Flag Football and Monte Tamaro

Thursday, October 9 and Sunday, October 12

A couple of weekends ago I decided I needed a little me time. As you can tell, I have been extremely busy and haven't really even been able to keep up with my posts. Anyhow, earlier in that week I participated in a flag football game against the Varese Scorpions. It was extremely intense but a lot of fun.

Our P.E. teacher Giorgio Volpi is the head coach of the American Football team based out of Varese. Last year he arranged for a group of us to travel to Varese to play flag football, but this year he brought his team to us. A couple of us showed up to the gym earlier, to throw around. We were having a good time until the team showed up and we got a little nervous. Our team consisted of three girls and three guys. There team were all young, in shape and obviously football players. Most coming in well above six foot. Luckily for us, our headmaster arrived as did Matt Walker to provide some more muscle and knowledge of the sport. With James as quarter back we were able to score a couple touch downs and the score continuously went back and forth with us leading occasionally by one or two. Then I made a huge catch from James who rocketed the ball from our one side of the gym to the other. I had to jump to catch the ball with one hand, bobbled it for some time before securing it. Even the other team got excited for me. I think I was grinning for the rest of the evening.

That weekend after cleaning and going shopping for things to make my home a little more lived in. I even baked brownies and cookies that were quickly devoured at the Grey's Anatomy premiere. I joined Martha and the Cali's for a hike. We originally planned on going to Monte Generosso because it was a beautiful morning and supposedly you can see all the way to Milan. However, unbeknown to us, the train wasn't running in the morning so we loaded back into the car and headed towards Monte Tamaro where the views are nice but not the same. However, we had a great time.


When we first got up there we visited a church that was built in 1993 and has very modern architecture.

The architect is well known for his innovative designs. This one seems awkward in comparison to the other European churches.

Erica Cali and I

The ladies sitting on the ledge of the church

After that we decided we really needed to play a little and went down the flying monkey, also known as a zip line and the alpine carts. I tried to be brave and never push the brakes until the end but there were a couple of turns where I felt like I was going to fly off the tracks and just for safety reasons I pushed them down...just a little. I swear.

On our way up to the flying monkey

Martha and I are a little intense!

The zip line

Hanging out above the mountains

Our next stop. The Alpine Slide

Erica's ready for the adventure

Mike flying down, never hitting the breaks.

Once we were done entertaining ourselves and thought maybe we should be adults once again we started our descent down the mountain. But not before we took just one or two jumping pictures. The Cali's specialty.

Right off the edge!

On the way down. The colors had just begun to change and the way the light was hitting them it looked absolutely magical.

The hike down was relatively uneventful. Lizzie fell nine or ten times and Erica led us down a path that wasn't so much a path as loose rocks in the woods. About thirty minutes of being lost we found the path once again and made it the rest of the way down unscathed.

I stopped to test out my ups.

We were so quick I was even able to make it to basketball that evening and continued my dazzling display of athletic prowess by hitting one or two shots and only bleeding from the leg.