Titans USA Tour 2023

“Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo.” – Al Gore

3.30am is not a time you should have to set an alarm for, it’s just not nice…. It was like we were on a Monty Python skit “we get up, before we go to bed”…. Bed, who had time for bed. I don’t even think I creased the sheets. The only positive I’ve found is that the limited sleeping time will reduce the chances of any more bed time flag winner stories.

This may come as a surprise but a 4.00am start does not bring out our finest – Ellie was even quiet. To their credit however, our band of travellers met the early deadline (not exactly gleefully) and with limited conversation and a couple of grunts we boarded the bus to head to the Oakland Airport to meet our flight to Seattle. It was indeed a very quiet flight as everyone took the chance to catch up on a bit of sleep on the two hour journey.

Slightly reinvigorated, on landing we nearly had our own version of an escape room, as it took us 30 minutes to navigate our 48 strong navy clad posse walking back and forth as we tried to get out of the airport and meet our bus. A risky move with 40 sleep deprived teenagers.

Once we finally made it to our bus, we piled in, squeezed on the luggage, and headed to our hotel, some taking in the sights, some taking in the sights of the back of their eyelids.

Seattle is surrounded by water, mountains and evergreen forests, and contains thousands of acres of parkland. Washington State’s largest city, it’s home to a large tech industry, with Microsoft and Amazon headquartered in its metropolitan area.

It was a very quick drop off of the bags at the hotel before we headed off to the Space Needle. The Space Needle is one of the most recognisable landmarks in the city and is a treasured Seattle icon. Built for the 1962 World’s Fair—the Century 21 Exposition whose theme was “The Age of Space”—the tower’s futuristic design was inspired by the idea that the fair needed a structure to symbolize humanity’s Space Age aspirations. Since its grand opening on April 21, 1962, the landmark continues to symbolize the innovative and forward-thinking spirit of Seattle. Located at Seattle Center, the Space Needle stands at 605’ tall and is one of the most photographed structures in the world. And photograph we did. There were photos on the top floor with floor to ceiling glass, and then there were photos on the bottom level with the glass floor. The latter level made a few a tad cautious to step on the see-through flooring (not just the students), while some revelled in the chance to lay on the floating floor – I’m not sure if that’s out of tiredness or just purely for photographic purposes.

As we continued to reinact our own version of Sleepless in Seattle, we hopped on the monorail and headed into the CBD were we grabbed our lunch and had our first taste of perusing the shops. Strangely enough it seemed Sephora and Target were the two front runners for most interest. We then headed to Pike Street Markets were the crew had to contend with fish being thrown at them and an octopus being thrust in their face (well done to Taj for actually catching the fish!). Bags not standing in the front for these encounters.

Literally out on our feet we then headed back to our hotel in the late afternoon, ready for some much-needed downtime, loads of washing, a team meeting and dinner, and took the chance to rest our weary feet.

Tomorrow is our first game when we take on Glacier Peak High School – at least with our walking repertoire of late we should have the fitness to last the game!

Seattle…….you don’t say!

• Seattle is the birthplace of Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee chain
• The bridge that ou don’connects Seattle and Medina across Lake Washington is the world’s longest floating bridge
• The land that is now the city of Seattle has been inhabited for at least 4000 years.
• Seattle is home to the world’s first gas station, opened on East Marginal Way in 1907.
• People in Seattle buy the most sunglasses per capita than any other US city.
• Seattle was the first city to have police on bicycles.

The Flag!

Today’s flag recipient is an unexpected candidate, a dark horse if you will, but Geoffrey Slattery has walked away with surely one of the most memorable stories in the flag’s history.  On the tour, Alcatraz is always a highlight as the students take a look into the lives of the criminals and really get a feel for life on the rock – but we’ve never had one experience the locked up experience first hand! After our self guided audio tour of the island, Geoffrey and his mates veered into the section with handcuffs, balls and chains, all the good stuff. They were encouraged to try on the handcuffs to really get a feel for the Alcatraz experience. Geoffrey not content with a handcuff on one wrist decided to opt for them both. Nothing to worry us yet, however then it came time to take them off, a turn of the key seems to get the first one off, but then a turn of the key does not seem get the second one off. After five minutes of attempting to get the last hand cuff off his left wrist, Geoffrey and his mates relented and sought assistance – they had to come to Geoffrey as his handcuffs were also shackled to the wall! Over comes the guard, but he had no luck, phone call made, another guard came, still no luck. The initial laughter around him started to die down as the realisation hit that Geoffrey was stuck. Another guard came and while he also was unable to prise open the cuff he at least was able to release the shackle from the wall. Still more phone calls, now we’ve got the Ranger on the case and there’s talk of drilling it, dismantling it or getting someone over from the mainland and we were starting to think we were going to have to leave Geoffrey (with Anthony, we’re not that mean) and get the rest of the crew over to the mainland. We left Anthony with the cash card (which scared us even more than Geoffrey in the handcuff) and rallied the troops to the ferry boarding. Lo and behold, literally the minute we were about to board, down the hill comes a jubilant Geoffrey and Anthony with arms raised to a hero’s welcome. It took eight people and a pair of bolt cutters to free our Titan from his incarceration. That will be enough of real life interpretation for a little while…..