By Nicole Hernandez Sandoval & Elisabeth Christina Kearney
The day has finally come, the first day of our trip! We all arrived on time at the John Glenn Airport to get our boarding passes and luggage checked. Goodbyes were said and we were off!
Our first stop was to Hartsfield Jackson Airport in Atlanta, GA where we would have a quick plane change to our Virgin Atlantic flight to Manchester. The Atlanta flight was a piece of cake and we landed safely and quickly. As soon as we deboarded, we gathered and made our way to the Plane Train ( the ATL Airport’s terminal transportation) with haste to our urgently approaching flight abroad. After a bit of pushing and shoving we entered the International Terminal via the plane and arrived at our 2nd gate. We had about a 45 minute lull before boarding, but after we scanned our passports and plane tickets to get on the plane.
For most of us the flight went without incident and we gathered at baggage claim to get our luggage and smoothly went through customs. After customs we had time to burn. We were waiting on our travel guide, Sjoerd, and the other program attendees from a college in New York. This took about 2 hours and many students bided our time by converting our dollars to pounds, checking out the vastly different menu at Starbucks, and most importantly playing card games! Once we were all together we were off to our first stop, the British Cycling Centre.
We were welcomed warmly by our lecturers and the staff of the Great Britain Cycling Team and began our tour. We all had an understanding of the presence of cycling in the UK and Europe, but we had no clue a facility like the Cycling Centre existed. We first visited the facilities for the Great Britain National Cycling Team, this included the offices of the support team and workout areas for the athletes. Afterward we sat for a presentation by the head of education for the organization where we had a great discussion regarding what they do in their offices and the opportunities they provide to the community and the nation as a whole. As a government subsidized resource they provide events for health and entertainment through biking for all. After this pre-station, we moved to the tour of the biking facilities. We viewed the BMX track and Velodrome and understood more about the multipurpose nature of the Centre and the work that goes into being a national level competitor.
After this, our time at The British Cycling Centre was over but the events for this day had just begun! We made our way to our final planned destination, Old Trafford stadium, home of the Manchester United Football Club. At that time we were all famished and exhausted from being awake for more than 18 hours (at least I was), but the excitement of football kept us going. The first thing we did was visit the club’s museum where we saw things such as club artifacts, players’ kits, trophies, and photographs. It was especially inspiring to see how the club makes a great effort of recognizing not only its popular figures, but everyone that has been influential to the franchise and the sport.
Right after the museum we started an interactive lecture about DEI, emphasizing on the importance of perception and diversity. The activities and games we played were examples of the differences in opportunities people might face and they symbolized what the club does to fulfill their promise of being “all red all equal”. This, in my opinion, was the most impressive part, the passion the fans have for Manchester United and the club’s commitment to its fans, employees, community, and nation. Finally, as a parting gift I suppose, we got to see and try on some boots and jerseys before heading to the guided tour. I got to try on Cristiano Ronaldo’s used jersey from his time at Manchester United, which was a peak moment in my life.
During the tour we got to see the incredible locker rooms, sit courtside by the pitch, the press room, statues, the center tunnel, and more. The tour guide cracked some jokes and really demonstrated that passion I’d mentioned before for the franchise and its people, which was very special to me. The stadium and pitch were incredible as every one of the four sides had a different name representing important characters, places, and events in the club’s history.
My favorite part was knowing the reasons behind some of the decision making, like this previous one of the stands. Manchester United was a blast as we got to finish the tour with some physical exercises and a 6v6 football game (not on the home pitch) before heading to the Megastore. At this point in time almost all we could think about was sleep. However, we only live once so as a group we decided to go for dinner and explore the city. We ended up getting dinner at a local Irish pub with the faculty and walking around before going to bed and getting ready for the next day of adventures.
