Blog 2: Travel Down Under
August 18, 2007 | Women's Basketball
The UW women's basketball team embarks Aug. 16-28 for a playing and sight-seeing tour of Australia and New Zealand. The players will write a daily account and post photos on uwbadgers.com. Today's feature on the practice leading up to the trip is written by junior guard Chris Spencer.
Passport' Check Basketball shoes' Check.It's hard to believe that the beginning of this 32-hr. travel-a-thon began Thursday morning in the locker-room as we all checked and re-checked our bags to make sure all the boxes on Steph's (Schmitz) handy list were packed away.
We came into our 8 a.m. Kohl Center breakfast anxious to get to Australia, that is, with the exception of one major detail: the days of flying required to get to our destination. But this anxiety was with reason, considering the flight from LA to Auckland alone is and intimidating 12.5 hours. Additional flights on this first leg included four hour flights from Chicago to LA, and from Auckland to our final arrival in Melbourne. Having already made this long trip with my family a few years ago, I was able to take my focus off of the daunting travel time and really observe and appreciate the difference of experiencing this within the team dynamic.
After breakfast on Thursday morning, our travel party departed the Kohl Center for Chicago O'Hare. When we arrived in international terminal, there was, as usual, a long line to check in and go through security. This was the team's first test of patience. We waited it out and finally got on the plane at around 3 p.m. to LAX. This flight lasted about four hours, and we got into LAX at about 5 p.m. (with the time change).
Then there was another wait. We had a five hour layover until our flight for Auckland left. Most of the team grabbed their last bite of 'American' food then went on to enjoy the downtime, or for some, worry about the flight. There are some people on the team who, on road trips, have a routine for this time. Sarah can always be caught watching her beloved episodes of 'The Office,' Brittany, Mariah, and JoJo never take their iPods out of their ears, and D-Ward always finds some place to sprawl out and sleep. However, this time Rae-Lin was glued to her DVD player watching '24, ' and a few of us played one of the best card games ever made (no bias) which is of course, UNO. Eventually they called us to board the plane and we boarded what would be the longest flight our team would ever take.
I remembered the planes to Australia being more spacious and luxurious than intercontinental flights, and was glad to find that they had not changed a bit. The plane is 68 rows of seats long, with three rows of three seats across. Each seat had its own video screen behind the headrest of the seat in front. On this screen, we could select from a variety of movies, TV shows, and interactive games to help the flight go by.
I began to watch the movie 'In the Land of Women,' but suddenly lost interest and fell asleep for about six hours. When I woke up, I got up to stretch out my legs. Walking around, I visited Caitlin, who was especially nervous about the long flight. She seemed to be doing well coloring in her 'Disney Princesses' coloring book though. Aaron (Van Lieshout) and Coach Freitag had their lights on and were reading the newest Harry Potter, and almost everyone else was asleep.
When we finally arrived in Auckland, it was early Saturday morning. We had left on Thursday afternoon and somehow lost Friday! That is crazy to think about. The flight from Auckland to Melbourne was another four hours but it seemed so short compared to the previous one. At last we touched down into Melbourne and the trip that we had all been dreading was behind us. Now we can focus on winning some games and having fun together!
