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By JJ Glavan
Assistant Coach
It’s always hard to say good bye. But after two weeks, it was time for us to say good bye to Australia. We have grown as a team and as a program through this wonderful experience.
The day started off with us heading to the airport around 6 a.m. with all of our bags packed with the souvenirs and goodies of our trip. We were looking forward to our long flight home., but we were bummed to find out that our flight was delayed for over two hours due to heavy fog in Melbourne. This gave us a little time to eat breakfast and relax a little bit before our long flight back to the states.
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Then we were boarded and ready for our flight back to the states! As we were boarded, we tried to sort out time and how the International Date Line was going to mess with our sense of time. If you don’t know about the International Date Line, it is this imaginary line that will screw up anyone’s sense of time when they travel across it. We are still trying to figure out how we left on June 3 at 11:15 a.m. in Melbourne and flew 14 hours, but ended up landing in Los Angles at 8:30 a.m. Pacific time on June 3. I know! I’m still trying to figure that out for myself.
We knew we would be pressed for time once we landed in LA to make our connecting flight home to Albuquerque. But luck was on our side because our connecting flight was also delayed. We had enough time to get through customs and back through security to make our connecting flight.
We landed safely back in Albuquerque with all luggage in hand. It was time for everyone to part ways. Tears were shed when the team said their good byes to our athletic trainer of two years, Kate, as she embarks on her new teaching/athletic training career. Now its time for us to share our stories with the ones we care about and remember the great times we had while in Australia. A special thanks to Pauline Manser for putting together a wonderful foreign tour in her home country and allowing us to understand more about where she is from. Also a big thanks to our head coach Jeff Nelson for supporting our program by allowing us to experience the world beyond volleyball.