We arrived to London Heathrow (one of the worlds largest and
busiest airports). We have 80 people in
the group, they are arriving from across the USA into Heathrow on 12 different
flights at 12 different times into 4 different terminals. The first thought in my mind is CRAZYNESS….. To make matters more crazy…. On the East Coast
of the states they were having a weather event that caused 2-3 flight
cancelations for out travelers and several flight delays for others. All in all about 70% of the group had their original
flight times adjusted or changed. John
was going from terminal to terminal collecting the players as they arrived…
the
other tour coaches delivered us to the correct terminals to get picked up and
all but 4 people were able to go with us to our hotel in central London as
planned. (one family had their flight
cancelled but were re-booked to arrive later in the same afternoon … they took
a taxi to the hotel, the other single player arrive later the same night and
John went back to the airport to meet her and take her to the hotel. Once out motor coach arrived to the airport
it was about a 60- 90 minute drive into London.
Most of us slept during the drive into London. The hotel had everything ready for our group
and we quickly got checked into our Hotel.
The
Hotel is nicer than I expected and is about 100 meters from the TUBE
stop (Metro) which will make it easy to get anywhere we want to go…
At 2am… the fire alarm went off in our Hotel…. At first no one really knew what it was …. Were we dreaming…. Delirious from our long flight and volleyball practice…. What was the noise….? As we came to our senses and realized it was the fire alarm we quickly went down stairs and out to the meeting point about a block away from the hotel
John told us the itinerary for the rest of the day… which
was that we were going to play volleyball tonight rather than tomorrow night. We had about 4hours before we had to go to
volleyball so shower and a nap were in order.
At about 6:00pm we met John and he told us a little about our
schedule and the next days meeting time and breakfast schedule. At
6:30pm our motor coach picked us up to take us to our practice site. The London traffic was horrible and it took
a bit longer than we expected to arrive to the gym but once we did everyone was
eager to get onto the court. The school
was a new school that would rival any private school in the USA. The school was bright, spacious, and
sparkling clean..
We went to the gym and started to warm up…. And to do some
stretching as we had been sitting for about the past 24 hours. Once everyone was warmed up we did some ball
handling drills and got back into the swing of volleyball. There was only one court to practice on so ½ of
us went to the tennis court to warm up while the other ½ used the court and
then we switched. We were divided into 4 teams of about 9 players (which meant everyone played a
lot). We were divided into teams based
upon our ages and by the positions that we played. It was good to get onto the court and play
and as one would expect it took a while for the players to get use to each
other.
We played one set to 25 points and then the other of our 2
teams played. Each team played a best of
3 match with the local team… with the local team winning all of the sets. Having said that… each of our teams played
much better the second time through than they did the first time. This was our first practice together and it
really went quite well. We will have
another longer practice on Sunday and perhaps play some scrimmage games.
Following our games we took the motor coach home … back into
the heart of London which did not take nearly as long to get the gym. We arrived home about 10:15pm had dinner and
went to bed… it had been a long day… traveling from the USA to LONDON….
Experiencing the London traffic at rush hour… and playing volleyball … yes indeed
… it has been a long day
Tomorrows schedule will be a walking tour and the changing
of the guard… also our first lesson on how to use the TUBE
Part Deux…
A funny thing happened during the night…. (OK not really
funny at all but unusual)At 2am… the fire alarm went off in our Hotel…. At first no one really knew what it was …. Were we dreaming…. Delirious from our long flight and volleyball practice…. What was the noise….? As we came to our senses and realized it was the fire alarm we quickly went down stairs and out to the meeting point about a block away from the hotel
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