Buongiorno,

So we set off on our trip to Italy early Thursday morning leaving the AIS residences at 7am to board a flight from Canberra to Brisbane to then fly out from there to Singapore. The boys were very excited to finally be flying out and on our way overseas,

After a few hours sitting around at Brisbane airport we boarded our flight to Singapore which was set to be a 7 and a half hour flight. One of our players that won’t be named was in charge of carrying the projector around for the tour, got on the plane with just his own bag and after arriving in Singapore finally figured out he was missing something (being the projector) and informed the coaches who were not very happy with him. Anyway after that little dilemma and another few hours at Singapore airport we found out our flight to London was delayed by a few hours, we finally took off and the longest part of our journey was underway. Luckily most of the boys were about ready for a good sleep and most of us slept for the majority of the 12 hour flight which made the trip all the easier.

After arriving in London we had to move quickly to make sure we didn't miss our next flight which would see us land in Milan after a day of travel and most of the boys were pretty keen to get to our hotel have a good lunch and shower.

 We landed in Milan at around 11am to find that some of the bags had not made the trip to Milan with us; Hugh, Huss and Bairstow's bags had all not shown up and Wardy's massage table had not come off the plane. After sorting all that out we met our liaison Cathy Pierre who is over here working with the AIS HUB in Varese. Cathy took us to get our busses and we headed off to the hotel.

After showering we headed down into the city and we soon figured out that people in Italy seem to dress up a bit when walking around the city so we didn't quite meet the dress code as most of us had boardies and a singlet on due to the warm Italian sun. Our first stop at the gelateria was halted by King Clarke who told us we were not allowed to have any of the world famous Italian gelato!

We then proceeded for a walk around the block and happened to end up back at the gelataria where we started, much to our surprise there was King Clarke sitting there enjoying a double scoop cone of ice cream still telling us that it was illegal to eat ice cream for the day.

After an hour there we left Varese for the supposed short drive back to the hotel which was made into an epic journey because someone decided to not follow the GPS instructions and to go their own way which ended up with us being lost in small back streets up some mountain who knows where. It was then that they had decided to do the smarter thing and follow our bus with Gorrie and Wardy directed by our GPS that we actually listened to. After finding our way back to the main road we made just a small illegal left turn to then the second bus follow in the same manner as well as a police car heading in the opposite direction. Luckily he ignored us so we got away with nobody being fined for the day.

 After a long, long sleep on Saturday morning everyone woke up refreshed ready to go for our first training session. After a 2 hour workout and a 20 minute strength session we headed back to the hotel for a pool recovery session and another good Italian lunch.

We then drove to the idyllic wealthy lakeside town Stresa where we wandered along the Maggiore Lake and the main town of Stresa. Today we were determined to have our first taste of gelato and I’m pleased to say we succeeded!!! 

We returned from Stresa to have our team meeting to decide our tour goals and get ready for our first game tomorrow. 

Arrivederci!

Jason Cadee.