.png&width=32&height=32&type=webp)
Former Cardinals Mello and Scharoun Visit Europe
August 06, 2010 | Women's Soccer
Aug. 6, 2010
Former Cardinals Mello and Scharoun Visit Europe - Photo Gallery
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Former Louisville women's soccer players, Jessica Mello (2009 graduate) and Sara Scharoun (2010 graduate) recently returned from a month-long backpacking trip through Europe. Here is a recap of their exciting trip.
Jessica and Sara Visit Europe - 2010
Our adventure began shortly after Erica Matanich's (formerly Robinson, 2008 graduate) wedding in Louisville on May 22nd. We returned to Canada together, first stopping in Cleveland to stay with Mallory Lampson (2009 graduate) who is currently studying at the Cleveland Clinic. We made it to Sara's home on Friday May 28th and were welcomed by Mrs. Scharoun who baked us everything we could think of, including her famous chocolate chip cookies.
We spent Saturday in downtown Toronto and Sunday preparing for our long trip. Our flight left on Monday night and arrived in London Tuesday morning. We spent most of our first day in Europe in the Gatwick airport awaiting our evening flight to Faro, Portugal. We finally arrived in Portugal late that night. The airport was mostly empty and no one spoke English. We were quickly faced with the reality of being in a foreign country. After a very scary cab ride, we arrived safely at our hostel. It was "dorm-style" but in no way reminded us of the luxury of living at Bettie Johnson. We decided not to explore the city for dinner in the dark and instead settled for a dinner of Cliff bars and other snacks.
We found the beach the next afternoon where we slept to the sound of the waves crashing. It was much needed relaxation time after all the traveling of the previous days. The next day we explored the city with our 40 pounds of luggage on our backs. We quickly regretted packing so many clothes.
That evening, we took a train to Lisbon. We arrived downtown at night, but an English-speaking pedestrian pointed us to our hostel. The next day, we took the subway to the Atocha train station in a different part of Lisbon where we decided to explore. Again, we carried our backpacks all day because we were taking a night train to Madrid. Lisbon was a beautiful, old city with lots and lots of hills. Of all the countries we visited, Jessica would love to return to Portugal, the country where her grandmother was born.
The night train to Madrid was a terrible experience. We had "reclining chairs" that did not recline, the lights remained turned on, and the other passengers never stopped talking. We finally arrived in Madrid, sleep deprived and a bit cranky, but still managed to do some exploring outside the train station. We saw lots of beautiful buildings and fountains, but after just a few hours, we had to return to the station to catch our train to Barcelona.
We finally arrived in a city during the day, and after spending 3 hours booking our next train tickets, we walked to our hostel and ate dinner. We stopped on our way back to watch a group of about 30 street performers drumming in a neighborhood square. We passed a few kids playing soccer in the street and both of us wanted badly to join them.
The following day, we explored the city. We started at FC Barcelona's stadium then walked on la Rambla and hiked up to the 1992 Olympic Stadium. Early the next morning, we had to catch a train to Nice, France. Unfortunately, we did not realize that the train station was on a different subway line than our hostel. We quickly decided we would have to run with our 40 pound bags on our backs in order to catch our train. We both agreed that our fitness training with weight vests helped prepare us for the run and that Teena Murray (our strength and conditioning coach) would be very proud of us for making it to the train with about 3 minutes to spare.
We walked to our seats as the train left the station, surprised to find Sara's brother onboard. He and his two friends were also backpacking through Europe at the same time, but since neither of us had made definite plans, so finding them was just lucky. The train ride was long, but the views of the water and the mountains in the South of France were amazing! We even stopped in Montpellier, which we learned is Louisville's sister city!
We thoroughly enjoyed relaxing on the rocky beaches in Nice the next day then took an early train the following morning headed for Venice. We took the water bus to our hostel which overlooked the lagoon and the main island. We saw lots of beautiful buildings and churches, bought real Murano glass, and enjoyed navigating through the narrow alleys and over canals for three days.
Next we took a train to Rome where we stayed in a bed and breakfast that was only a ten minute walk from the Colosseum. For the next three days, we walked and walked and walked, about 12 hours each day. It was tiring, and our feet hated us, but it was worth it. We saw the Palatine Hill, the Forum, the Pantheon, the Vatican Museum, St. Peter's Basilica, the Spanish Steps, and the Trevi Fountain and much more. We were sure to eat at amazing pizza and gelato places every day in Rome. We were lucky to find an American-run restaurant to watch the USA play England in the World Cup. It was fun to see so many people cheering and waving our flag when Dempsey tied the score.
After seeing everything that we could possible see, we took a train to Salerno, where we stayed only one night. We sat by the beach in the morning and then took a train to Pompeii. We spent a few hours looking through the museum and then through the actual city. It's amazing to see a city that was destroyed so quickly, yet was preserved so well for 2000 years.
Our next stop was Florence where, for a few extra Euros, we had a spacious room and a bathroom to ourselves. This may seem trivial, but it was pretty amazing after 2.5 weeks of sharing with strangers. Our first morning started around 6am so that we could get in line to see Michelagelo's statue of David in the Accademia Gallery. We saw some beautiful churches and did some shopping for famous Italian leather goods. The next morning started just as early so that we could get in line at the Galleria degli Uffizi then to the Bargello museum. The abundance of Italian Renaissance artwork, architecture, and ideals in Florence made the city Jessica's favorite to visit. Again, we made sure to find a place to watch the USA play Slovenia in the World Cup. It was a small café with not many people, but it was surprisingly not as easy as we had expected to find places to watch the world cup in Italy.
That night, we caught a sleeper train to Paris and this time, we even had beds. They weren't very spacious, Sara probably only had about 2.5 feet of space because she was in the middle, but our roommate was nice and we slept well. When we arrived in Paris, we were immediately struck by the cold weather, especially compared to the heat we experienced in Italy! We didn't save much room for warm clothes in our backpacks so we had to layer our sweaters to keep warm. Among many other things, we saw the Eiffel tower, the Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame de Paris, and the Louvre. Because Paris lived up to Sara's expectations, it was her favorite city to visit.
We also were lucky enough to meet up with Gerard Voutier and Frank Jonke, both former members of the Men's soccer team at Louisville. Gerard is from Paris and Frank was visiting during his week off from his professional soccer team, AC Oulu in Finland. It was so great to see familiar faces in a strange place. We met at the Eiffel Tower where FIFA had a large television and fan festival set up for the World Cup. It was nice to catch up with our friends and we were sad to leave, but we were excited to move on to our next city, Munich.
When we arrived in the morning, we walked to the hostel and dropped off our bags. We saw a lot that day, including the Dachau Concentration camp, the 1972 Olympic Stadium, FC Bayern-Munich's stadium, and the world-famous Hofbrauhaus. The next day, we had to search for a place that was showing the USA vs. Algeria World Cup game, not the England vs. Slovenia game. It was a difficult task, but we finally found one and it was a pretty awesome experience. People were wearing the American flag on their backs, and when Donavan scored that last minute goal, strangers were hugging and high-fiving. There was an indescribable feeling of pride and excitement. Unfortunately, we could not stay to watch Germany play Ghana, we had to catch a flight to Manchester.
Our flight landed late that evening and another familiar face was waiting to greet us. Laura Walker (2008 graduate) welcomed us with open arms and drove us to her home in Preston, England. We spent a few days with her, exploring the countryside, castles, and lakes. It was so great to visit with her family. It felt as though we had known them forever, despite the fact that we had only really seen them on their once a year trip to Louisville to see us play.
Again, we were sad to say good-bye, but we had one more city on our list before the trip home. We got on a train to London where we spent our last three days. Unlike our ambitious 12 hour walking tours of Rome, Florence, Paris and other cities, we took the first two days in London rather easy. We saw the big sights like Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye, but our bodies were tired and we took our time as we walked. The last day, however, we realized how many things we still wanted to see so we took to the subways and made it to lots more attractions, like the National Galleries, the British Museum, Wembley Stadium, and Wimbledon.
Finally, our whirlwind tour had come to an end. We flew home on June 29th, exactly a month after we had arrived in Europe. We both agreed returning to Canada was a bit surreal, almost as if we had never left. We had souvenirs and over 2,000 pictures to prove that we did, however. Now it's back to real-life: work at ExxonMobil in Baton Rouge for Jessica and school for Kinesiology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada for Sara.
It was an amazing, once in a life time opportunity that we are both so glad we took. It was even better to experience it with a friend, a roommate, a teammate. So many memories to add to the four years we've already spent together. We never knew that playing soccer at Louisville would provide us with life-long friendships around the world.
- Jessica Mello and Sara Scharoun
