Day 2

Good morning Croatia! It's a beautiful day and we all geared up to head to Bar, Montenegro to meet our sister team OK Galeb, who we will play the next two days. The hotel had an interesting breakfast: TONS of bread, bananas (yes!) and apples, and cereal resembling cocoa puffs. There were also these interesting little cake/bar/not sure that were like swiss cake rolls. After the adults got their coffee fix, and after all of the team grabbed as many fruits as we could and made ourselves some sandwiches (salami and cheese) for the bus ride, we began our journey to Bar.

The bus we took was cute and cozy and our driver knew so much about American History! He explained some of Croatia's to us as well. Once we got to the border to cross into Montenegro, we got to watch a complete raid of a car trying to enter Croatia. A nice BMW was stripped completely and we passed through border control before we got to find out if he was let in or not. Hope he isn't still sitting there! 

The team (minus Layne, plus Madison's sister Shelby)

We started to arrive at our first stop: Kotor, Montenegro. This included a drive-on ferry across the Adriatic Sea. My first time on one of those was when I went to visit Morgan in California and I thought it was the absolute coolest thing ever. Sorry Morgan, but I think this one wins. The stretch of sea against the houses built into the mountains was beyond gorgeous.

We pulled right onto the ferry, then got out to take pictures!

Houses built straight into the mountains.

Once we were dropped off in Kotor, we met our guide Daniella. We were led into Grad Kotor, another city surrounded by a fortress that was built to protect the city from invaders. Most of the buildings in the city were built in the 16th century. Daniella spoke perfect English and showed us all of the shops and restaurants. There was a cute little girl with her own personal sea shell shop on the side of the narrow walkway. 

The team in Kotor, Montenegro.

Inside the wall

Sea shell stand!

Then, it was time to move on to our next stop: Budva, Montenegro. Here, Daniella led us through the inner city and to a place that reminded me of Montenegro's version of a Farmer's Market. On the right side of the street were night clubs right on the water lined up one after one after one. The other side included lots of a shops with handmade Montenegrin crafts and souvenirs.

Beaches of Budva, Montenegro

The team in Budva

We quickly shopped then made our way towards lunch, a perfect four-course meal:

                     1. Salad (cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes)

                     2. Soup (I have no idea)

                     3. Main Course (Chicken and french fries - how

                        American!)

                     4. Cake (Tiramisu? Possibly? All I know is it tasted a

                        bit like coffee)

Here, we had our first major encounter with a language barrier: without any pictures, we had no idea which bathroom was which. The only clues were the letters D and G on each door. Our original thought was Dudes and Girls....not so much. We quickly learned that it was the other way around, oops!

Such a great meal!

After lunch, our exhaustion from traveling, the time change, and a filling meal was finally setting in. Within minutes, the bus was filled with snoozing girls. Pretty soon, we had made it to Bar. The balcony from our rooms provided an amazing view of the scenery. You can tell that most Montenegrins must be small because the showers were half the size of normal American showers, and the towels wouldn't wrap all the way around even the smallest of our players. 

Knocked out in the van

Arriving at our hotel in Bar!

We had time to fit in a quick nap (yay!) before we walked over to the gym to meet and play the OK Galeb team from Montenegro. In their language, OK means club. I had flashbacks to high school volleyball because the gym was not air conditioned at all. We won the game in four (18-25, 25-21, 26-16, 25-23) despite our initial struggle to connect. Keeping in mind that we hadn't played together until tonight, we played great! Personally, I struggled to adapt to the different ball. The layout, texture, weight, everything was different than a normal American volleyball. My setting wasn't quite up to par but I wasn't going to let that stop me! We took a ball from the gym to practice with during the next day.

The gym we played in (the bigger, air-conditioned one was being renovated...)

Preparing for our first match of the trip!

The team: Genna, Layne (finally), Madison, Lexi, Shelly, Me, Lisa, Rachel

We weren't finished playing until 10, when we had dinner. I learned that this isn't even that weird for this area of Europe to eat dinner a lot later than we do in America. I also learned that it isn't weird to eat copious amounts of bread at every. single. meal. But finally, it was time to shower and rest up for another day!