Furman Women's Soccer Europe Diary

Presented By Melissa Turner

ENTRY #3

One word for the day is: WINERS.

We woke up early to go for a "light" jog and stretch. Brian certainly had a bad case of bed-head. We also held our seasonal push-up contest. Our winner was Amanda Brackett with 61.

After a bread breakfast and showers, we loaded the bus for a trip down the Rhine River in Germany. The "Star Spangled Banner" was played in our honor. The weather was quite warm and we saw many castles. We stopped in a cute town (Bad Neuenahr?) for lunch at a pizzeria. Alice Martin remarked "I liked the litle village. At lunch, the waiter gave me googely eyes and tapped me on the shoulder, but i didn't turn around." A few of the girls tried to order pepperoni pizza but got hot green peppers instead.

Our next stop was at the Winzer-Genossenschay winery in Maychosser. It is the oldest winery in Germany. The winery can store up to 2.5 million liters of wine. They can fill 2,000 bottles an hour. The bus driver told me that men and women actually walk up and down the steep slopes clipping the grapes. They do it once a year starting in September. It usually takes 1300 hours to finish. Laura Wise and our trainer, Karen Farley, did the wine-tasting. Laura explained their difficulties. She said, "We had a huge communication gap. When we asked her which wine was better (A or B, pointing to two bottles), the lady gave us a blank look and brought out another."

The afternoon at the monastary was very relaxing. After dinner, we attended the social in the basement with Vanderbilt and Yale.

P.S.--Mrs. Swansbrough, Christy is okay. Her calling card wouldn't work in Holland.