This column really should be filed from the airport.

We introduce today's travelling theme with a look at the O'Neill Titans wrestling team, which is to spend the Easter break in Honolulu. The week-long trip is to begin on Wednesday.

"I'm looking forward to training, but also to hitting the beach and seeing what's out there,'' says Gerald Munguia, a Grade 10 student who is in his second year with the O'Neill wrestling team.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The wrestling will be an awesome thing. It'll be interesting to see how those kids down there really wrestle.''

Munguia is looking forward to every aspect of the trip.

"We'll be doing a lot of things,'' he says. "We're going to Pearl Harbor and we'll get to do a lot of fun things, like going to a luau. It'll be a first for a lot of us to experience that.

"We'll take in some wrestling and some culture. It'll be fun and exciting.''

Munguia is one of 16 wrestlers and four chaperones who will make the trip. O'Neill wrestling coach Ron Gonzales is among the chaperones.

"Everything's planned every day,'' says Gonzales, who notes that the O'Neill delegation will attend church services on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

"They all know what's going on. There's never really a lot of down time for anyone to do their own thing. In fact, they're not doing their own thing. That was one of the criteria to follow to get it approved (by the O'Neill brass and the separate school board).''

The trip will cost $1,400 Cdn per person. That amount covers transportation and accommodation.

"The kids fundraised as much as possible to a certain date and then just paid out the rest,'' Gonzales says. "There were a couple of kids who almost fundraised everything, and then they'll just bring money for spending and for food and stuff like that.''

Munguia can hardly wait.

"This is huge for me,'' he says. "I've never been to the West Coast of Canada, let alone to Hawaii. This will be really different.

"It's an opportunity of a lifetime to go on a trip with your team and I feel privileged to go.''

© Copyright 2004 The Leader-Post (Regina)