Hotel Karim, Tagliata

Hello everyone,

We made it to Talgliata to our hotel next to the Adriatic Sea. The bus ride from Florence to Tagliata took about 3 hours. We stopped at an Italian rest stop which served very good Italian sandwiches and snacks. As always, the guys were great travelers, no complaints, no whining... Before heading to the hotel, we stopped at the tournament registration site and registered the team before heading off to the hotel for checkin. As I was leaving, I caught sight of a Swedish girls team. They all looked like super models, after getting a look at them I knew the guys would really enjoy the tournament!

We are staying at the Hotel Karim. Everyone settled in nicely (except the "Sisters" who had terrible mold in their room -- sorry Nancy & Kathy). We got a new tour guide, Scott, who is very very knowledge of the area. Good news, is that Air France found Steven Logan's and Chris Hughes' luggage, bad news is that we still don't have Max's or Jaime's luggage.

The hotel is right across the street from the beach. Italian beaches are very different from beaches that we are familiar with. The beach is blanketed with beach chairs and umbrellas and you just can't go to the beach, you have to have rent a lounge chair to hang out on the beach. Thankfully, Richard and Scott got us a good deal on beach chairs and umbrellas for the week so the parents and guys can go to the beach every day for beach fun and sun. Today, all of the guys went to the beach and some actually went into the sea for a refreshing swim -- including Coach Jonny! Theresa, Nancy, Richard, Laurie, Bob & I had some adult beverages on the beach. The local Italian men in their Speedos were very interesting to see.

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, Jonny had a team meeting afterwards then we celebrated Jaimie's 16th birthday. It's about 10:30 pm and the guys are still playing cards outside and the parents (me included) are drinking the be best Sangiovese wine I've ever had (for 9 euros!) Okay 9 x 5 may be over the top, but this wine is really really good....

Take care, all of the guys are doing great. MA