Editor’s Note: The Mississippi State women’s basketball team is traveling to France and Belgium and will play four games against international competition. Players will provide a daily update about the trip. Today, senior Martha Alwal discusses the first leg of the journey.
Hey, this is Martha Alwal, and I’m excited to be blogging for you.
It has been quite the start to the trip. Our flight being canceled in Memphis on Monday meant getting up at 3 a.m. to head to the airport.
We made it to Chicago and had a long layover, which gave us the chance to sleep and get something to eat.
We flew from Chicago to Newark, New Jersey, which was neat because you could see New York as we were landing.
We boarded our plane to Brussels, Belgium, and I had an empty seat beside me, allowing me to stretch my long legs out some more.
Each of our seats had our own screen to watch movies, and I was enjoying the flight until we ran into our next obstacle. An oven in the back of the plane caught fire, but the flight attendants did a great job putting it out quickly. The pilots decided to land in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to have it checked out by the fire department.
The pilots told us another plane was coming from Washington, D.C., to carry us the rest of the way, but it was going to be three and a half hours until it arrived.
We sat on the plane for a long time, which gave me the chance to watch Frozen for the first time. “Hi my name is Olaf and I like warm hugs.”
I also got to talk to the person next to me about everything and the crazy travel day we have had.
Now it’s 1:45 a.m. Mississippi time and we are sitting in the terminal in Halifax, which is my first time to be in Canada.
The new plane should be arriving shortly and we will be back on our way to Brussels.
We don’t know now what time we will arrive in Belgium. We were supposed to get there a little after 7 Wednesday morning and play our first game later that night, but it looks like it’s going to be closer to noon there before we arrive.
It’s going to be tough with the travel difficulties, but we will be ready to come out and play. It’s a seven-hour time difference from Mississippi, so getting used to the time change will be our biggest adjustment.
Despite the travel difficulties it has been a great trip so far. The team gets along great, and hopefully that chemistry will grow as we enjoy Belgium and France.
Well, it’s time to get some sleep and hopefully get to Belgium.
Jerica James will bring you Thursday’s blog and talk about Ghent, Belgium, and, hopefully, a win in our first game.
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