More European Cup

The road to the finals
This has to be the weirdest set up tournament I've ever been apart of with the worst umpires! I feel like we've played 700 games since Monday! I still can't explain how the this tournament is set up. Yesterday we beat Russian and the other Italian team Legnano. The game against Legnano was a lot of fun because it was two Italian teams squaring off and its always fun beating them on their home field. There was a big crowd too. This morning we beat the Czech Republic team. Unfortunately, we lost tonight to Austria. But its ok we will bounce back tomorrow and beat them in the Championship game when it counts!
So me and Ty decided that we need to trade places in the line up. I should hit third and she should hit first. Because she has stolen a base and layed down a drag bunt and beat it out! And I got intentionally walked in our game against Russia! I always think its funny when I get walked because there is a really good chance that I'm going to hit the ball right at the shortstop!

Here is a site with some pretty cool pics from the tournament, our team is in day one and two: http://picasaweb.google.com/www.EuroSftbl.com

European Cup!!

A Sho and Ty conversation
When my sister came to visit we were on bus coming home from our game in San Marino. She made a comment that me and Ty have some really weird conversations. And we thought she was the weird one and that our conversations make perfect sense. Last night me and Ty were in bed about to go to sleep and we were talking about books. Me and Ty have read 5 books since we have been here. Ty's mom, Mrs. Brenda, is coming back to Italy to watch us play in the European Cup. So she is going to bring us more books to read since we can't get books in English here. We decided that we wanted her to bring a book called the Screw Tape Letters by C.S. Lewis and The Time Travelers wife. Then our convo jumped to the movie coming out the Time Travelers Wife and she asked who was in it. Then I said Racheal McAdams from the notebook. We talked about how much we like her and the movie. Then she said she rented it on Itunes a few days ago. Then we started talking about Noah one of the characters in the Notebook and we spent a good 5 minutes trying to remember the name of Rachael McAdam's character. But before we could figure it out my fan caught on fire!! Once we got the fan off and unplugged and the burnt plastic smell went away, I yelled out Abby! Then Ty said no its Allie, Abby is the name of the bar we went to tonight! Then I noticed that Ty kept making these weird noises. She would say "Noah, aww, ohh, aww." So I was like Ty whats with all the noises!? Then I realized that we started off talking about books and somehow we ended up talking about the weird noise that Ty makes! Good times in Italy.

Bring softball back!!
So if you haven't heard they won't be bringing softball back for the 2016 Olympics :( So me and Ty started thinking of other sports we can do to get to the Olympics. My idea is that we make a 2 man bobsledding team and participate in the winter Olympics. Ty would be the driver. Then she said she would throw the shot put. That might be Ty's ticket to the Olympics but I needed another idea since apparently our bobsledding team already broke up! Char and JK suggested that I play Rugby sevens. I didn't know what it was, but they said that you have to be fast to play. I'm fast so I looked it up! Turns out the sport is supposed to make its first appearance in the Olympics in 2016 if the IOC votes it in! I had to do some more research so I went to usarugby.org. Then I found out there is a organization in Columbus, Ohio. I'll be moving to a near by city called Athens when I leave Italy. I found out that if you play rugby you are called a rugger. I could be a rugger!! And the website says rookies welcomed!

European Cup!
We are in Milan for the European Cup and we have been here since Monday. We are staying at this really cool golf hotel! I want to got the range and hit some balls but that's probably not the best thing for my softball swing. Next thing I know I'll be popping everything up! So far we have won all of our pool games against Germany, Holland, Austria and Greece. Today we start the playoff part of the tournament and we play Russia and Legnano, the other Italian team in the tournament.

The Fireball shorts
Stephanie Ray is one of the players on the team. She is originally from California but she has been living in Italy for the last 5 years. She has so much energy. I doesn't matter what time of the day it is, she is always fired up! When my sister met her she nicknamed her fireball. I started calling her Fireball Ray after that. The other day in the hotel she came down stairs in boxers with softballs and fire coming from the ball. I looked closer and her shorts said fireballs all them! I loved it and laughed so hard because she had no idea they said fireball on them.

Time to play ball!!

Game Day!!
It's finally time to play again! Yesterday we went on the road to Bollate for our first playoff game (The Italian Championship). It was about a 3 1/2 hour trip. The trip felt extra long because I forgot my ipod. The first game was awesome. We won 5-4 in 10 innings. It was one of those games that was a lot of fun to be apart of. Both teams fought really hard. The second game didn't go so well, we lost 9-2. Now we take a week off than we go play in the European Cup (which is separate from the Italian Championship) August 17th-22nd. The Saturday after the European cup (Aug 29th) we finish our best of 5 series with Bollate. Its really weird how the whole thing is set up. Next year me and Ty said we are going to make the schedule!

Concert in the Square
During the summer in Forli they have concerts in the square every Wednesday. Apparently its the only thing going on in Forli because everything else shuts down for Holiday. Al G's, the restaurant where me and Ty get our spaghetti has been closed for more than a month! We were really upset because they didn't even tell us they were going to close and we are loyal customers. I don't know what we would do if Almos, our favorite pizza place, closed. I think I would slip into a deep depression and then starve because I eat there at least three times a week! Me and Ty still can't figure out how Italians ever make any money because they are always closing their businesses down. Back to the concert... That was my first time to go to the square at night, it was pretty. They had a giant stage set up with 4 jumbo trons and the square was filled with people. I was amazed. There was some guy singing in Italian. We were told he was famous. The best part was I got some butterfly wings that lit up! When we were walking back to the car from the square KG decided she wanted to break into song and dance. She started singing single ladies and she did what we like to call dropping like its hot. After she did that we heard some clapping behinds us and it was a group of guys. It was so funny, she had no idea anybody was behind her!! The whole walk to the car they tried to get her to dance more.


I want a Taco!
It's a hard task to go through a day and figure out what you are going to eat here. I can't really cook some of the stuff I know how to cook because you can't find the ingredients here. If they are here I can't read Italian so it makes things hard to find. You can't just run to a fast food place and grab something because they don't have that here. Unless you want McDonald's all the time. So me and Ty decided we were going to open our own restaurants next door to each other in Forli. Mine would be called Sho's chicken and TexMex and Ty's would be called Ty's crack seed! Everything in her restraunt will be covered in this stuff they have in Hawaii called Li Hing Mui. Apparently they put it on everything. I had some gummy bears covered in it and I was addicted. My taste for Li Hing Mui was ruined when I had some the same day I got sick on the 3 day old Chinese food. I haven't looked at a gummy bear the same since! When Ty said what she wanted to name her restaurant I thought she wanted to sell something else but crack seed is where you can get goodies with Li Hing Mui on it in Hawaii.
Speaking of fast food me and KG took a trip to McDonald's the other day. This is my second time to have McDonald's while in Italy and this trip was much better. When I walked up to the counter I asked the guy if he spoke English and the most panicked look came on his face! He went and got a girl that knew how to speak English, so I actually got what I wanted. A Big Mac plain! I was mad because you have to pay 20 cents for each ketchup!! After we finished eating me and KG took our drinks with us. When we got in the car I noticed there were no cup holders. I wanted to know what kind of car doesn't have cup holders. Than KG said this isn't an American car, not all countries have fast food so they don't need them. I said what if you are going on a long trip and you want to bring something to drink. She said just bring a bottle of water! My goal now is to search every car I get in and see if they have cup holders.

mmm skittles!
Sara is one of the girls on my team. She also plays on the Italian national team. If you have been following the blog she was one of the girls that did the Soldier Boy dance in a previous blog. Well she went with the Italian team to play in Oklahoma City. She told me how much she loves America and how she thinks she is really American. I told her I think I'm really European and we should switch. Earlier in the year my mom sent me a box with jelly beans in it and she loved them. When she went to the US she said she had another candy that she loved. For 5 minutes I was trying to figure out what she was talking about. She kept saying they were like jelly beans. Finally we figured out she was talking about skittles. She also told me she fell in love with ranch dressing (they don't have salad dressing here) and she put it on everything even her pasta!! And she ate lots of cookies and peanut butter the whole time!

Ty's transformation, kinda!
Ty had really long hair, almost to her butt. She said its normal in Hawaii for men and women to have really long hair. I went to make sure the lady didn't cup off too much of her hair because that could easily happen with the language barrier! I was also there to document. I was acting like the paparazzi, those ladies probably thought I was crazy!! Stefi was also there getting her hair done for a wedding so I was taking pictures of her too! Ty's hair pretty much went from really really long to just really long. They also had these cool hair dryers that came down from the ceiling! Here is a before, during and after picture of Ty's hair cut:

Back in Italy

Home sweet Home
I spent a few weeks at home in Houston and it was great to see my family and friends. It was really good to be around English speakers and to see regular sized cars and to get some of my moms enchiladas! I went home for my good friend Jamie Hinshaw's (now Jamie Carter) wedding. Her wedding was amazing and beautiful and it was also a big softball reunion! When we were getting dressed for the wedding I put my dress on and my zipper malfunctioned! So Jamie's mom suggest I lay on the table while Lisa held my dress and she zipped. I was like are you sure you want me to lay over the table. She swore by this tactic and it worked! It was a good time.










While I was home I also went to Chicago for a few days with my mom, my little sis and my friend Amanda. The first day in Chicago we walked around the city, did some shopping, went to the Navy Pier and had some famous Chicago deep dish pizza! Then we went to watch a Pro fastpitch softball game. We saw the Philadelphia Force play the Rockford Thunder. The Force was my old team so I got to see a lot of my friends. The rest of our trip in Chicago consisted of seeing the United Center and the Michael Jordan statue, we went to the zoo and we ate at our new favorite restaurant Huck Finns. We had a few snags in our trip and one was the weather. When we left to go to Chicago it was over 100 degrees in Houston so naturally we packed lots of shorts and tank tops. We were shocked when we got to Chicago and it was the coldest its been in decades at this time of the year. We had to go to Walmart and buy warm clothes to wear the rest of our trip!

Reunited and it feels so good!
While I was at home I missed my bestfriend Ty! I couldn't wait to come back and see her! Me and Ty spent everyday for the last four months together so it was very emotional when I went home! Ty and Ornella picked me up in the airport in Bologna and I was so happy to see them. Me and Ty picked up where we left off. We noticed that when we laugh really hard at something nobody else around us is laughing. We think everybody else must have no sense of humor.

Italian Baseball
We went to a baseball game in Bologna and they were playing against Parma. It was an interesting experience. We didn't stay until the end of the game because the home team was winning 20-5, there wasn't much left to see. One thing I found out is that Italians don't have any trouble letting an umpire know how they feel. They didn't cut that poor umpire and slack! I don't know what they were saying but I know if I was that umpire my feelings would be hurt. Another interesting thing that happened during the game was in the 6th inning a fan of the visiting team (Parma) some how gets the attention of the whole stadium. He yells out to the stadium, if anybody has a problem with me they need to come tell my face! The whole stadium starts booing him and two guys get into with him and are almost fight but the guy was escorted away. I assumed this man had to be drunk but I was told he wasn't. I think he was!

Family Time

The families are here!!
First KG's mom and Ty's mom both came into town! KG's mom, Jarka, was really nice. She only spoke Czech so we didn't know what she was saying but she was always smiling, so she has to be nice. She stayed with us for 11 days. Her and KG have the same mannerisms, they walk the same and they laugh the same. Ty's moms name is Mrs. Brenda. She came all the way from Hawaii and she has been staying with us for three weeks. Mrs. Brenda and Ty are not that much a like. Mrs. Brenda talks really proper and half the time people don't know what Ty is saying. I love having Mrs. Brenda here she reminds me of my mom. It makes me really miss my mommy!! In Hawaii they call people Aunt or Uncle if you are older, even if you aren't related. When Ty's mom go here I called her Mrs. Brenda and they thought that was the best thing ever. I didn't think anything of it, I guess it's a southern thing.

One night after we ate dinner at the Buscharini we went outside and Mrs. Brenda taught me and Eva how to hula. It was really hard because you have to be graceful, something that I am not! You have to roll your hands like waves while you take two steps to the side and move your hips with the step. Then you go the other way. You can even go to hula school in Hawaii.

Coach Tony was the next. He is the head coach at TSU and my boss. Him and Monica flew into Rome for a few days and then they came to Forli on Saturday to hang out and watch the game. They had a little mishap on the train on their trip from Rome to here and ended up in Milan! It was a four hour detour but they made it! Of course Coach Tony acted a fool and yelled VERY loud the whole game!! I heard a few 8 is greats chants during the course of the game. After they game we went to eat and then out to X-Ray. At X-Ray he continued to act crazy and entertain everybody! It was so great to have them there. They headed to Venice the next day. On Monday me, Ty and Mrs. Brenda met them in Venice and hung out for the day.

Trip to Venice

Now my sister, Krystal, and our friend Tiffany are here. The day they arrived me and Ornella went to the airport in Bologna to pick them up. We left early to make sure we didn't get caught in traffic. We got there at 10:30 and their flight was supposed to get in at 11:15am. Turns out they missed their flight in Paris and they weren't getting in until 2:30pm. We had no way of knowing that so we were at the airport for 5 hours waiting! They finally got here and Krystal's bag got lost!

The next day was much better, we took a trip to Venice. And on Friday we took a trip to Florence. When we went to Florence we were the ultimate tourist and got on one of those double decker tour buses. We even rode on the top! When we were riding around Tiffany thought it would be a good idea to stand up and take pictures. Two different times Tiffany got hit in the head by a tree. One time she had twigs in her hair. It was sooo funny! Tiffany has been our entertainment for the trip. When we were at dinner she asked Ty who the president of Hawaii was. Ty was like Barack Obama. We had to remind Tiff that Hawaii was in the United States. The same country she lives in!

Ty's box
Ty has been waiting for a month and a half for a box her sister and law sent her for her birthday. It was sent on May 8th and it just got here on the June 16th! Ty got sour candies in her box that I love so she gave them to me. At first I thought what a nice friend. Then I looked at the ingredients and I think Ty might be trying to kill me. Ingredients: sugar, wheat flour, clucose, syrup, water, acidulants, acidity regulator, emulsifier preservatives, flavors, artificial color. I paid attention in nutrition class and my teacher said the first ingredient listed is the most.



Sunrise and Sunset
We went to the beach today, we were there for a while and I noticed that the sun wasn't going down. I felt like I was in Alaska. I was really curious about this so I asked one of my teammates what the deal was with the sun. She was saying in June and July the days in Italy are really long. So I looked up the time of sunrise and sunset on weather.com. Turns out the sun rises at 5:29am and sets at 9:02pm. I like that the sun stays out long but I don't like that it comes up so early! I've been having to wear one of those sleep mask to bed! I also noticed that the temperature is 77 degrees here and it feels like 76. In Houston the temperature 92 and it feels like 99! The sun rises at 6:20am and sets at 8:23pm. What I'm thinking is that everybody in Houston should migrate to Italy to escape that heat!!

Face wash
I ran out of face wash so I figure I would go to Conad and get some. Then I remembered I don't read Italian. I couldn't tell what was face wash or lotion, it was a lot of confusion so I didn't get anything. Ty had also been looking for face wash so she walked down to another store by the square and she got some of those wipes for you face. She thought it had to be the right stuff because it was on a display with Penelope Cruz washing her face. Well when she tried to use it that night, they didn't lather. That wasn't going to work. I took a trip to the same store the next day, I saw the display and picked a bottle of what I thought was face wash. I asked the lady at the desk but she didn't speak English. I pointed to my face and she said si. I though finally I found some. When I got home Leslie read the bottle for me. Turns out I bought face lotion to help reduce wrinkles!

Triple Play!!

Triple Play!
This weekend we played at home against Legnano. Irene was the starting pitcher and she was throwing a great game. We were up by one run in the top of the 6th inning. We had no outs and a runner on 1st and 3rd. Leslie came into the game to pitch. The first pitch she threw the girl up to bat bunted the ball. Leslie fields it looks the girl back at 3rd and throws to first to get the 1st out. The girl at 3rd takes off for home, Sabro our second baseman throws home to get the second out (Ty almost got her headed taken off by the throw!). The girl that was at 1st rounds 2nd and takes off for third. Our catcher Eli throws her out at 3rd. We got a triple play using only one pitch! It was awesome! It was perfect throws all around, we looked like we knew what we were doing!! We played really well and won both of our games. It was a good Saturday.

Saturday night we went to a place called X-ray and we did a little bit of celebrating. At the end of the night I was one of the few sober ones left so I got to drive home! It was 3am so there were no cars on the road and KG was there to help me out. I only stalled out once,the car was horizontal across two lanes, but the rest of the trip was good and I parked really good!

Italian National Team

Last weekend we took a road trip to Milan to watch the Italian national team play. It is about 4 hours from Forli. We saw them play the Czech Republic, France and Bollate, one of the teams in the Italian league. It was fun but frustrating because I was with people that only spoke Italian. I had no idea what was going on for 2 days! Ornella was there and she can speak pretty good English but she can't translate from Italian to English. Her first language is Spanish but she knows Italian well. She hears it in Italian, translates in her head to Spanish so she understands and than she would try to translate from Spanish to English so I could understand. She had a hard time doing that, which I understand. So I didn't get too much info. Someone would say something in Italian and everybody would laugh and I would just be lost. Sometimes I would laugh just to fit in!

Watching the team play really got me wanting to get on the team. I have to get this husband thing worked out. Leslie already got me two pair of socks that the team wear that say Italia on them. With my socks I feel like I'm pretty much on the team all I need now is to get married! Since y'all are my family and friends you have to help me pick. I've narrowed it down to 2 since I didn't know number 3's name. Email me your votes!

Ivano is our team trainer and he gives really good massages! He enjoys surfing and he is learning to speak English. He is actually pretty good. I can have a conversation with him and not get frustrated. He is about 5ft 9 and is very nicely built.

David is a bartender at pride and always makes really good drinks. He is a softball fan and comes to our games. Interesting fact about him is that his mother is Italian and his father is Ethiopian. He also speaks pretty good English. David is about 5ft 8 and is also very nicely built.

Almo

There is a pizzeria by our apartment called Almo. Me and Ty go there about 3 times a week, its really good! There is a really cute older couple that work there. The guys name is Almo. When we walk in they already know what we want so they just start making it, they are really nice. They always try to talk to us in Italian but we have no idea what they are saying! So me and Ty just smile and nod. I think that Almo thinks if he keeps talking to us we will eventually understand what he is saying. They could be telling us we are idiots and we would have no idea, we would just be smiling back a them!

Washing Machine disaster!!
Our washing machine broke!! And that's not good when there are five girls living in a house with five smelly uniforms. Like the cars in Italy, the washing machines are also very small. I think they made the washing machines small so they could be transported in the small cars. Since the machine is small you can only wash so many clothes at one time. So our washing machine is running around the clock. When you see the washing machine open you have to hurry up and throw your clothes in because you don't know when you will see it open again! When our washing machine went down for the count we all naturally assumed it was from over use. Within a few days Bomba had someone over to fix it. It turns out ONE bobby pin broke the machine. I think it took the guy a good three minutes to pull it out and it was running again. We all blamed it on each other!

My best friend in Italy's Birthday!!!

My best friend in Italy's Birthday

It's Ty's Birthday. She turned 24! Ty is usually the last one to wake up, usually around 12ish. So me and all the roomies decorated the kitchen with balloons and banners. We also got her a crazy hat and some birthday beer and we made her 2 cakes. We sang happy birthday to her in English, Italian, Spanish and Czech! I only sang in English, I clapped along to the others!


The Beach!!!
Tuesday is our day off so we always try to do something so we don't sit around the house all day. We call it traveling Tuesday. This week we went to the Beach. Being here is like being on perma-vacation. We went to a beach called Cesenatico. I bought an umbrella because I don't like the sun and we hung out all day on the beach. Ty gives me a hard time because she says I don't do the beach the right way. She says you aren't supposed to rent chairs and use umbrellas.


Back on the road again
Ornella took me on my second driving lesson and this time we left the parking lot! We went to a spot where there wasn't a lot of traffic. I have to say I am a pretty good driver. I only scared the crap out of Ornella once but I had the situation under control, I knew I wasn't going to hit that car! I would drive along and randomly, Ornella would yell out little boy in the street so I had to come to a sudden stop! I guess the little boys in Italy don't look both ways before crossing the street. For some reason I had a hard time getting into first gear. I was really good at switching from 1st to 2nd and 2nd to 3rd. I only panicked once the whole time we were driving. I was at a stop about to make a left turn and a car came behind me, I don't know why that made me panic. I stalled out three times and they finally went around me!! The real problem is that I have no idea how fast I'm going because the speedometer is in km/hr.

3 Day old Chinese food=bad
Me, Ty and Leslie go to this Chinese food place near the square called Shin Shin. Its sooo good! When we go I always get two orders of rice so I can have some the next day. Three days later I had about half a thing of rice left so I made some chicken to go along with it and I finished it off. It looked fine, nothing was growing on it, it smelled fine, and tasted fine. After my meal I headed to Gelato Mania and got a chocolate and strawberry ice cream cone. Five minutes later my stomach hit the eject button! I threw up four times!! I had rice coming out of my nose, literally!! I was down for the count!! After every time I threw up Ty kept asking me if I was ok and if she needed to take me somewhere. I kept telling her I was ok and I think that was the end of it. After the 3rd time she told me I sound like a drunk person telling her the same thing over and over again.Its going to be a long time before I can eat Chinese food again. I learned a very important lesson, never eat 3 day old Chinese food no matter what it looks like! I guess you live and you learn.

Sardegna= opposite of three day old chinese food.
This week we went to go play at Nuoro. Its on the island of Sardegna. So I took my first plane trip in Italy. When we got through security at the Bologna airport we went to a wine tasting bar... in the airport!! When we went to board the plane we noticed that they dont have jetways and its manditory that they bus all of the passengers to the plane. From the door way I could have taken three giant steps to get to the plane, and I'm short. But we all had to get on a bus and ride 3 feet to the plane. Loading all of the passengers took longer than the actual trip to the plane!
Sardegna was amazing. We didn't just stay in a hotel, we stayed at a resort on the beach! The water was beautiful and clear!
I roomed with Carlotta this trip. She is originally from Forli but she just joined the team a few weeks ago because she was in California coaching. The girl is crazy! She says some off the wall stuff, you never know what is going to come out of her mouth. I decided it would be a good idea if I started documenting her quotes. When we got off the plane in Sardegna she started smoking and everybody started giving her a hard time. That's when she said, "I stopped smoking for three days. I went to take a jog and it wasn't any easier, I was so mad! So I started smoking again."


Softball Love Connection
Prospect #3
I don't really know is name, his age or what he does but I don't think that matters. As long as he is good looking :)