Daily Journal: Alabama European Team Tour Day 3
5/25/2006 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
The Alabama volleyball team is on a 10-day, three country tour of Europe. The Tide is traveling to Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia and will play five matches while visiting. To keep the fans informed, the Alabama players are writing daily journals about their trip of a lifetime.
Alabama European Team Tour
Day 3 5/23/06 Budapest
Lindsey Buteyn #11
Today we started the day with the wonderful hotel breakfast again. We left at 8:45 for our match against the Hungarian club, BSE. We definitely proved ourselves today and we had our first European win. We took the match 3-1 with a stellar performance from Rachael Green (Serving specialist, Defensive specialist). Rachael had numerous aces and spectacular digs. Way to represent the middles Rach! Mary Beth had a few aces herself, including a wonderful short serve. Amy Pauly ripped up the back court with a number of spectacular digs while holding down the serve receive. Abbi Blackburn had another solid game picking up some digs, aces, blocks, and kills. What more can you ask for? Crystal Hudson ripped some balls that surprised the Hungarians, including a cut shot so sharp it almost hit the bleachers! In the end, we improved overall team play. Our spectators got a glimpse of REAL Alabama Volleyball. Everyone had a great consistent attitude even when we were down. We battled hard and showed off our great skills.
After our exciting win, we had the rest of the day for our touring pleasure. After lunch, we bid Cory farewell and thanked him for putting this all together for us. We started the afternoon with a visit to “Terror Haza”, The House of Terror, a museum for the victims for the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party (Hungarian Nazis) and AVO and AVH under Soviet occupation. Victims were tortured and killed for information and other various reasons. Located at 60 Andrassy Boulevard, the building intimidated many of the Hungarian people and its occupants changed and diminished much of the country to the low-state that they are still trying to bounce back from today. The museum commemorates the victims of the dictatorships of the time and the changes Hungary has gone through to get to where they are today.
“The past must be acknowledged....” ??Attila Jozef
After the museum, we were set loose in Budapest to do what we pleased, also known as SHOP! Everyone got to experience European shopping and thoroughly enjoyed it. A few of us were very hungry and found a familiar sight. Oh those golden arches never looked so good! Yes, we went to McDonald’s McCafe for the first time in who knows how long. Crystal and Brigitte Slack walked the red carpet in style. Brooks made a few more “best friends”. We were excited about our purchases and showed them off at, Anna’s Caf?? where we ended our shopping endeavor. Soon after leaving, Chris (aka the Christopher Redding), was mobbed by the paparazzi. He barely escaped. On the ride home, Brooks demonstrated her artistic side with photographing her models, Bridget Fuentez and Crystal, in some interesting poses. On the subway, Rachael pointed out a good looking Hungarian man and Slack put her game on especially when we found out he spoke English. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stay and ran off.
Back at the hotel, we enjoyed a large, last, Hungarian meal including, soup, chicken-mushroom-turkey topped with cheese, rice, and something like fried “mashed potato sticks”, and to top it all off, fruit. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to our wonderful guide Heni. Soon, we were back in our rooms packing for the next trip to Slovenia and then to bed. It was definitely an event filled day. I can’t wait for the next country!
