Laundry Day at Last and a Practice with SCORPION WEATHER

Thursday, 25 January, 2018

At long last the day had come, time to do some laundry.

The Villa Skorpion's

Bosch Avantixx 7

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to download the instruction manual for this make and model of washing machine.

It was, in fact, easy to operate. The only drawback is the two hour and 35 minutes it takes to do a single load.

I had two loads to do so most of my day was dedicated to renewing my clean, aromatic wardrobe.

As usual in my EuroBall experiences, there are no dryers to be had so I have to hang dry everything.

It was a bit raw today so I used my indoor drying rack in one of the warmer rooms in the house and all the clothing was dry in a decent amount of time.

Between loads I did take a stroll into Venegono Superiore to do a few other chores.

Another Stop at the Post Office

to mail something to the USA

Nothing has said Italian culture to me quite as much as these trips to any and all of the Post Offices in the land.

The human interaction at these places is just fun to observe.

Today there were two windows open for service and only four of us in the the lobby.

A small, elderly man was at one of the service windows when I arrived. Apparently, what he needed was quite involved and would take some time.

In the middle of his task another lady sat down behind the glass barrier to do some work. He knew her, so as the local custom demands, he stopped his discussion with the lady waiting on him to go into a full discourse with our new player. Pleasantries were fully exchanged including what their respective families were doing, the weather, how AC Milan was doing, etc.

Meanwhile, I remained in my mini-queue . . .

There was a break in the action of our tale's protagonist so he did the only polite thing. He turned to me to tell me all off the details of his life as near as I could tell.

This two minute exchange required that I use each and every bit of the intricate Italian body language that I have learned over the years so as to non-verbally keep up my end of the conversation.

He seemed happy so I was happy.

I love Italian Post Offices.

Entrance to Venegono Superiore's

Bruno Munari Biblioteca

It was time to get my library card and to check and see if they had any books in English for me to read over the next few months.

Enza

Volunteer Libraian

Enza, short for Vincenza, was of great help in finding the type of books that I needed amid the library's recent reorganization.

The library has a limited amount of English language books and all are categorized as classics.

My higher education will continue through this library's collection it would seem.

Tiziano Sclavi is a noted

comic book writer from these

parts I was told by Enza 

Sclavi is most famous as the creator of the comic book Dylan Dog in 1986.

Time for lunch . . .

Just across the street from

the library, why not?

A delicious chicken wrap and a Fanta for only 5.50 Euros.

That was a lot less painful than yesterday's lunch in Milan.

Recess was over

Chiesa San Giorgio

It is Venegono Superiore's biggest church but it is still quite small by Milan Duomo standards.

 The Caffé across the street

from the Chiesa

 Possible entertainment Saturday

night near the Villa Skorpion

In the evening, the day's raw weather had turned into a steady rain that would last all four hours of our two practices, Flag teams at 6:30 and Seniors at 8:30.

It was foggy and wet to be sure

SKORPION WEATHER!

Fortunately, our field drains well but we would be damp nonetheless.

Flag team stretching

Flag team One-on-Ones

Our sleds arrived! 

With an eye on not tearing up the wet field, we opted to not use them tonight but they will be a staple of our future practices to be sure.

We had about 30 Seniors at practice tonight which was good but only three of them were offensive linemen.

While this caused a change in not allowing for any team work, it did allow for a much needed lengthy 7-on-7 period and lots of individual and group work between our lines and LBs.

One of the keys to EuroBall coaching life is the need to adapt your practices on the fly.

As we did tonight.

Again, a competitive and spirited workout with much accomplished by a group of coachable players.

I LOVE THIS TEAM!