Miami's women's basketball before practice in Montreux.  • Europe Trip Index Page

My neck, my back...day two has finally ended. Today we were on the bus for many hours traveling to Montreux. Once we arrived, we ate the pre-game meal on a beautiful patio overlooking Lake Geneva. The beautiful sun and trees gave me a sense of happiness and comfort. It is definitely worth seeing!

We were supposed to tour the Olympic Museum, but traffic conditions held us from our soon to be exciting tour. The tour is rescheduled for June 27th. When we thought we had arrived in Montreux, but we figured out that we were lost because the bus kept making u-turns. The bus driver seemed to be very upset since his face was turning bright red.

Finally reaching our hotel (Eden au Lae), we unloaded and looked around to see the surrounding sights. The hotel was very nice with a colorful restaurant that included hot pink and various Victorian colors and decorations. With my heavy key that weighed almost three tons, I had to open TWO doors to get into my room. Once inside I found deep tubs, a stocked refrigerator, and no air condition (the windows could open though).

The gym we played in is considered one of the nicest in Switzerland. It was clean and well kept, but once again no air conditioning plus MANY colorful lines on the floor. The trapezoid key was tough for me because of the three-second calls. There were new aspects in the play here including jump balls and a 24-second shot clock that forced the game to speed up. Our new style of play was fun, but we need a little time to get used to it. The referees were not calling the same fouls, as in the US...it was more aggressive and wild! We won 72-63. Three people scored in double figures led by Jana Butler with 19 points and Melanie Kozlowski and Heather Cusick both with 15. The new style of play forced a team-high 21 steals.

After the game we had dinner. We sat down at the pizza restaurant to mini champagne glasses filled with orange juice. Henry the bus driver used the THREE-FOOT pepper grinder on my pizza because Jana twisted the handle like a mad woman. Although I really didn't even want pepper on my pizza!

Jana, Beth, Nicki, Mel, and Hillary had a bad experience with their dinner. They ordered cheese pizza and discovered the cheese was used for the thin personal pizza's was GOAT cheese. HA HA HA! Jana made the funniest face when she took a big bite of her pizza. All I could do was laugh because she thought she was going to have pizza delight.

Montreux poetry by Kimberly Smith
'The rays of the sun gleaming upon the beautiful Lake Geneva sparkled in my eye like a diamond in the rough.'

Kim Smith

***We want to thank Jimmy John's for sponsorship of our pre-game meal at La Terrasse. Also we enjoyed playing against and spending time with Miami all-time leading scorer Monica Neimann ('95).