Day 12 Return to the USA

Day 12 Return to the USA

 After 12 days of touring Europe, sightseeing, playing volleyball, eating WAY TOO much great food.... It is time for us to return to the USA.

Our group was divided into an early departure group and a later departure group depending upon the departure of their flights. 

The first group departed the hotel at 8am and the 2nd departed the hotel at about 8:30am.

Everyone was on time for the departure.. as this is a VERY IMPORTANT day... our return to the USA....

This will seem like the longest day of the year because everyone now realizes that the tour is now done and are eager to be home.... Nothing can speed this up and the more we want to be home.... the longer it seems to take...

Getting 60+ people from across the USA to Europe.... across Europe... through some of the largest cities in the world... (even during an unprecedented METRO strike in London).... We are bringing back the same number of people that we brought.... (smile...)

It was a good group of players, parents and coaches...

We thank you for taking part in our tour... and hope to see you on one of our future tours to Italy next summer or to Rio de Janeiero during our Spring Break beach play and training tour. 

Day 11 Barcelona Tournament

2015 Volleyball Tour Blog  – Day 11 Barcelona Games           

This afternoon and evening are our friendly volleyball games in Barcelona.  The games started about 5pm so we had the morning to do additional sightseeing or to go to the beach.  Most of the individual girls and a few families decided to go to the beach and play some beach volleyball.  Other families continued to do sightseeing and shopping.   
At 3:30 pm we traveled by metro to our gym.  The metro here in Barcelona is easy to use and is much cleaner and newer than that of London or Paris.  I think it is because of the Olympic Games that were held here in 1992.
In no time we had arrived to the volleyball gym in Val de Hebron.  The gym was huge…. It was one of the venues from the Olympics… where they played volleyball … as we warmed up we had moments of what it would be like to play in the Olympics… and we were here at the former site of the Olympic games…  

We played in 3 separate age groups.  The U14 team play 6 sets winning 4 losing 2,  The U15-16 Blue and Red teams  played 5-7 games and the Older U17-18 team played 5 games.  The venue had 3 full sized separate courts.  

All of the teams in the tournament were from Barcelona or around Barcelona.  The weather outside was about 90+ degrees and the gym was not air conditioned and it did not take long to “get warmed up”. The level of the competitions were just the right level as most of the teams split sets and played the tie breaker games…   The girls here were much more friendly … and it was fun to talk with them in our Spangenglish…. We finished our games at about 8:30pm… We had our group departure meeting before we entered into the Metro... making sure everyone knew when their flights were departing and which Airport Motor coach they needed to take and at what time.
In about 30 minutes time we made our way back to the hotel.   We showered and went to dinner…. Most of us were really tired from the hot day and the volleyball play…. and had dinner near the hotel

Tomorrow is our Return to the USA day

Day 10 Barcelona Free Day

2015 Volleyball Tour Blog Day 10 Barcelona Free day           

This morning everyone was excited to have a free day to revisit some sites or to visit to some they had not visited or to go to the beach for relaxing day after 10 days of travel. The day was a hot one…. John reminded us to put on sunblock and to keep re-applying it as we would be outside all day… and to drink lots of water…. Most of the individual players went with the coaches to the beach to play some friendly games and to play in the water.  John reminded us that we were to go into the water near the lifeguard and only go out to armpit deep water.  

In the 85 degree temperature with the sun setting, it gave us a moment to reflect back on our trip…. we all said we would love to stay here a few more days…. But at the same time we were eager to go home.

Tomorrow we will play our final mini tournament starting at about 4:30pm.  We will have a brief meeting with the group to discuss the return morning transfers to the airport (we will have 2 transfers…one for the people who had early flights … and one later for the people who had  later flights).

Tomorrow..... Tournament day

   

Day 9 Barcelona Hop on Hop off Tour

2015 Volleyball Tour Blog Day 9 Barcelona Hop on Hop off tour      

This morning everyone was excited to have a free day and to do the Hop on Hop off tour of Barcelona.  We started our tour at about 10:00am with the first of our group boarding the first bus and then 5 minutes later the next group and finally the last group after than…  The day was a hot one…. this is Barcelona in July and it is normal…. John had reminded us to put on sunblock as we would be outside all day… and to drink lots of water…. It did not take long to see why…. The air was about 90 degrees and the hot sun seemed even hotter when you are sitting on the top of the open air bus…. Everyone was free to explore various parts of the city … the hop on hop off bus had 3 separate lines that explored 3 separate areas of Barcelona… and over lapped slightly to allow us to transfer from one line to the other…  We liked the broad streets and the open feeling that 

Barcelona had… There wre so many interesting architectural designs (some were pretty weird)… but also cool at the same time.  Many of us went to the very TOP of the hills behind Barcelona for a breathtaking view over the city and out to the water.  We saw the FC Barcelona stadium, the Olympic stadium and various buildings from the 1992 Olympics…. And some people (the more adventurous ones …) took a hanging gondola ride from the top on the hill down to the marina…   Tomorrow morning  is a free day to re-visit some of the sights that we did not get to yesterday and we are going to the beach in the afternoon for a couple of hours.   

Day 8 Paris to Barcelona

The morning was an early one as we needed to take our train at 10am from another train station in Paris.  Most of us had an early breakfast.  At 8:15am we made our way to the train station across the street to take an RER train to Gare du Lyon (the station where we will take our train to Barcelona).  our train arrived and all would have been fine except ... too many people tried to get into the same car door and their was not enough time for them to do that and the train had to leave.  Leaving 10- 12 people waiting to enter that car could not get on. One of our staff and our French guide were there to help them take the next train (a few minutes later).  Once we had everyone at Gare du Lyon we had only about 20 minutes to wait for our train to arrive.   We boarded quickly and were soon on our way to Barcelona.  The train ride was fun we had people in 2 cars of the train and most of us slept fine on the train a few were singing others were quiet reading or doing puzzles. people said they did not sleep too well (but that is the same thing they said when we flew to London) some people can sleep while moving and others cannot.


We arrived into the All Saints train station in Barcelona and were transported to our Hotel by motor coach.  The hotel is the newest one that we have stayed in . It is a Holiday Inn Express and has all the new up to date features it is very similar to any in the USA.  Everyone was hungry after the long train ride.  We walked a short distance from our hotel to one of the main walking streets in Barcelona Rambla del Poblenou and found many good restaurants to eat at even though it was about 8pm.   After dinner everyone went to bed.... travel days are difficult and tiring.

Tomorrow ... the hop on hop off tour of Barcelona 

Day 7 Vollyball Tour Palace fo Versailles

Day 7 Paris 

Today is the Palace of Versailles and free day... 

In the morning we took the metro and train out to the Palace of Versailles …. It was amazing… the Chateau itself is impressive… but the gardens, lakes, statues and fountains behind the Chateau are also beautiful and amazing…. The opulence of the king… no wonder there was a revolution in France. They were renovating some of the rooms inside and we could not go inside today but to make up for it ... the gardens were free for us to just walked through the gardens and grounds of the palace.
It was soon time to return back to Paris and to the Eiffel tower.  We boarded the train and in a few sleepy blinks we were back in Paris…. at the base of the Eiffel tower. 

Some families did other sightseeing besides the hop on hop off... Some families went for the day to Disneyland Paris 
Everyone was very tired after a full day of activity many returned back to the hotel and had dinner...
There were no problems with curfew.

Tomorrow is a travel day to Barcelona.  We need to have an early breakfast and be out the door by 8:15am

Day 6 Paris Hop on Hop off tour

Day 6 Paris Hop on Hop off tour

We woke this morning to a bright and sunny day, with a few puffy clouds drifting in.  We had breakfast at 8am and were ready for our hop on hop off bus tour of Paris.  Our pick up point was just around the corner from the hotel and everyone was there waiting for the bus to start the first tour.  Everyone was able to find seats on the top of the open air bus.  We traveled about 10 minutes to the point where the blue route and the red route intersected and everyone go on the next bus for the red route that went past more of the attractions that they wanted to see. The day was warm and the sun was shining bright on us as we were sitting on the top of the double Decker bus.  As we made our way through Paris… some of us started falling to sleep in the warm sun.  We decided not to take a group photo because everyone wanted to go their separate ways and see different parts of Paris.  We went to the left bank area to get some food … this is a area filled with restaurants … a perfect place for those who are hungry.  After lunch… Individual groups of people continued on with the hop on hop off tour… while others wanted to go directly to the Eiffel tower.  No matter where people went… It was a day filled with volleyball and sightseeing.

Tomorrow is the Palace of Versailles and our last day in Paris.