Day 6 in Turks and Caicos

The Olivet College women's volleyball team is on a week-long trip to Turks and Caicos. While there, the players will be writing blog posts and sending them back to the U.S.A. to be posted on the website. The home page for the blog, where future posts will be linked to is: www.olivetcomets.com/sports/wvball/2017-18/turks_and_caicos_blog/

TUESDAY, AUG. 8 -- written by Madelyn Notenbaum

Waking up nice and early like always we all ate some breakfast to begin the day. Since our fight didn't leave until later in the afternoon, we knew we would have some time to do something in the morning. Of course the first idea coming to mind for Tina, Gabi and I was to go to the beach, but the others thought differently. They wanted to stay behind and pack and relax for the long day ahead of us. But of course relaxing isn't something this wild bunch is too good at.

The night before while everyone was packing and cleaning right before bed, wild Katie was laying in the master bedroom and wasn't paying attention to the fact that all of Kaylin's souvenirs were right there on the bed by her feet. Katie being herself knocked the whole bag off the bed and shatters all three of Kaylin's glass souvenirs. Thirty dollars down the drain and Kaylin wasn't the happiest. But Katie offered right away to pay her back in getting her the three things she broke. Which was very nice of her. So waking up that next morning the plan wasn't anymore just to relax it was to go and replace the things that were broken.

With the plan still to go to the beach for us three girls waking up the sky wasn't so blue and clear. It was dark and cloudy. So when we saw that and all got disappointed, we all decided going shopping with the group was a better plan.

Heading back to the souvenir stores, the group split up and some went shopping, and some went exploring and really wanted to try these one smoothies we saw a couple days ago. As Tina, Emmalee, Rose, Morgan and I all went into this smoothie place it was such a cute shop. Tina and I wanted to try something different, so we got this smoothie bowl. The bowl wasn't necessarily a smoothie it tasted more like yogurt, but was very good yogurt! It was different, but excitingly really good.

After shopping was finished, we all headed back to the house to get some lunch in all our stomachs and finish the last minute packing.

As we had to take two trips to the airport, it was already a start to a stressful day. Usually if you come to an airport you think being such a big group of 14 people you just go right up to the desks and they check your bags and give you the tickets. But there was no direction on what to do and where to go. They just repeated to us that we had to do the self checkout is what I call it and then go to security. With everyone being at separate machines it was crazy. To get all the bags checked and then to get to security the stress levels were high and the temperature was very high which didn't help.

Finally getting all the bags checked and getting thru security, we found our gate which wasn't really a gate. In the airports we usually go to you have a gate walk down the tunnel thing to get to the plane but being such a small airport we had to walk up the stairs and on to the plane literally outside. Which was very different.

When we were getting ready to board and waiting in line to get tickets checked, Rose's name was called out over the speaker in the whole airport. She was so scared she did something wrong. Andy walked her up to the gates and she was just chosen to get pre-checked and had to do another security check. So that meant she wouldn't see us until we got right on the plane. 

Walking out not knowing how windy it would be I of course put my tourist hat back on (tourist hat is what the girls called it all week) and taking that first step outside to get on plane there went my hat. It was like in a movie, but I just sat there screaming that my hat was flying away!

Then a security guard started yelling at me saying don't move and started running to get my hat. Bringing it back to me, the lady says to me, "please keep your hat off and hold it next time." I just laughed and continued to the plane.

Boarding the plane, none of us girls were sitting next to each other. I was put in the middle of two people, on my left bing this big old man and the right being a old lady who had a hat very similar to mine which I thought was funny. Me being myself and very social, I started a conversation with the man next to me. Getting talking he was so nice and kind.

Taking off and getting settled into the seats the flight attendants brought around drinks for everyone. Of course as I am drinking my Coke I was trying to chew the ice cube which was in my cup it flys out my mouth and on the man's lap next to me. With headphones in as I was watching a movie I didn't know what to do but laugh and the man looks at me and says, "is your show funny?" And I just reply, "yes so funny" just watching the ice cube melt in his lap as he has no clue what was going on.

As the flight went on I looked out the window as much as I could. Flying over the Bahamas was super cool and seeing all the blue water was so beautiful! And then we finally landed in Miami. 

Getting off the plane it was warm and I could already tell it was gonna be stressful with all the lines. We got off and we headed first to get our passports checked and had to take a picture with these machines. Just that alone took around 30 minutes. Which was way longer than it needed to take. Then after that line we had to get in another line which led us to get our passports looked at by security in customs which took another 30 minutes, with a total amount of an hour.

Then after customs, we had to go back through security which was surprising fast. Following that we had to get our checked bags and take them to get out on our connecting flight and then find our new terminal. Then find food and drinks before our flight was boarding. As a group we were all split up at all different sections of the airport. As people were waiting in customs lines, people were already grabbing luggage. As Jill and Nieya, were the two split up together they have never flown internationally so this was all new to them. They of course forgot to grab their checked luggage to bring to the connecting flight so their luggage was gone. The airport assistants were letting all us know that they would get it tomorrow sometime from Detroit so we weren't worried. But of course someone forgets something with such a big group traveling.

Finally everyone making it to the right terminal and gate we all boarded the plane to Detroit and we were off. With everyone with at least a partner from the group in each row the flight was pretty empty so we could move around and get comfortable for the long three-hour flight. many watched Netflix or others slept, it was a nice and easy flight for all.

Overall it was such an amazing trip and experience. The opportunity our coach Megan and Olivet college gave us to represent her and the school was so amazing. I know all of the girls can agree with me when I say we are so thankful for such an amazing school and program that we are given the opportunity to explore the world around us and get to know different cultures. To be able to travel with some of my closest friends was so amazing and I can truly say coming out of this I became even closer with more of my teammates and that was so incredible.

And that's a wrap on the trip for the Turks and cakes crew.

Click here for today's photo gallery.