2009 Trip to Brazil May 10 Greetings from Sao Paulo! Today was the first day we spent in Sao Paulo, and boy was it eventful! We began the day enjoying a nice complimentary breakfast from the hotel and then all jumped into our awesome two-story bus to head into town. We toured the very interesting and historical city of Sao Paulo with our wonderful tour guide Morris (at least I think that is how you spell his name =). He taught us many, many things about the city and a few things stood out to me in the outing. First, Sao Paulo specifically is famous for its graffiti. The artists take much pride their artwork while creating competitions with other artists around the city to see who can create the most difficult piece of work. Second, if women around the city want to get married, they must pray to St. Anthony so that he will help them find a husband. (As soon as I learned this, I held a small prayer session with a few of my teammates). After several hours of touring the city, we stopped at the Estadio Municipa to buy tickets to the professional soccer game. The Corinthians, or the home team, is the professional team that Cristiano Ronaldo plays for, so we were all very excited to have the opportunity to see him play! After buying our tickets, we took a quick trip down to a market place where we shopped for an hour or so and then ate an incredible lunch. The food, as we have all discovered, is incredible and it is so much fun to try all of these new dishes and experience all the new tastes (especially this drink they call Guarana, it is simply delicious!). After lunch, we drove back to the stadium two hours before the game started to enjoy the pregame festivities. In one corner of the stadium, the away team was banging their drums and screaming their teams’ anthem. In the other corner, and scattered all over the stadium, the Corinthian fans, dressed in black and white, were stomping and yelling at the fans dressed in red and green. There were policia stationed all around the fence separating us from the field to prevent any sort of fights that might erupt during the match if the game was to get close. It was one of the most invigorating and exciting things I’ve ever experienced. I know that we have some of the most dedicated fans in the country, but the way these fans supported their team was just incredible. The game began and the screaming continued. The away team scored the first goal, which completely infuriated all of the Corinthian fans. We weren’t able to watch the entire game because after sitting in the stands for four hours we all became incredibly hungry and exhausted. We drove to a local pizza parlor which turned out to be quite the adventure. They brought many different types of pizza out for each of us to try, (it would take way too long for me to try and list them all!) but by far the best part of the meal, were the three different dessert pizzas they brought out at the end; one had bananas and this cinnamon spread on it, one had strawberries and dark chocolate and the last one had chocolate and shredded coconut. Absolutely delicious!! Well we finally made it back to the hotel after an incredibly long day and it’s time I get to bed! Boa Noite ~ Roberta Holehouse
May 11 Today was our first day of playing and I think everyone was anxious to see the different style of play here. We started off the morning with the complimentary breakfast downstairs of the hotel where there were delicious pastries and fruit. We got on our awesome, two story bus and took off to practice. When we arrived at the practice facility, we were in awe of its beauty. There were big beautiful trees everywhere surrounding this huge sports facility. But the first thing we all noticed was the gigantic water slide that we all wanted to go down. When we got in to the gym where we practiced, we all put on our shoes and kneepads and did our normal warm up. While we were waiting for the balls to come, we did some blocking and digging stuff. Then Coach had us circle up while Jess and Tice had a pretty bad wrestling match....no one won. The balls finally arrived and we got to adapt to the balls that they use here. After practice, we got to tour the facility. The facility used to be owned by a bank that sponsored teams but now is more of a country club. Lunch came after the tour and we went to a place where there was more meat, of course. It was a small buffet style with salad, sausage, fries, chicken and other things. They brought meat around the tables and everyone’s drink of choice still seems to be Guarana. Right after lunch we went to our match. We arrived at the facility and immediately started to warm up. We split the court with the team during hitting lines. The club team had girls from the ages of 17 to 21 and they were pretty athletic. We played four games with them and won all four. After we played, we exchanged t-shirts with them and then took a group picture. This was another fun day filled with new experiences! ~ Cathy Quilico
112
PENN STATE 2011–12 • WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL • Five-Time NCAA National Champions ‘99, ‘07, ‘08, ‘09, ‘10