Hey there, my name is Christine Sinclair and I am the captain of the Canadian women's national soccer team. I am going to be blogging throughout our team's road to the World Cup.

The Canadian national team is run a little bit differently than most national teams, meaning that most players are not playing professionally.

Instead, our national team is holding residency camp to best prepare for the upcoming World Cup. I have decided to play in the WPS and am a proud member of the Western New York Flash.

However, since the WPS season has not started, I am in camp with the national team.

What's one of the bonuses to having an Italian as a head coach? Our residency camp is based out of Rome!

As a result we have been here many times. However, knowing that we are preparing for the World Cup, this camp feels a little bit different. We have already been here for 10 days, and plenty of work has been done.

We've played Sweden in a friendly match, but at this point there are no "friendly" matches. We lost the game 1-0, but I think we deserved to get more out of the game.

We created many chances and gave up very few, but Sweden is such a quality team that punished us for our few mistakes and lack of composure in front of goal.

Luckily, the World Cup doesn't start for another 82 days so we have plenty of time to improve.

Our coaching staff gave us a day off last weekend, so on this team that means one thing: going to downtown Rome to sightsee and shop.

We have been here before, so most of us have done the traditional tourist attractions: The Coliseum, Vatican, Sistine Chapel, Spanish Steps, etc. There is something spectacular around every corner in this city!

After sightseeing, we visited one of about a million amazing restaurants for pizza and my favorite: Gelato! Every time I am out of the hotel there is one thing on my to-do list -- get gelato.