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OFF TO THE CYPRUS CUP: THE JOURNEY 14th -15th February 2010

Who wouldn't want to fly to Cyprus for a Women's National Team soccer training camp on Valentine's Day?

I left Pierre-Elliott Trudeau airport in Montreal at 7:50 pm for my flight out to Cyprus via London Heathrow, and my Valentines' chocolates and cards were tight in hand. But the day became a little brighter as I met up with Dale, Laura and Cindy at the departure gate. It is a good feeling to be back traveling with teammates and not flying on my own.

It was very good to meet all three again, but especially Cindy, whom I have not seen in some time. It is unfortunate that her sister won’t be joining us. Amy is not with the team at the moment as she is on maternity leave. I know just how much Cindy and Amy would have loved to have played together on the WNT. However, speaking for myself, I am thrilled to have at least one Walsh coming with us.

The flight was almost empty, which does not bode well for the international aviation business, but was great news for me. I was able to stretch out over two seats and even managed to get in two hours of napping over the Atlantic. Cindy was not as fortunate. She ended up sitting next to a passenger who knew very little about body hygiene.

The only problem with half empty trans Atlantic flights is that some passengers become animals as they scrabble to lie down across several seats in a row. As soon as that seatbelt sign flicks off, all hell breaks loose, and bodies are strewn across seats as fast as people can map out their "territory."

We landed in a cold London at 08:30 am and then had to endure a LONG wait for the next leg of our flight to Larnaca in Cyprus. Departure time was 2:30 pm and the airline wouldn't let us check in our bags until 11:30 am. Waiting is always bad, but it is much worse when you have to keep an eye on all your kit and gear. This is especially true given my history of lost equipment at airports.

Heathrow is meant to be the main assembly point fort the squad, but the Montreal contingent was obviously the advance guard. We quickly established a bridgehead in a corner booth at a breakfast place and proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable as possible. Laura has been asleep for a while and the rest of us are dozing fitfully. It is going to be a long day!

Finally we were able to check through our bags at 11:30 am and then went through security and met up with teammates on the other side. The Montreal crew was exhausted, so you can imagine the state of the west coast girls. The first players we ran into were Sincy and Chappy, and both had suffered numerous stopovers on their way to London. We were humbled by the problems they had experienced and so stopped complaining about our own.

Most of the squad were assembling in London , and it was good to meet and catch up. By the time we headed to the gate for boarding there were about 18 of us. None of the group looked very lively.

The next leg of our journey was meant to be a 2:30 pm flight, but of course, as so often happens with our flights, departure was delayed by over an hour. Then, the journey itself took about five hours. The flight seemed terribly long, because after a flight over the Atlantic you automatically assume that you are almost at your destination. The extra five hours was almost as long as our initial trip from Canada's East coast.

I have to note that Cyprus Airlines is not quite up to Air Canada’s standards. We were cramped and hungry. We did make one stop, in Pathos on the western tip of Cyprus, before heading on to our final leg to Larnaca.

We were met at the airport and received a pleasant surprise. Our bus driver is the same one we have had for the past three years. He immediately saw that Tank ( Melissa ) was missing, and insisted that we pass on to her that Stavros says "hi!"

The bus drive to the hotel took about 30 minutes, and finally we arrived just after midnight. We headed straight to the dining room, ate, and headed to bed, utterly spent and exhausted.

Wake up this morning was at 8:45 am, and breakfast at 9:00 am. There is no time to be lost and we headed out to training at 9:30 am. I can’t begin to explain to you what we all looked like. To say that we looked a little tired and uncoordinated just doesn't do it justice. The closest I can come is to mention that there was a man passed out in the hotel lobby as we walked through. He looked as if he had passed a really rough night, followed by an intense meeting where he had been fired. He still looked better than we did.

That being said, Carolina and the coaches did take it easy on us. Training was a light one. We basically started to move our legs, played a little 5 v 5, and did some technical work.

We have one more training session, this afternoon, then some hydrotherapy in the pool. I am just preparing for that now, and then we have a quiet evening scheduled. This sounds ideal and I can bet that we will have at least one player asleep by 8:30pm tonight. I have my fingers crossed that it won’t be me, but it could well be.