoot off noisemakers
– which seemed to get progressively louder and thrown closer
to our general direction. We made it fun though. A few of us
started a game of Red Rover and most of those gathered in the
square started watching the game. It was a lot of fun though. Since
Italy is 6 hours ahead, we plan on staying awake for a while later,
and possibly call home.
Tomorrow the group is heading to Turin (Torino) where the Winter
Olympics were held a few years back.
Arrivederci per ora!!!
Bri
Photo Captions: The pictures in orders are: A view of Lake Como; Versache Villa; the Villa used in Ocean's 12; Sophia Loren's Villa; Como's Duomo Cathedral; The Church in Cantu at night
December 30, 2009
Today we crossed the northern border of Italy and traveled to Lugano, Switzerland. The bus ride was
rather short in comparison to our other trips, only about an hour
long. During this trip we travelled through the Swiss Alps, and
when I say through, I mean that we drove through tunnels that were
literally carved out of the mountains. The trip was really nice,
and we got to see Lake Como for the first time. It was so
beautiful!!! Elena (the tour guide) told us that unfortunately we
will not be able to see George Clooney’s villa because it is
on the other end of the lake in comparison to where we will be
visiting tomorrow.
Lugano is a wonderful city. It is surrounded by the Alps and is
also a lakeside city. It has a very nice lake promenade that
follows the shore. According to Elena, the city promotes modern
art, and the promenade is lined with modern sculptures. My mom and
I tried to walk down to the Foliculare, a cable car that travels up
the side of one of the mountains. After passing the road we were
supposed to turn down, we finally found the station only to find
out that the cars are not running until January. We weren’t
completely depressed that we couldn’t head up the mountain,
mainly because it began to rain.
The center of town is lined with shops, much more expensive than
we are used to in the states. As we got off the bus, we were
greeted with a Louis Vuitton store only to be followed by Versace,
Bulgari, and the most expensive jewelry store, Bucherer. The
cheapest thing that they had displayed was a diamond ring for $900.
They also had a $17000 cell phone for sale, though Stasia (Twomey),
Kaleigh (Charette) and I couldn’t figure out why anyone would
buy it. Apparently, Lugano has about 55,000 inhabitants, and 64
banks within its city limits.
We had lunch in the city and a few of the girls went to a local
café for dessert. There they got Swiss hot chocolate, which
Molly (Hien) says was “delicious, and she has never tasted
anything like it.” (Kathleen) Foley added that it was like
drinking a melted chocolate bar and she can never eat chocolate
again. Apparently, the hot chocolate was very thick and it was
served with sugar that could be sprinkled on top. The girls also
had chocolate tiramisu, a white chocolate dish, chocolate cake with
a cream and raspberry filling. Needless to say we really need the
game tonight to burn off the calories from lunch.
We also visited a church that has one of the most famous frescoes
in Switzerland (by Benardino Luini, who was influenced by Leonardo
Da Vinci). The painting used an entire wall to depict the
Crucifixion of Jesus. The church was very pretty and very old and
also had other paintings that were done by “local”
artists. I put local in quotes because most of the painters are
from Como, Italy - not Switzerland.
On the ride home, we visited a Silk factory in Como that also has
an outlet store. A lot of people bought scarves, gloves, hats, and
ties. Though we only had a half hour I pretty sure that most of us
could have stayed a lot longer. This place was huge and had so many
different things to look at. Everything was so nice and high
quality that most of us just walked around touching things.
We had our second game tonight against Petra Varese, which we
played in the giant stadium that usually houses the men’s
team. This stadium was very nice and not really what we were
expecting to play in. It was really nice to play in this gym, it
was a really different atmosphere. We won this game, 55–51,
and it was a tough game. I think we were much better acquainted
with the international rules today, but there were still instances
where the ref would say something and we would just smile and nod
like we knew what was going on. The game was really friendly; we
did the traditional exchange of gifts between the teams. We had
brought t-shirts and pens for the other team and in return they
gave us chocolate. We did this yesterday too for the team, but as
one player said, “Sorry we don’t have anything for
you.” After the game they also gave us some Coca-Cola and
traditional Italian Christmas bread, which was really good!
Tomorrow should be a relaxing day, we get to explore Cantu in the
morning, then we leave for Como in the afternoon.
Arrivederci per ora!
Bri
Photo Captions: The scenery is a view of Lake Como; the action shots and group photo are against Petra Varese; the final picture is of blogger Bri Flanders and teamate Stasia Twomey
December 29, 2009
Today the team had the chance to visit the wonderful city of Verona. It was about a 2 hour bus
ride from Cantu, so even though we slept through the night, we all
managed to get in a little more shut eye. For the parts that I was
awake for, the drive was really quite nice. We drove through Milan,
so we were able to see more of the industrial companies that exist
in the area. Our guide, Elena, also mentioned that Milan is the
industrial capital of Italy, since Rome and the south is more
focused on tourism. Along the drive we saw some of the Alps, which serve as a natural border
between Italy and Switzerland. In some of the pictures you can see
where some of the mountains have been quarried for both white and
pink marble, which is also a large part of their economy.
We passed many smaller villages that were able to survive
throughout the years. Elena also added that most of this area was
not affected by any bombing during World War II because of its
proximity to the Swiss border.
While in Verona we were able to see the Roman arch that marks the
beginning of the center of the city. Elena was able to tell us a
lot of about the history of the area. Once in the center, we saw
the outside (which we were told was all we really needed to see) of
the second largest arena in Italy. The Arena is second only to the
Coliseum in Rome and was used for gladiator fights and general
public entertainment. In front of the Coliseum, the city had
constructed a skating rink for Christmas and some of the people
skating were actually quite good.
From the Arena, we walked further into the city to see the Balcony
of Juliet. It was quite a tourist area but was quite fun. The area
was lined with love notes from those who had visited the balcony,
and apparently it is a tradition to touch the statue of
Juliet’s breast for good luck in love and relationships.
There was also a terrace where people could go on to get a
different view of the balcony. Within the stairwell leading to the
terrace, visitors could write their names on the walls, also
another belief of good luck for relationships and love.
After visiting the balcony, we were able to spend some free time.
Many people walked around the city, others shopped, and some ate.
It was very nice to get some time just to explore the area that we
were in. We then had to drive back to Cantu for our first game
against the Italian BTF Cantu team.
As for the game against BTF Cantu (B1 league),
let’s just say it is really different than playing at home.
Not only is the paint a different shape, but we had to deal with a
24 second clock, 9 second backcourt, boxing out during free throws
and many other things that we were still not sure about. One of the
funniest things about today, was that since it was an exhibition
game, assistant coach Meredith (Galena) got to play with us. We are
pretty short at the point guard position currently, so Meredith
stepped in to give Kara (Rogers) some time to rest. (Meredith
played the point for three years at St. Anslem). We lost pretty
badly (82-39), but were able to improve our performance in the
second half. Hopefully tomorrow goes better.
Tomorrow we hope to go to Lugano in Switzerland, then head to
Varese to play our second game.
Arrivederci per ora!!
Bri
Photo Captions: Mountain View is of the Alps from bus ride up to Verona; the balcony shot is the famous "Balcony of Juliet" (Verona is the primary scene where Shakespere's Romeo & Juliet took place); the large edifice with tourists in the background is the Verona Arena (third only in size to the Roman Colosseum); the other three shots are from today's exhibition game.
The final picture is of Assistant Coach Meredith Galena at the free throw line.
December 28, 2009
Ciao!! (Hello!!)
Today was a long day. The team began our day with practice at
Worcester State before heading to catch our flight in Boston.
Practice went well, but was only the first part of a long and
tiring string of hours. We arrived at Logan International Airport
around 4:30, only to find out that our flight to Amsterdam was
already delayed. Though the flight was supposed to leave at 7:05
pm, we didn’t leave until 8:30 pm.
The flight was pretty calm, except for the fact that it lasted
about 8 hours, there were multiple crying babies, and no one on the
team really got any sleep.
We landed in Amsterdam around 9:00 am local time. Since our flight
from Boston was delayed, we had to change connecting flights, and
ended up staying in the airport for about 3 hours before the next
flight to Milan was scheduled to leave. Most of the team and travel
party got some food and a chance to stretch our legs, but after the
first hour almost everyone on the team ended up falling asleep on
their carry-on luggage in the terminal.
We arrived in Milan around 3:00, and luckily even with the changes
to our flight schedule no one lost their luggage!! We met our
guide, Elena outside of baggage claim and we boarded the bus, where
we met our driver, Franco, to head towards Cantu, where our hotel
is located.
At first the only differences I noted between here and home were
the huge amounts of reconstruction and industrial work going on
within Milan. As we drove towards Como, we could begin to see the
mountains that surround the famous lake! We originally thought that
we would have to wait to check into the hotel until after our
scheduled practice, but we were able to get on the road quickly
enough to settle into our rooms before heading off to the gym.
I will mention some things about our rooms – they are
nothing like what we expected at all. The space is very small, so
obviously with 2 girls in each room, there is barely enough room to
walk. The beds are quite small – as Kathleen (Foley)
describes them, “Remember when you were really young and
finally got a ‘big girl bed’?” They are honestly
only about 1 foot off the ground. Of course we will make do; it was
just one piece of culture shock that we would experience.
Practice went well. We played in the gym where we will be having
our first international game tomorrow. I don’t think any of
the posts or I will get used to the trapezoidal paint. We have so
many questions about the international rule, but hopefully the
referees will give us a quick run through before the game
tomorrow.
After practice we were able to experience our first bit of Italian
cuisine. We walked down the street from our hotel to a local
pizzeria, and it was fantastic! Most everyone got a personal pizza,
which is slightly different from what you would expect in the US.
It was a flat bread pizza, but everything was so fresh! Some of the
travel party ordered pasta dishes and let us try a little.
It’s so fresh and really does have a distinct taste that the
boxed noodles from home really don’t have. Some of the team
got dessert afterwards and again were highly impressed with the
quality of food. We ordered gelato and some pastry type thing that
we had no idea what the name was.
The language barrier is definitely going to be hard to overcome.
Most of our meals were ordered by pointing at the menu or other
dishes that surrounding families had ordered. Gina (Sicuso) can
speak a little Italian, but that can only take us so far.
As for now, we intend to get a good night’s sleep tonight as
at this point we have been up for around 36 hours straight.
Arrivederci per ora!! (Goodbye for now!!),
Bri
Photo Captions: Airplane view is Amsterdam; the
mountains are shots of Lake Como; the other pics are of
practice