That worked out well for TigerBlog, especially since he wasn't in the mood for Chick-Fil-A. His meeting in Indy ended earlier yesterday than was originally scheduled, which led him to scramble to change to an even earlier flight. If you're keeping score, he changed from the 6:45 flight to the 4:30 flight and then ultimately to the 1:10 flight.
Getting back to your car at the destination airport nearly four hours before your original flight was supposed to leave is always a good thing.
As TB walked into the airport yesterday, he noticed a phenomenon he's seen lots of times before. There, in front of him at the American Airlines counter, was a team of college athletes.
They're always easy to spot. For starters, the matching outfits are a dead giveaway. In this case, they all said "Ball State Volleyball."
Of course, being TigerBlog, he had to look up how the team did this past year. Turns out Ball State women's volleyball went 17-1 in the MAC but fell in the league tournament to Toledo to miss out on the NCAA tournament. Also, the team is made up entirely of players from the Midwest, with more than half from Indiana. And average home attendance for last year was nearly 1,200.
TB was in line to use the check-in kiosk when he saw a man who was clearly a coach. "International trip?" TB asked him.
The answer was yes. Ball State women's volleyball was on its way to 11 days in Spain and Portugal. If you're wondering, you can't fly non-stop from Indianapolis to Barcelona, which explains why the team was on the same flight as TB to Philadelphia.
TigerBlog then explained to the coach that he was a veteran of such trips and could relate to the logistical challenges that putting one together entails. He also said how he's been on four of these with the Princeton men's lacrosse team.
The purposes of these international trips are obvious. They are all about team bonding, experiencing a different country or two, taking in the artistic and educational culture — and competing. In Ball State's case, they will be playing three matches.
TigerBlog's most recent international trip was in 2022, when the Tigers went to Barcelona and Andorra. As he wrote back then, TB had never heard of Andorra before he saw the itinerary. It turns out that Andorra is one of six microstates of Europe (trivia: can you name the other five?) and is located in the Pyrennes.
Turns out, Andorra is quite possibly the most beautiful place TigerBlog has ever visited. Barcelona, where the Ball State women's volleyball team presumably has just arrived, is one of the best cities TB has been to as well. All in all, it was a great trip.
The other international trips that TB has been fortunate to go on with men's lacrosse were to Spain and Ireland in 2008, Costa Rica in 2012 and Portugal in 2016. That trip to Portugal started and ended in Lisbon, where the Ball State team will head after Spain.
That Portugal trip also featured a brief amount of time in Spain, though it's hard to figure out exactly how long the Tigers were there. The team took a ferry across a river between the two countries to experience the zipline that took them back from Spain into Portugal. Of course, in addition to going from one country to another, the zipline also went from one time zone to another.
As he thinks about it, the trip to Andorra technically included a stop in France. Andorra sits between Spain and France, and the team at one point found itself walking around a small town and unknowingly wandering across a foot bridge over a stream about two feet wide, something that took them into France.
Seeing the Cardinals (of Ball State) in the airport yesterday brought back all of these memories for TigerBlog. The players hung out by the gate waiting for the first leg of their trip and then made their way onto the small jet for the quick ride to Philadelphia.
As they got on the plane, TB heard one say that another had never been on a plane before. It was clearly an excited, wide-eyed group.
And why wouldn't they be? This is a trip of a lifetime, one they'll remember forever. TB hopes their experience is as great as the ones that he has been so lucky to have with Princeton.
Trivia answer: The other six European microstates are: Lichtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Vatican City, San Marino.
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