Our first full day spent enjoying Italy is one that will not soon be forgotten. Our first adventure of the day was a walking tour through the streets of Venice. The tour introduced the group to many extraordinary sites, buildings, and monuments along with the history and interesting facts behind them. The highlight of the tour was St. Mark’s Square. The sheer size of the square and the architecture that creates it is breathtaking. The main attraction of St. Mark’s Square would have to be the St. Mark’s Basilica. The structure is unlike anything else I have ever seen before. Right across from the Basilica stands the Campanile, a bell tower that overlooks all of Venice which we think would provide excellent photo ops, or as we not affectionately refer to it as the “Oopsi Tower”.
After the guided tour our crew split up into smaller groups to explore the city. One of the groups decided to take a voyage to the top of the bell tower. Since I was not a part of this group here is a first person account of the experience by Coach Small’s son Sasha straight from his journal that I snuck out of his backpack (just kidding, I received permission but unlawful reproduction of this excerpt could be unlawful and punishable by a 500 euro fine, but Sasha would probably settle out of court for a bag of skittles):
“We were going to go in the tower to take pictures. We tried to fit the whole group in the elevator and everyone ended up fitting just fine. So we started to go up and we made it halfway. Then the elevator stopped for a minute. Next we started doing down because we weighed too much. When we got down to the bottom it made a thump. After we came down the worker counted how many people there were and then he said, “Oopsi!” We waited a long time for the door to open but it didn’t. I was pretty freaked out! It turned out since we were too heavy it went down too far. He called for someone to help so someone came to help. After a couple of minutes he called again but he didn’t answer. After awhile they finally got the door open. I was so excited to get out I almost decked one of the parents. I was relieved.”
You now know why we call it the “Oopsi Tower”.
The rest of the day went smoothly for everyone. The free time lasted from the end of our tour (11:00am) through the departure time for game one ( 4:30pm). This time was used to take in more of the breathtaking sights, hit the shops for the famously beautiful Murano Glass, eat some gelato, and for the players get that oh so important pregame meal (I had the best spaghetti and clams of my life).
Once 4:30 rolled around most of us were anxious to get to the game. I am unsure if this was due to the excitement of playing our first game in Europe or because it would provide us with an hour bus ride to rest our legs from a long day of walking.
Before we knew it were warming up for the game to American music; it was nice to have a touch of home. In his pregame speech Coach Small reminded us about what we had worked so hard on in the two weeks prior to the trip. He also reminded us to enjoy this once in a lifetime experience. Our competition was comprised of an Italian All-Star team that included players from the top three Italian Basketball pro leagues. The game stayed close. Any time the Italians Gained momentum we rallied right back. With three minutes left Ursinus cut the lead to four points via a clutch three-pointer by Matthew Donahue. After that we started to have to foul to try to make up the rest of the deficit and eventually lost by ten, 82-72. The game was close, intense, and more physical than the traditional European style which made it a bit ‘chippy’ at times. All in all it was a great experience. The team is even more excited for our next game which will be against a United States Military Base team.
The group will be spending the next three nights in Florence which will surely provide me with plenty of ammo for upcoming posts so be sure to check back soon. Until then, Ciao!
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