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Croatia Blog: Jen Linder
June 9, 2008 Our Croatian journey ends today, but it is only the beginning of our 17-hour trek home (insert dark, ominous tone here). Yep that's right 17 hours of sitting on planes and sprinting through airport terminals. Boy I can't wait! At least there is food, drinks, and movies to make the time go a little faster. Our first flight from Zagreb to Frankfurt was a quick two and a half hour flight. Usually I wouldn't call a two and a half hour flight quick, but knowing that the next flight was in the ball park of around nine hours makes two and a half hours seem like a breeze. Once we got into Frankfurt we knew that we had a close connecting flight, so we were all prepared to run to our next gate if we had to. I forget which Home Alone movie it was, but I just remember the scene when they are running through the airport together carrying tons of bags and plowing through groups of people trying not to miss their flight and then just making it there in time. (Fortunately, there were no "Kevins" in our group that got left behind, because we have been known to do that in the past. Whoops.) So with that scene in mind I asked Liz for our team camera which we had been using to film a documentary of our trip. I was sure that I was going to get some good footage here. So, I'm kind of walk-jogging through the airport filming our team when a Frankfurt security guard enters the camera frame and says "STOP! SHOW ME!" I'm not going to lie, I was kind of freaked out. So in my freaked out state I am trying to get the camera to VCR mode so that I can show him what I had filmed when Liz walks up to save the day. I hand her the camera and make her show him because I am not a functional human being at this point. But in the end Liz shows him like two seconds of film and he let us continue on our way. Crisis averted. Now on this next leg of the journey I managed to watch four movies in their entirety and then the ending to another one, plus I had to time to get to know one of the flight attendants who was a body builder. He flexed his bicep and then counted out his six pack for us. It was safe to say that we decided it was a good idea to get back to our seats. Now this next part is going to get a little bit personal, but please bear with me. We are on our big long flight and we are probably half way through when I decide that I am going to pee on an airplane for the first time in my life. Yes, it is true, in all of my years of traveling I have never used an airplane bathroom. Once we got to Chicago we ended up having an even closer connection than before, but I learned my lesson the first time and kept that camera right in the case where it belongs. So Coach, knowing that things were going to be tight, cut some kind of a deal with the airline and we had a personal escort help to help us get through security faster and then they held the flight for us for almost an hour. And it's safe to say that if we had missed that flight and had to wait in Chicago any longer we might have killed one another. No seriously. This trip was definitely a test of putting up with one another and for the most part we did pretty well. I think that we all got a glimpse of what marriage is going to be like and we may have all pushed our future marriage plans back a few years. But back to the flight, the flight from Chicago to New Orleans was a rough one with turbulence from start to finish, Ashley really enjoyed that. But we all made it home and got to sleep in our beds for the first time in nearly three weeks. Now for a brief tour wrap up. All in all it was a decent tour. We went 5-3-1, which was not our best performance, but got a lot of experience playing good teams. This trip definitely had its ups and downs, both on and off the volleyball court, but I believe that we all learned invaluable information about ourselves, teammates, and coaches. On behalf of TUVB I want to give a big thank you to everyone who had anything to do with making this trip possible. We really couldn't have done it without you. Thank you so much and we hope to see you in Fogelman soon. Until next season,
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