Thursday July 16, 2009

Day 5 – Bar, Montenegro

By Hallie Enderle

Northern Lights 16-1

Well, today was our first full day in Montenegro. Kari woke us up at a very early, seven in the morning. Taylor was supposed to wake Ellen and me up because I don’t know how to work my alarm. But Taylor didn’t, she’s a hooligan. So we went to breakfast at the hotel and apparently they think that breakfast is lunch here. There were hot dogs, grey eggs, salami, and lots of cheese. I thought it was cream cheese, but Ellen promptly informed me that it wasn’t. And last but not least there were little deserts and tomatoes. I just want a pancake. Anyway, we ate, and on the way out there were the all too familiar doughnut. We all devoured them.

            It’s becoming quite obvious that if you are exactly on time, you’re actually early. So we left at 8:15 rather then 8. I’m not complaining because I’m always late. We boarded an about 15 seated coach bus and headed out to the old town of Bar. The old ruins were basically still intact, and we all got some great pictures.

            Then we quickly visited a sacred olive tree that was approximately…I can’t remember how old, but it was older than my Dad.

            After that we went to a bathroom at a hotel which turned out to be part of a museum, didn’t see that one coming. We only stayed for awhile because we were going on a boat ride to a beach.

            The boat was kind of like the one we road in London except we couldn’t understand the person that stood up and talked. It seemed like the boat ride was never going to end and we were nowhere near a beach. Suddenly we came to a stop, and we all looked at each other wondering where the beach was. Then we heard a splash, we looked over to see a boy, about 12, was swimming away from the boat. Now that was weird. It took us awhile to realize that there was no beach, we were swimming here. We got to jump off in pairs of two in the front of the boat which was higher than the sides. Sam actually made like the locals and dived off the boat. She did quite well, so Katie decided to give it a shot. It’s the effort that counts.

            On the boat ride back we talked to the girl from the team we played the night before. Her name was either Iena or Idea, she was 19 years old and last night was her first time playing with that group of girls. We also found out that she was the one with the nasty jump serve.

            After lunch at the hotel (some form of meat and potatoes) we had the afternoon to ourselves until we had to play at 7. We played cards for awhile and then broke off to take naps. I missed snack time because I was sleeping. Kari heard Ellen yelling at me, but I don’t remember hearing a thing.

            Instead of warming up for a billion years like they were used to, we taught them queens. They caught on right away and we were soon playing intensely. You’d think it would be difficult to play along side someone you didn’t understand or didn’t understand you, but it wasn’t. We spoke through high fives, clapping, and cheering. They were extremely nice and very talented, but we still had to play them.

            We took it to four, but won yet again. Adam does a really great job of creating equal playing time and putting people on the court that mesh. We have traveled so far to play with girls we had never met and we don’t even speak the same language. But somehow, we understand each other. We love and miss you.

Sincerely,

Northern Lights 16-1’s (technically just Hallie...HI ALYSON!!!)