Bologna Italy

Monday 23rd August
We arose early this morning to head south to Charleroi airport in Belgium. It was pouring with rain and quite cool, so we were glad to be heading to a warmer climate. In a very kind gesture from our coach and manager they decided they would drive the 13 hour trip to Bologna with all our gear and boats and let us seven players fly so that we could get to the apartment early and chill out. For a very cheap total of just over NZ$200 we managed to fly all seven of us with Ryan air. Arriving in Italy we were greeted with a beautiful day. The temperature was well into the thirties so we were all finding it very hot. We had rented a car to use for the day, but as it was just a little “panda” seating only 4 people we had to do two trips to get everyone to the apartment. The directions would prove a little hard to interpret and the first group ended up hiring a taxi to finally get them to the apartment. Ali and Ju made their way back to the airport and we did take two of trying to find the airport. After asking a few people where the “stazione central” was we eventually, in a loop-di-loop kind of fashion made it to the apartment. In the mean time Tania and Freya had been off to the supermarket getting us a delicious lunch, which we all gobbled up and then chilled out for the afternoon watching a movie…and sweating a lot! At about 8pm Alison and Nick finally arrived after traveling through Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Not a bad effort for knocking off a bunch of country’s in one day! Bed was a sticky issue with the temperature still in the high twenties.

Tuesday 24th August
This morning we were able to wake up when we wanted which was a nice treat. Ali Nick and Alison dropped off the little “Panda” rental car and once they returned we headed off for a light run. It was nice and hot and allowed for a lot of sweating!! We filled the rest of the morning with some more chilling out, reading books, playing knucklebones and showers. After lunch we headed into town to check out the sights for some and shops for others. The architecture is incredible, lots of old old buildings. There was a water fountain in the middle of town that was 450 years old! It made us appreciate just how young NZ is! The water fountain featured Neptune along with women squeezing their breasts as water flowed out of the nipples! It was a sign that the Pope of the time must have liked lactating women! After strolling around town for a couple of hours our taxi driver Tans took us all home. We are now just chilling out watching a movie as Freya cooks us a yummy roast chicken dinner. Bed soon then up early to get back into the training to prepare us for our next tournament this weekend.

NZ PADDLE FERNS