June 7th blog: Arrived in the UK

A long day of traveling finally came to an end this morning at 11 am when we arrived in historic Sterling, a city about 30 min outside of Edinburgh. Our flight from Dulles to Paris lasted a long 7 hours where the guys mostly slept or enjoyed the personal TV screen on their seatback which included movies, games, TV shows and more. My group (more than half the team) quickly boarded a plane for Edinburgh upon our arrival in Paris. No more than an hour later we arrived in Edinburgh….some of us completely bagless. Somewhere in our travels our luggage was lost. Myself and Kevin Hinton were the only two players with both our bags missing. At this point we are too tired and hungry to complain…
We could not check into The Golden Lion Hotel until 2 o’clock so the guys scattered in search of a place to get food. Myself, Nick Disimile, Cooper MacDonnel, Chris Basler, and Kevin Moriarity decided on a a place called “#2 Baker Street” where we enjoyed Hamburgers and “Chile con Carne”(odd choice by the freshman Moriarity). Paying the bill turned into an adventure when someone said, “Well Stephen Glen Murray said you don’t have to tip in Europe.” The debate began but ended abruptly when an older gentleman instructed us on how the gratuity works. The amount of tip left is entirely left up to the customers view of how well service was conducted.
After lunch, my group enjoyed a quick walk through the town and made our way back to the hotel to check in.

Chester, Cheshire, uk

CHESTER, CHESHIRE, UK- Today we took a short but smelly bus ride to Cheshire Oaks. Most of the guys were able to catch a quick nap but were punched in the face with a horrible stench...it happened to be horse dung. This area has quite alot of farm land.
We were let out of the bus where we were able to do a bit of shopping in an outdoor outlet. Many guys continued to search for "fair" prices for football jerseys. After some shopping we drove to Chester which was a a very quaint colonial looking town. There were many shops, bars, tours, etc. around the area. Most of the guys just walked around but myself, Shane Koppens, Jake Wilcox, and Chris Basler decided to head to a park where we joined Owen and James, two local soccer players...who happened to be 8 and 10 years old. We split up the teams and played 3 v 3 to 5 using sandals for the goal posts.

The Man of the Match was Jake Wilcox, scoring all 5 goals for his team (ball hog). We captured the moment with a few pictures with kids and head off to the bus. From Chester we traveled to the Wilmslow Club to play our second match against team England. We had some extra motivation for this game because an extension for our curfew was on the line. We needed a margin of victory of 6 goals to achieve an extra hour for our last night out in Manchester. I think the score was something like 15-4...Koppens had 3, while (Collin) Finnerty had a game high 5 goals. Nicky D (Disimile) (a.k.a The take-a-way machine...a.k.a I'll clear it myself) had a solid defensive performance. DJ Comer a.k.a Dozer almost killed the entire James Family with an athletic riding attempt. Brian Gormley (46 nicknames) tried to redeem himself from the Scotland game with a high to low shot but sadly enough he missed...again. All and all it was a enjoyable game followed by a great social with the English team.
We left the field around 10 pm and went back to our Hotel to change and get ready for a night out in Manchester. MVP of the night was Brian Cullinane...enough said. Off to Ireland tomorrow!