University of Massachusets Athletics
Erica Shapiro's Summer Diary From Australia
July 20, 2005 | Women's Lacrosse
July 20, 2005
G'day UMass fans!
I'm here in Adelaide, South Australia playing lacrosse for the Wilderness Club in the STX Women's League.
I'll be staying at three different places while I'm here. For the first three weeks, I stayed with the Evans family in the hills of Adelaide. Kahli Evans, the oldest of the four kids, was actually in the US playing lacrosse when I first got here. Currently, I'm staying with Claire Wright, another girl on my team, and her family in a part of Adelaide closer to the city. Claire tries to imitate my accent all the time, and it's so funny how hard it is for her to do. Later I'll be staying with Courtney Hobbs. She lives right across from the beach.
I've gotten to know a lot of Australians and the other Americans that play in the league. About a week ago two of the other Americans and I made a trip to Cairns in Queensland. Brigid Strain is from Virginia and plays at JMU and Ali Butler is from North Carolina and plays at Pfeiffer. We went snorkeling and scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef, hiking in the tropical rainforest, and white water rafting! And of course we spent some time at the beach. I'm planning trips around my game schedule for Sydney and Melbourne as well!
The city of Adelaide is really nice. About a million people live there, making it the smallest capital in Australia. It's really clean, and the people are heaps friendly.
I was surprised at how much different their food is from ours. And even if it is the same type of food we have, most likely they call it something else.
Everyone's obsessed with coffee. There are tons of coffee shops and bakeries around here. They say American chocolate is gross and that theirs is way better, but I can't really taste any difference... they're both good to me!
They're big with flavoring things with mango and apricot, and they never put peanut butter and chocolate together which I think is a big mistake. I've tried vegemite... let's just say I'm not a fan.
Most of the girls playing are Australian, but other Americans have come to play as well. The game itself is a little different from how we play in America. It's more like the men's version because it's a turnover if you lose the ball on the sideline, and you must sit out for a certain amount of time if you get a foul. Also, there is free movement, which means you don't have to stand still every time the ref blows the whistle, and four quarters instead of two halves. There are only 10 players from each team on the field at once, and there are no free position shots. And the best part... we don't have to wear goggles! Yay!
Many of the girls from the league played for the Aussie World Cup team which recently beat the U.S. team for the championship. Sascha Newmarch and Courtney Hobbs were part of that team, and they play for Wilderness as well. Both played lacrosse for the University of Maryland.
I've learned so much from the Australians that it's hard to put it all down in this email. Hope all is well back in Mass. Go Sox!!
Cheers! Erica