Jan. 31, 2008

In the fourth edition of the Illini 2008 Blog, freshman Marisa Lambropoulos talks about the team's trip to Knoxville, Tenn., and its match against the Volunteers. Marisa also gives fans insight into some of the team's favorite activities on bus trips and their favorite TV shows. Illinois continues its schedule this weekend when it travels down to the sunny skies of Florida to take on Florida State on Sunday, Feb. 3, at 11 a.m. CT, noon local time, in Tallahassee, Fla.

Well our weekend trip all started with the turtle top, or as some would like to call it, a short bus. We started our trek in the morning, and considering it was so early in the morning, I bet everyone was expecting a nice quiet ride. However, that wasn't the case, because Annie and I were in the bus. Every song that Dave or Michelle would put on we knew the words to, or at least pretended to. By the end of the ride, we started incorporating Michelle's (AKA Shelly's) name into the songs. For example, the song "Hate That I Love You", we changed to "Hate That I Love Michelle".

To understand some of the rest of the stories in my blog, it's important to note that the show "LOST" has taken over Annie's, Leigh's and my life. The entire plane ride consisted of us gasping from all of the ridiculous things that happen in the show, including the beginning where they had a plane crash. We were all left uneasy, which is Shivani's favorite feeling I might add. All I know, is ee are lost without it (get it? That was funny).

When we arrived in Knoxville, we relied on "Shelly's" GPS system - which our trainer Amber conveniently named Mona - to get us places. Mona was very loyal, and honestly was flawless until Friday night when she told us Walgreen's would be on the left and it came up on the right!

While the trip was fun, as all of them are when you get this team together, we had a tough match against Tennessee in which we lost. Tina (Kristina Minor) was the one who ended up pulling through for a win in singles, but it was not the best day for the rest of us. During the match, there was a crazy Lady Volunteer fan that insisted on calling one of our opponents Princess Sophia. Don't ask me, it was there fan.

Following the match, we headed to the Knoxville airport where we stopped to eat at Ruby Tuesdays. Our waitress made sure to call all of us ma'am, and none of us were used to this Southern politeness, but we definitely enjoyed it.

While waiting for Dave to get the turtle top in Chicago, Tina, Megan, Leigh, Annie, and myself let Shelly ask us questions and we had to answer them with the first thing that came to our minds. During that "game", we found out that Megan's favorite extra-curricular activity is napping, and the most popular trip was Florida.

Well, that is about it for now. Sorry that I jumped all over the place, but those are pretty much how our trips go and how my mind works.

I hope to see everyone out at our next home match, next Friday against DePaul. It is always great to play in front of a great Illini crowd, so we look forward to returning home next week.

Thanks for reading, and until next time,

Marisa Lambropoulos, GO ILLINI!