Trip to Bergamo & Third Game

Photos from first few days

We departed Pisa by 11:45 and began our four-hour journey to Bergamo. About an hour into the trip, we stopped for lunch at another Autogrill. We then made a very scenic trip through the Alpini Mountains, a range that spans through the center of Italy.

From this point of the entry, I am posting in real time, at 2:00 a.m., after arriving at our hotel around 1:15. We finally are at a place that has internet that is easily accessible and unfortunately we are leaving here tomorrow morning at 8:30. I hope to have similar luck at our next hotel. I am glad I have been writing entries in Word on our long bus drives, which has made it easier to post all of the previous updates. So, while we hope to update you daily, tomomrrow may be another struggle as we have a full day in Venice before making a four+-hour drive to Innsbruck, Austria.

We arrived at the outside of Bergamo shortly before 5:00 and met our other driver, Stefano, who will be with us until we return to Italy on the tail-end of the trip. Stefano drove us to the game, which was played in one of the most beautiful settings I have ever seen. We traveled up a mountain, twisting and turning around curves that Phil says will seem like nothing once we get to the Swiss Alps. We all had no idea where we were going to find a soccer field in the middle of all of these mountains, but sure enough about 15 minutes later, we came to a field that was surrounded by mountains.

We played one of the top teams from the region, Atalanta, which plays in the same league as the team from Florence, which we played last night. It was the second game in a row, but the team continued to play aggressively and came back from a 1-0 deficit to win a 2-1 game in the final minutes. Atalanta scored with just five seconds left in the first half. Kellie Slater ’10 scored her second goal of the trip with about 10 minutes left to play to tie the game and then Melissa Kim ’10 scored on a direct kick from about 20 yards out with under two minutes remaining for the win. Steffi and Brenna were solid again in net with 7 saves combined.

After the game, we headed back down the mountain for dinner at a local pizzeria, where we were treated to salad, pasta, steak (an omelet for me), and fruit for dessert. We did not leave until close to 11:00 and then boarded the bus for the two-hour drive to our hotel.