This morning we woke up bright and early to have breakfast at the hotel. Some of the foods they served where fresh fruit, chocolate croissants, hard boiled eggs, some fresh bread and of course café latté.
Then we enjoyed a two hour walking tour of Venice. We visited the Ponte di Rialto, Piazza San Marco and the Basilica di San Marco. Soon after we all went into separate groups and got lost in the streets of Venice. Some groups went on gondola rides, walked around and shopped while a few of us got on the water taxi and traveled to the beach in Lido about forty minutes away and rode bikes for a few hours.
We regrouped around 6 o'clock for dinner at the same restaurant as last night. We had the option of spaghetti with mussels and clams or lasagna, followed by fried veal or some fried fish, and enjoyed some delicious watermelon for dessert.
Then we took the water taxi to the main land, boarded the bus and headed to our soccer game about 45 minutes away. We played three 20 minute halves.
Our first game went really well, we won 2-1. We finished the first third tied 0-0 after Katie Hamlin scored the first goal within the first 5 minutes of the second third. Stephanie Flood followed with the second goal just minutes after. Everyone got to play on the field and gave it all they got. It was a great way to start off our Eurotrip! The other team scored in the third third and we ended up winning 2-1.
Today we traveled to a town a couple of hours away to play our second game. We left Venice at around 11 am and the town was at the top of the mountain. We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant and we had penne pasta and chicken with a side salad.
Kick off was at 4:30, but unfortunately we did not win today's game. The first half was tough, we didn't bring our ‘A’ game (perhaps we were tired from the bus ride and nervous to play this team) but with the help of our coaches we changed the second half around tremendously. Though we weren't able to score we ended the game well and we were most happy with how we played.