June 1 Photo Gallery

As part of the coverage of the USF Women's Basketball "Viking Voyage" to Scandinavia, sophomore Donnisha Taylor provides www.USFDons.com with a blog entry from the ninth day of the 11-day trip. For more indepth coverage, including addtional blogs,please visit the Dons Viking Voyage Tour Central.

June 1, 2009

Hello from COPENHAGEN, DENMARK!!

My time in Copenhagen has been fun so far. It has been so hot I'm think I'm on a verge of having a heat stroke. The gyms that we have been playing in have no air conditioning and the bottled water taste like they got it out of the canal.

I honestly have to say that I didn't like Stockholm that much. It just seemed like it was too culture oriented and the food wasn't that great. Oslo was by far my favorite place because it was more city like. It just felt like I was back home. We are now in Copenhagen after a night on a cruise ship. I have never been on a cruise ship before so that was fun!!!

Yesterday Katy Keating and I went exploring while the majority of the team slept. We ended up renting bikes to go eat at an Irish restaurant far from the hotel. It took us about thirty minutes to find available bikes but the ride was worth it. After eating in the restaurant Katy and I were surprised to find out that my bike had got STOLEN... so I had to walk back to the hotel while Katy rode her bike.

Today we went to Tivoli.. It's a famous amusement park that has many attractions like live shows, restaurants, and of course rides. The whole team enjoyed the amusement park and the city scenary. Me and a couple of my teammates went on a lot of scary rides that almost made us give up our dinner. The bad thing about it is that we were running a marathon around the park because we were trying to get on as many rides as possible in an hour and a half. Overall it was a fun day. We'll see everyone when we get back to the states.

It was our second to last day in Denmark and of our trip. We had an afternoon game today, so there really wasn't TOO much on the agenda. We had the morning on our own. I opted to talk a stroll down through town, even though everything was closed due to the Pentecost holiday. I did manage though to scope out some shopping for Tuesday, and grab a delicious strawberry Danish.

We left the hotel at 1:30 for our 3 p.m. tip with the Danish National Team. We had been told that this would be the hardest competition of the trip. Well, needless to say, the Dons rolled and won big, 74-56. The gym we played in was by far the best gym of the trip. It was real seating and a sound system. Not to mention, real computer stats. During the first three games, stats were up to me, hence the short game recaps posted. Today, there was a PA announcer, a stat crew, the whole shebang.

After the game we went back to the hotel, showered and headed to a team meal at the Hard Rock. It was hot in the restaurant, SUPER hot. Apparently we came to Scandinavia during insanely warm weather. It's been in the 80s and we have been told it never gets this hot, hence the lack of air conditioning ANYWHERE. Hopefully we can take the warm weather back to the City with us.

Post dinner, it was time for Tivoli - an amusement park in the middle of the city. I had been told that Tivoli is what Disneyland is based after and let me tell you, I can totally see that being the truth. Its full of restaurants, shops, gardens and, of course rides. You could tell what rides our girls where riding...just following the high pitched screams. I went on one ride - the swings. It's the go-around swings like they have at the fair, expect it raises HIGH above the city. The view, especially at sunset, was spectacular.

Tomorrow is our final day of the trip - minus the travel day home. We have the day to do what we please before a 4:30 pre-game team meal for our 8 p.m. game.

I will leave you with a little background on the bike story DT wrote about. In Copenhagen, there is an enormous biking culture. They ride their bikes EVERYWHERE and everywhere you look there are just hundreds of them. The city has a program where for 20 DKK, or about 4 bucks, you can rent a bike and when you return it to a bike station, you get your money back....Apparently someone really wanted DT's four dollars.

A photo gallery will be posted soon, as well our final blog. I will get it posted by evening time Tuesday as Wednesday we are out of the hotel at 5:50 in order to catch our flight to Newark and on to SFO.

Take care Rachel