Dorothy Piotrowski’s blog

I really hate early morning flights.  You see the problem is that I end up spending the entire night, checking the clock every 1/2 hour to see if it’s time to get up.  Before I knew it, it was 3:45am and time to get ready.

We got the car packed up (boy was it cold at 4:30am) and made our way to the airport.  We dropped Ross off at the terminal and then we dropped the car off.  Since we did the online check-in last night and we were flying with just carry-on luggage, we just walked straight to security.  In a matter of a few minutes, we were on the other side of security enjoying a nap before our flight.

We flew from Lincoln to Minneapolis/St. Paul, Detroit and then finally home.  Nana & Papa picked us up and we were home by 4pm.

Since it was a long night last night, we decided to sleep in and enjoy some “Melrose Place” and “Beverly Hills, 90210″.  Once we got moving, we all went downstairs and enjoyed the hotel’s very good breakfast buffet.

Karen and I did a little bit of research before heading to Lincoln and found out that there was a Christmas craft show.  We got into the car and fired up the GPS.  We drove for a while and thought at one point that maybe I didn’t program the GPS correctly since all we could see were cornfields.  But all of a sudden, in the middle of these cornfields, we found the Lancaster Event Center which was hosting the Seasons of Crafts craft show.

We walked around the craft show for an hour and then went to our next stop for the day, the Westfield Gateway mall.  Once again we walked around for an hour and ended up having a late lunch at Olive Garden.

We were fortunate enough to be able to get tickets for tonight’s second round championship match.  But before heading to the game, we drove down to Lincoln’s Historic Haymarket district.  The area is made up of old buildings that have been fixed up and turned into restaurants, art galleries and shops.  We came across one of the most unique stores I’ve ever seen, Licorice International.  They sell over 140 different kinds of licorice from over 10 countries including Germany and Holland.  I thought there where only 2 kinds of licorice … red and black.  But licorice has many different textures and tastes.

We got to the university and watched the Huskers defeat the Panthers from the University of Northern Iowa.  Tonight’s crowd was even louder than last night’s.  Before entering the coliseum, each person was given an embroidered white towel.  The Huskers made quick work of their match.  We think it was because the Huskers football team was playing in the Big 12 championship game at 7pm and everybody wanted to be home to watch the game.

Our research paid off again.  Thanks to TripAdvisor, we had dinner at Skeeter Barnes and enjoyed some really good BBQ.

We got back to our hotel and decided to have an early evening since we all had early flights tomorrow.

We left home at 10:15am and got to the Region of Waterloo International airport in about 20 minutes.  Our flight with Northwest Airlines would take us from Breslau to Detroit and then on to Lincoln, Nebraska.

We arrived in Detroit around 1:45pm and were delayed 1 hour before finally arriving in Lincoln at 5:45pm.  We picked up our car (PT Cruiser) from Thrifty and rushed over to the Nebraska Coliseum since the game was starting at 7pm.

We met up with Karen’s brother Ross who had reserved our seats, 2 rows from the floor.  Before I continue the story, let me give you a little background.  The town of Lincoln and the surrounding cities really support the university’s sports teams.  When there is a football game in town, Memorial Stadium becomes the 3rd largest city in Nebraska with 81000 people.  When we walked into the coliseum, we were surrounded by over 4000 people wearing red Nebraska shirts ranging in age from 3 to 93.  There were even scalpers outside selling tickets to the game.

When the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Cornhuskers came out for their warm up, the crowd got on its feet and started cheering.  They didn’t stop until the team left the court.  Before the match started, Ross was interviewed by KOLN/KGIN, the local CBS affiliate.

The match didn’t go our way.  The AU Eagles lost 3-1 to Huskers but they should be proud of that 1 game that they were able to get from the Huskers (game recap).  It was really cool to see an NCAA Volleyball Championship game.  I’m so glad that we made the trip to Lincoln.  I just wish it would have went our way.

After the match, we headed over to the Embassy Suites where the team was staying.  We were lucky to spend a bit of time with Liz before we headed over to the Staybridge Suites Lincoln I-80 ($105 USD) for the night.