Saturday, June 9, 2007

Day 5 - Florence or "Firenze"

We had a late start this morning, relatively speaking, leaving at 9:30 for Florence. But the day was extremely long with six-and-a-half hours in the city and then an hour drive to the pre-game meal, a game, and then a forty-minute drive back to the hotel, getting in at close to midnight.

We began the morning in Florence with a guided tour of the city that lasted about two hours. Our tour guide, Silvia, took us to most of the major sites in Florence and gave us a general layout of the city before breaking into small groups at around noon. We had until 4:30 to enjoy the city, whether it be shopping, site-seeing, the museums, or relaxing at the Botanical Gardens. Florence is known for both jewelry and leather among other things. The entire span of the Ponte Veccio Bridge is lined with jewelry store after jewelry store. The bridge was built in 1345 and is unchanged to this day. It is the only original bridge in Florence, surviving WWII, during which the other bridges were destroyed by mines. The shops along the Bridge once housed butcher shops, but the Emperor ordered that they sell only gold when he lived above the butcher shops. It has been lined with jewelry stores ever since.

We met at 4:30 in front of the original site of the David, which is also where the original home of the Medici Family (who founded the city) lived. Today, the building houses the Government offices for the city of Florence. After everyone in the group arrived in front of the replica of the David, we made about a half-hour walk to our bus, before driving to a sports complex for our pre-game meal. At the complex, we met the President of the team that uses that facility, Ilerio. Ilerio arranged our game in Florence and his wife is the President of the Italian National Team. Again, we had salad, pasta, chicken and dessert. The meal was an A++ event, with both the Italian and American flags gracing the dining room and Ilerio presenting Phil with a token of his appreciation.

We followed Ilerio to the site of the game with just over an hour before gametime, which meant only about a half-hour warm-up for the team. The teams exchanged small gifts with each other prior to the start of the game and then after reading rosters for each team, the National Anthems of both America and Italy were played.

The team played another aggressive game and battled through to the final whistle, but fell to the team from Florence, an AI team, Gioiello Firenze, one of the top teams in the Tuscany Region, 1-0. The winning goal was scored with under two minutes left by a player who is also on the Italian National Team. Several of their players are also on the Italian National Team and the game was well-played on both sides with Brown narrowly missing a goal several times after their goalie came up with big saves. Both Steffi Yellin ’10 and Brenna Hogue ’10 played a solid game in net, with each making five saves.

Following the game, both teams were awarded trophies and then each player was given a small ceramic tile painted with a floral design. The head coach of the team from Florence was extremely complimentary of the Brown team, saying that the girls were both athletic and physical and that they also were strong technically.

It truly was a special night, as we also learned that the stadium we had just played in was the first field in the Tuscany Region, built by Mussolini in 1933.

Back at the hotel, we had some time to check our email quickly and get packed before our long trip tomorrow. We leave at 9:00 and head to Pisa, where we will stay for about an hour, before continuing to the North for Bergamo, which is about a four-hour drive. We have another game, in the early evening against another A1 League team, Atalanta, and then we will travel for about another two hours to check into our next hotel.

Montecatini didn’t have internet access in the rooms. There was one public computer, which was broken last night (I found out today it was only the mouse!). I hope to have some more luck at our next hotel so that I can update all of you with more regularity.

Ciao!

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