Spain!!!

All week I’ve been dreading the day and half trip that it would take us to get to Valencia, Spain all the way from San Diego, California. What amounts to a 9 hour time difference which is never friendly on the body. Today I write to you, some 3 days later, finally in Valencia.

The trip started off like any other Friday morning as we departed the Training Center in Chula Vista, California at 9 am. With the team split up on two different flights, our group had to check all the extra baggage. Still, we left for Dallas without a hitch. But as is normal in the summer months in Dallas, thunderstorms rolled in, delaying our flight out for Madrid, Spain. After a 2 hour wait, we were at last under way for our 9 and a half hour flight. At this point, we knew we weren’t going to make our connecting flight in Madrid, so we had our manager rebook us on a later flight to Valencia.

With little to no sleep (I only got an hour), we stumbled off the plane in Madrid ready to get some new stamps in our passports! In what seemed like a giant maze where we were the rats looking for cheese, we wandered the airport, going in circles, up and down the same elevator multiple times before we finally found our way! (None of us seemed to know any Spanish which didn't help us too much!) It didn’t take long for us to realize that our reservations from American Airlines somehow did not transfer to Iberian Air and we did not actually have a flight to Valencia. After a few more hours of waiting around (mostly sleeping on the floor), our manager Pam Stuper had gotten everything reorganized for us, booking a flight for the next morning and getting us set up with a hotel nearby.

The best part about this whole set up had to be the fact that our bags were being held at the airport overnight for us (so we didn't have to lug them around all night and recheck them in the morning), so we were left with the clothes we wore on the plane. Yes, we wore the same outfits for close to three days. Don’t worry, we got a shower in and rinsed out our clothes as well.

As the rest of our teammates arrived Saturday night in Valencia, we finally arrived Sunday afternoon, ready for our Sunday evening practice in preparation for our game against Spain on Monday!! Of course all of the bags made it except for mine!! So I had to borrow clothes and hope my bag comes tonight so I can get my uniform and play in the game tomorrow!! Needless to say, I will never complain about a 24 hour trip, because it could always be worse… I learned that one the hard way!

We are all here though and ready for our first match as a team!
GO STATES!!!