Sorry!!

Sorry for the delay, everyone! We have had quite a time trying to find an internet connection here in England. We were able to get one for a few minutes in the campus library of Doncaster College (where we are staying) yesterday afternoon before rushing off to practice, but were never able to gain access to a wireless connection on our personal computers which would allow us to upload the photographs. We have used every spare minute that we have been on campus searching for internet, and finally, at 10:00 pm on Wednesday night, a sweet lady named Julie in the reception office has lent us her portable wireless access card! So, without further adieu, welcome to the adventures of the UM Falcons in England!

I believe when we left off yesterday we were about to tempt our fate by allowing Ryan and Justin to drive us to the practice fields, and OH! what an adventure!! Driving on tiny, narrow streets in an enormous "mini-bus" on the left side of the road, in the right side of the car, narrowly missing the stone walls that line the streets at every twist and turn, and getting lost at every "roundabout" (which happens to be the single most confusing driving-concept here!) we made it to practice all in one piece.....and without any scratches on our vehicles! Practice was held in a beautiful park in the town of Doncaster and we couldn't believe the beautiful weather....sunny and a crisp 70-ish degrees.

After practice we headed back to campus to let the guys shower and then have dinner. The staff here have been absolutely fantastic! Everyone is so nice and very accommodating and there is no short supply of food.....which, i believe some of the guys were worried about. We didn't know quite what to expect as far as meal-times would go since we are used to buffet-style meals in our cafeteria, but so far there has been plenty for these hungry boys to devour! Once dinner was finished, we headed to Harrogate to see former UM Falcon, Jonathan Maloney, play in a semi-professional soccer match. We all loaded up the vans.....Ryan and I (Emma) in one van with half of the team and Justin and Jennifer with the rest of the team in the second van. Ryan's van is the leader of the caravan because it is equipped with a GPS system so that we are able to navigate our way around, so obviously, Justin's van is supposed to follow......."supposed" being the operative word there. We lost them before we even exited the campus gates! Less than half a mile down the road we realized they weren't behind us so we pulled over to wait for them to catch up...it never happened. We decided to turn back to find them and ended up driving all over town searching with no luck. Finally, with no cell phone service to get in touch with anyone, we gave up and headed to the game (which was about 45 minutes-1 hour away) certain that the lost van would never make it and worried about their whereabouts. Once we arrived, Ged and Lesley Maloney were there to greet us and we were all taking bets on whether or not the missing van would actually make it. We were SURE they would not because, other than knowing the name of the town in which the game would be played, they basically had no directional information.

We were all settled in our seats about 2 minutes before kickoff when Mr. Maloney looks up and starts laughing. There they were! Unbelievable!! They had actually found us. Everyone starting yelling and clapping and we even gave them a standing ovation! Good work Coach Justin and Jen!!!

Everyone had a great time at the game. Jonathan scored the first goal of the game within about 2 minutes of starting! (#10)

The team even presented Ryan with an autographed ball.

After the game, since we were all exhausted from travelling and being awake for 48 hours, we headed back to campus for a much needed good night's sleep. Unfortunately, on the way there, we got lost! Not seriously lost, we did have a GPS, but sometimes those things aren't the most accurate. We ended up taking a few wrong turns, winding our way down a few pitch black dark country lanes and eventually finding our way back. All in all, Day 1 was a great day and we are all looking forward to the rest of the trip and all of the adventures that are sure to follow.