The Buzz in Barca: Freshman Taylor Cunningham

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Evan O’Kelly Director of Communications O: (406) 657-2130 E: evan.okelly@msubillings.edu Tuesday, June 13, 2017 The Buzz in Barca: Freshman Taylor Cunningham

Part 1 of MSUB’s women’s basketball blog detailing the trip to Barcelona, Spain, features freshman forward Taylor Cunningham.

May 17, 2017 | By: Taylor Cunningham BARCELONA – On our first full day in Spain, we drove to a town called Girona. Girona was a really pretty, small town, with a lot of beautiful pieces of architecture. We split up into a couple small groups and spent the day walking around the town, taking lots of pictures and exploring all of the interesting places throughout the city. I spent most of my day with Tiana and her dad, Janessa, Jeanann and Jenny.

When we first arrived in Girona, we walked across a magnificent bridge that went across the Onyar River. Right as soon as we went across the bridge, we looked to the right and saw many sculptures on chairs.

We look a little bit closer and saw that they were sculptures of butts haha!

Me, of course, being the goofball that I am, went and stuck my butt out next to the sculpture and had Jenny take a picture of me. It was definitely a funny start to the day.

We then continued to follow a map that we were given and went to all of the highlighted places on that map. One of those highlighted places was the cathedral. Inside the cathedral there were beautiful stained glass windows.

The ceiling inside was very tall so it made the building feel even bigger than it already was. On the outside there was a large staircase that led to the front of the cathedral. It was a really great experience being able to go inside and walk around in the cathedral. After going to the cathedral, we walked along the wall that surrounded and protected the city. We were able to climb on top of a tower and it gave us a magnificent view of the whole city of Girona.

We were able to get a lot of good pictures at the top of the tower.

After walking around the town, we were really hungry and ready for some lunch. We found a small Italian restaurant. It was very difficult to understand what the workers were saying and what the menu said, but luckily we had Tiana’s dad with us, who fluently spoke Spanish, so he was able to help us.

Many of us got pasta and pizza and it was delicious. After we ate we continued to walk around and look at all of the shops. Jeanann ran across a gelato shop earlier in the day so we made sure to come back and get some gelato after lunch.

That night, we played our first game. We were all really anxious and excited to play in our first game. It was extremely hard to adjust to the different rules of the game, but it was a really fun experience playing a team we essentially knew nothing about. The first half it took a little bit of getting used to and settling in, but the second half we came out strong and cut the opposing team’s lead down drastically. Even though we ended up losing that game, it was still really fun being able to play with each other.

I think it was very important that we made the trip to Spain. I believe it benefitted us drastically. It is very unlikely that any other GNAC team went on a foreign tour so we are already a huge step ahead of the rest of the teams in our league.

I think playing two games in Spain was a really good bonding experience for our team and really improved our team chemistry. I think off the court we had such a fun time together. We were all able to experience many firsts together and just enjoy every single day as a team. Playing in Spain was a once in a lifetime experience and I am so grateful that we got the opportunity to go down there and play.

The Buzz in Barca blog is a 9-part series detailing the Yellowjackets’ trip to Barcelona, Spain on the dates of May 17-21, 2017. Each of the player journal entries can be viewed online here.

--@MSUBSports | #BuzzInBarca--