May 11, 2009
Editor’s note: During the Notre Dame women’s basketball team’s 10-day foreign tour of Europe, senior guard Melissa Lechlitner will file a daily diary after talking by phone with the South Bend Tribune’s Curt Rallo. Following are Lechlitner’s thoughts on the trip.
PARIS, France – Today was all about touring, no shopping yet. We did a boat tour on the Seine River, and saw the Eiffel Tower.
We drove around the city and went downtown and saw the opera house and some other monuments.
For everybody, the highlight was the Eiffel Tower. It lights up, and when we were all standing there with our video cameras, a light show started. We were all going crazy. It was great. That was our take-your-breath-away moment.
We arrived in Paris at 9 a.m. Paris time, and we got right on the bus for a four-hour tour. After that, we had lunch and a little down time, and then we had another tour. It was go, go, go. There were some droopy eyes, that’s for sure. After a while, people were struggling to adjust to the time difference and stay awake.
The flight wasn’t as long as we thought it was going to be. There were movies and people tried to doze off, but it was hard to get a solid sleep in on the plane. I think people are going to go to bed early tonight. I can’t believe we have to play a game tomorrow at 5:30.
The only mishap so far was Rock (Erica Solomon) and Fred (Fraderica Miller) overslept when we had an hour to take a nap before dinner. Their alarm didn’t go off, and we’re all waiting at the bus for them. We’re waiting and waiting, and we’re like, man, they’re probably still sleeping. We probably better go get them, so we ran up there and woke them up. They had to hurry up like crazy and get to the bus.
The food has been great so far. The best was when Becca (Bruszewski) ordered a chocolate crepe, and I had a bite. It was amazing.
We’ve been so busy, no one remembered that it’s Mother’s Day, but we’re all going to get really nice gifts for the moms, really nice gifts. We haven’t done any shopping yet, but we will.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I love you. Don’t miss me too much.