Hello From Poland

TigerBlog is completing something that he has never done before, that he almost surely never will do again and that he thinks few of you have ever done yourselves.

What is it? 

This morning he's waking up in a fourth different country in four days. He told you it was unique.

If you're keeping score, he woke up in the United States Tuesday, England Wednesday, France yesterday and now Poland today. That's quite a week, no?

What is he doing in Poland? He'll go more into depth on that next week.

He flew out of Newark Airport Tuesday morning to Heathrow. There were two highlights of this flight.

First, he watched "John Wick" on his in-flight monitor. It was definitely not lacking for action. 

Second, he was seated at the window. The middle seat was taken by an older Indian woman who spoke almost no English, so there was no opportunity to chat. Ah, but there was a man sitting next to her on the aisle, with whom TigerBlog had no contact for the first four hours or so.

Eventually, TB got up to use the bathroom, as did the man on the end. Not shockingly, TB was wearing something that said "Princeton Lacrosse" on it. What was shocking was the question the man asked.

"Princeton Lacrosse? Do you know Bryce Chase?"

Uh, yeah. Turns out that the man was Colin Hill of the Class of 1963, a classmate of Bryce's, who has been a staple of the Tiger lacrosse program since then. Hill, in fact, had just celebrated his 60th Reunion, along with Bryce.

Next up was the Chunnel train to Paris Wednesday morning. That's a pretty fascinating way to get from one of the world's oldest cities to another. 

The trip takes a little more than two hours. There's a tunnel that's been built under the English Channel, which is somewhat hard to fathom while you're sitting in a train that's whizzing through it. 

When TB arrived in Paris (where he'd never been before), he was greeted by Brother Blog and Joe, the official brother-in-law of TigerBlog. They had been there for a week on vacation, so TB made a special trip over to see them.

The three of them began to walk over to the subway, only to find it completely jammed. Picture getting on the busiest subway train in New York City and then double that. It was ridiculous.

BrotherBlog made it on the train, but TB and Joe did not. Now what? TB texted his brother, though his brother didn't have any international roaming. When they got to the station where they had to change to a different train, and there was BB, standing and waiting. TB told him that in years to come when he tells the story, it'll be that they both abandoned him on the train, though for now he'll stick to the truth. It was only BB who left. Then again, BB is the only one of the three of them who speaks French.

The apartment that they rent in Paris is about a five-minute walk to the Eiffel Tower. Having never seen it before, TB was amazed by its size and dominance of the area. It was clearly an incredible feat to build it in the 19th century, and now nearly 150 years later it remains a phenomenal site. Yes, it's a bit touristy and all, but seeing it was awesome.

After that was another subway ride to Notre Dame and a walk along the Seine, before dinner at one of their favorite restaurants. It didn't not disappoint.

Of course, one of the themes of Paris is eating, and so there was also breakfast in a cafe yesterday. Omelettes, what else? 

Then it was back on the subway out to Charles DeGaulle and the short (though quite turbulent) flight to Warsaw. TB then rented a car and drove to his hotel in Lodz (which was more harrowing than the flight, given that the speed limit in mph was 87), where he will actually spend two nights — unless he decides to drive across the border into the Czech Republic to go five countries in five nights, though probably not.

London is five hours ahead of Princeton. Paris and Poland are six. With that, it's hard to keep track of everything that goes on at night back in the U.S., because it's all happening in the middle of the night. Also, none of TB's TV apps work in Europe. 

As such, he was unable to watch the opening game of the men's lacrosse World Championships Wednesday night, when the U.S. beat Canada 7-5, with a goal from Michael Sowers and two assists from Tom Schreiber. If you're watching those games, the international rules are wildly different than the U.S. college game, most notably with no shot clock.

The other thing TB couldn't watch was the NBA Draft last night. He knew he'd have to wait until he woke up to see if Tosan Evbuomwan got drafted. As it turned out, he wasn't, though he immediately signed with the Detroit Pistons.

It's a perfect starting point for him and his wide-ranging skillset. Yes, he'd prefer to have been drafted, but still, this is a great moment for him and for Princeton basketball.

In the meantime, it's TB's first day ever in Poland, or anywhere in Eastern Europe, for that matter. He'll explain why next week.