Day 7-BLED
By: Melissa Vanderhall #24
Today was our first day in Slovenia. We woke up around 7 AM to eat breakfast and catch our 8:24 train from Austria to Slovenia. The next train that we were supposed to transfer onto ended up having some technical difficulties, so we had to catch another train which we didn’t have reservations for, so it was first come first serve. With our luck there were already 80 highschool kids waiting to get on that same train. Our team strategized and spread out in front of the kids so we can somehow get on. When the train arrived we realized that we had to get on the last car, our team raced to the end of the train swerving around little kids with our huge backpacks and 50lb suitcases. For the first time, I felt like I was at home trying to catch a train in Penn Station. At the end, we all made it and when we reached Bled we realized it was all worth it.
This place is absolutely beautiful! The mountains look like beautiful painted pictures, its amazing. We had free time to walk by the lake and get a glimpse of what we were going to see tomorrow. The view of the lake was unreal. There is an island in the middle of the lake with a church on it, and in the background there is a castle on the mountain, that we are supposed to take a hike up to tomorrow.
Then at 6 it was game time. Our first match in Slovenia was against Montenegro’s National team. They were pretty good. We ended up losing 13-15 in the 5th game, but it was fun. Afterwards we got to eat dinner with the girls. Interacting with these girls was one of the best parts of the trip. I met my new friend Tanja. She was really really really good, so I ate what she ate, and I drank Strawberry juice just like her. She gave me her sweaty volleyball t-shirt and I gave her my spandex since they don’t wear spandex here. All the girls are saying that I have a girl crush but it’s not true! I’m super excited for tomorrow because we are supposed to canoe to he church and hike to the castle. Some of the girls and I are going to start off our morning by running a mile with Little Chris Catanach around the lake and by the mountains. It should be a fun day!
