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Matt Kavanaugh, Kevin Dillard and Josh Benson outside the Anne Frank House & Museum in Amsterdam. |
Members of the University of Dayton men's basketball team are writing player diaries during the team's trip to Europe. Here are three entries:
BRIAN VONDERHAAR (Aug 9)
We arrived in Amsterdam around 11:45 pm, which would have been 5:45 AM our time back in Ohio. We then hopped on a bus and immediately stopped off to see a small town / village to see the windmills. The weather here in the Netherlands is surprisingly chilly and windy, which helps to power the windmills for various tasks (sewing, churning cheese, etc.). After that, we checked into our hotel and we all took a nap because of the lack of sleep on the plane. I am rooming with Matt Kavanaugh. For dinner, Kav, Mitch, Fab, Alex, JP, CJ and I walked to a pizza / pasta bar. We learned very quickly that it is not cheap here! The average price for an entrée is about 10 Euros (just over $14). After dinner we walked around downtown Amsterdam to see the city and the canals. It is a nice city, however it is a little dangerous walking around due to the bike paths. They blend in with the sidewalks and the people use bikes as a major source of transportation. These bikes stop for nothing and have frequently hollered at us to get out of their way.
MATT KAVANAUGH (Aug 9-10)
Upon landing in Amsterdam, I immediately recognized several cultural differences while being in the airport alone! Walking around on the first day was definitely fun. Day two was another very fulfilling day starting with the Anne Frank House. It was amazing to actually be in the same rooms where those eight people had to cram together and hide for over two years. I could not imagine anything that horrid happening during my lifetime. My teen years were some of the best years of my life so far and I just cannot imagine what Anne Frank and her family had to go through. From there we walked back to the hotel to rest up for the game. We started out slow in the first half, but picked up the intensity in the second and won 70 to 66. Now it is dinner time and then we will walk around to take in Amsterdam for awhile, then it is to bed.
JOSH PARKER (Aug 10)
This has been a very exciting day for us…well I know for me it has! To start it off, we went to the Anne Frank House. Having read the Diary of Anne Frank, it was very interesting to me to actually see the house they lived in and hid inside for over 700 days. It was amazing and sad to see the way they lived and how they survived for the amount of time they did. My favorite part of the house was seeing Anne’s room. Her room was extremely small and she tried to decorate it to make it feel more home-like even though it was truly a hiding space. All of the pictures she clipped and put on the wall were still there and it was interesting to see. I really enjoyed my visit. Additionally, our first game here was fun and interesting. There are many different rules compared to our rules in the U.S. including timeouts, calls…everything seemed different! I really enjoyed playing with the guys.
