Well, tomorrow I officially become an expatriate. I will be flying out of Chicago O'Hare at 5 PM CST. The flight is scheduled to last about 8 hours, but as I will be flying through time zones, I will land in London at 6:30 AM local time. I'm flying British Airways, and I'm very excited about it. Our offensive coordinator at Illinois College is a Brit, and I can only hope that the stewards/stewardesses are as friendly and funny as he is. If so, I have no doubt that my flight will be extremely enjoyable. Now, if they can sit down and talk football with me for the whole flight like I know he would, I think I'll be in heaven.
After a 2+ hour layover in London, I will hop on another flight and fly south for just under 3 hours to reach Zurich International Airport just before noon local time. From there I will hop on a train and head East, towards Austria. I will be riding the train for about a half hour to a town that is halfway between Zurich and my new home, Hohenems, Austria. When I hop off the train, someone will be there to pick me up and drive me the rest of the way.
To say that I am excited about my new adventure would be a pretty drastic understatement. I have a decent idea of what is in store for me when I reach my new home, but there are also a lot of unknowns that I will undoubtedly encounter.
As I got to thinking, I realized that it's pretty cool that my college mascot was a Blueboy, and my new mascot in Austria will be a Blue Devil. White and blue is the color scheme for both my new and old teams. So, as I sign off every week, I think I'll wish good luck to both squads, with a pretty simple sign off tag. But I suppose this is good bye for now. My next post will be from Austria, and will actually include some of my own pictures.
-Mitch Niekamp
Go Blue Devils/Boys!
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