Beyond Tired...and we are only half way done.

The first week of our two weeks without a match is now half way over. The thought that our coach was going to go easy on us was not smart. After the weekend win and some heavy duty sleeping in, monday rolled around all to quickly. Went to the gym to do our regeneration work out to wake up our bodies from the somewhat lazy weekend. It was clear, the work week was underway. Usually when we have a game on the weekend, most of the team is there during the night practices and usually never the morning sessions because most have either day jobs or school. Instead this week it was the four of us, myself, Nikke (the serb), Missie (fellow CA resident), and Jenni (19 year old Finnish chica). Tuesdays practice was the initial wake up call. I am all about working hard at practice and trying to better myself , so that night we did about an hour and 15 minutes of defense and then hit the weight room and began a new program. It was heavy, in other words more sets, heavier weights, and fewer reps. Needless to say, I could feel how much I needed to get a gym membership over the summer, because running on the beach and following "Self" magazine at home work outs was not enough, lesson learned. Wednesday morning was tough after the previous night weights session but we weren't as sore as we thought we were going to be. However, the soreness caught up to us the next morning, burning our hamstrings and shoulders. Soldiering on is an athletes motto in these cases, push through the wall and you WILL survive. Wednesday night was different since we had 5, lucky for us our setter showed. Thursday was a repeat of Tuesday, thank God Friday was within reach, I was ready for the beating to be over. Our coach was also harder on us, which was what I would have done in this situation as well. Not playing for two weekends in a row definitely does not mean time to slack and be lazy, its time to better yourself and to work on the skills you need to help your team win. Friday came and so did the rest of the team to the night practice. It was a good feeling having everyone there, we needed it. Plus it was only so much fun to have 4 people at every practice. Finally the week was done and Friday night had arrived.....beer me.

Exhausted and aching, I drank some cider, a beer, whooped my friends butt in online gin rummy (at least its not World of War Craft ok) and then passed out around 2am to wake up a few hours later to get ready for a shopping day in the closest city next to us, Jyvascuyla (hour and a half away). The city was also were a lot of the rest of the team lived so we were bound to bump into at least one of them, which we eventually did. Jyvascuyla was adorned with christmas lights and to our luck it was lightly snowing. We must have went to 20 different shops and walked around for hours. My favorite part of the day was posting up at a donut shop with a coffee and a donut to people watch. Almost Everyone here has their own eccentric style and or hair color. But in the end they all look scandinavian to me, I have gotten used to their type of style. I like what they wear too, might be starting to get the hang of it only I think I need to layer a little bit more and buy a couple more oversized striped t-shirts. I have also noticed that a lot of girls have short hair and here is my theory on that. In the winter, girls are constantly wearing scarves and hats. With long hair, it is continuously getting in the way, tangling with scarves and in your jacket zipper. I get it, but I will never cut my hair above my shoulders. Even then thats an iffy situation. However I definitely am in need of a trim, its getting to look like Brooke Shields hair from the movie "Blue Lagoon", jungle like but red.

Tomorrow the other American, her visiting friend, and I will have ourselves Thanksgiving dinner. We were practicing on Thursday night, thus not having time to do the traditional dinner. Not going to lie, I am pretty excited about the dinner, one of the girls has been talked up to being a pretty awesome cook. I was designated to bring the wine and dinner rolls, a perfect job for me :) Being away from home this Thanksgiving was a bit harder then years past. I was able to talk to almost the entire family. In Slovenia I had my ex-boyfriend with me that day, although we didn't have a traditional dinner, it was like family was there. Last year we celebrated a little early because we had a Canadian on the team so we had the dinner between both Canadian and American Thanksgivings. This year it will be late but only by a couple days.

Ok, now I would like to take this moment to commend every single older woman and man in scandinavia. I don't know what their secret is or what they eat in the morning, but through freezing weather and snow, I continue to see active seniors around town, walking, riding their bikes, or skiing along the side walks and foot paths. I finally understand the secret to a long life (although might not be that big a secret), don't sit still, get out and be active. The ones who stay active live longer, fact! I was on my way to practice the other day and this man who looked to be in his 80s was out walking slowly down the side walk in weather that felt like the top of the world freezing over. He looked comfortable and at ease with his own thoughts. He even stopped to try and talk to me. I was freezing my butt off but he seemed to have all the time in the world and didn't look the slightest bit uncomfortable. I on the other hand was wearing most of the clothes I brought with me and my shoulders were intensely pressed to the bottoms of my ear lobes. Of course he was most likely raised in that sort of environment from birth, but even people from this area think its crazy how cold it gets. They aren't dumb, they know this weather is hard to live in but they have had success living in it back then and now, so i say keep on keeping on. Its what they are used to and some absolutely love it, that makes me smile. I love warm weather but experiencing actual seasons has opened my eyes to a lot of new sites, smells, sounds, and people.

Thanksgiving tomorrow, then another week of hard work, a Christmas party, focusing on three more matches, then off to my home away from home for Christmas break. But first things first...sleeping in :)

Cold enough for an Ice Princess.

These past two weeks have been blurred together as one fast tracked movie. We faced off against Eura, a team we beat in the Liiga Cup (Finnish Cup), but this time lost in 4. After the somewhat disappointing match, we traveled to Salo for a Cup game against the top team in the league. We would stay with them in the beginning of the first two sets but then they would pull away and win. We forgot who we were in the 3rd set and lost 8-25. Following another loss, we had to redeem ourselves with the weekends up coming league match against Kangasala. I learned that my team had lost to them in the beginning of the season and to add it was also the match that our starting setter was taken out with a knee injury. So needless to say it was time for a little pay back not just for us but for Outi our injured setter. We knew that they weren't a very strong passing team so our game plan was to go after them at the service line, also to put pressure on them through blocking and defense. You can be a great attacker and server but when it comes down to it, I believe defense wins match's. We ended the match in 3 sets winning nicely. During the last set I was looking across the net at one of the girls on the Kangasala team, I remembered her from somewhere but couldn't quite put my finger on it. I turned to one of my teammates and told her that I knew her, she looked so familiar to me, like I had played her in high school. After the match I decided to ask her where she was from. I knocked on their locker room door and when I saw her I immediately asked "where do I know you from?" and she responded "I played at Redondo Beach High School!" I was shocked and relieved that my assumptions were right on. I was instantly happy to have another fellow South Bay beach chick here with me in Finland. While we spoke she told me she had just graduated from UCSB, so I asked her if she knew a couple guy vballers as well who were playing in Austria. She then shocked me some more saying that she did and was going to visit them for New Years! Amazing! I proceeded to tell my teammates that she was in fact from my high school league and we had played against one another even though she was about 3 years younger then me. It was great to see/meet her again, hopefully I will have a chance to go visit her area of Finland.

Now for the explanation of the title of this entry. While I was walking to our game Saturday night, I made it a point to layer up as well as I could. Unfortunately I forgot to layer up my legs, only dressing in my thick warm up pants and to wrap a scarf around my head. It took about 5 minutes for my legs and lower half of my face to feel completely frozen. When I got to the gym some of the girls asked if I was ok, seeing that my face was frozen into a frown, I told them that the cold was just bumming me out. They told me, unfortunately this wasn't the worst and it had yet to come. Fabulous. It only gets bad when you have to walk for a while or when you can't leave your apartment. With all the bad things that come with cold weather, there are plenty of good things. For the first time in my life, I woke up one morning to see that every tree had frost on its branches, making their colors turn from grey and brown, to a pure white. The other day the sun decided to show making these branches stand out against the blue blue sky. I decided to lug my camera around with me on my way to practice that morning, taking shots of all the nature that was frozen in place.


Almost every morning I try to wake up more by standing on my balcony and taking a bunch of deep breaths. The air smells so clean and the scent of the snow makes me feel like Im at a ski resort. Oddly enough there is a small one a couple clicks down the road from here. I saw something rather odd the other day on my way to the store. Many people in this town have what looks like a sled with a chair on the front. Almost like a small dog sled. They ride them around everywhere, sometimes with a small child sitting on the chair, sometimes they ride solo. I have decided that I need to invest in one of those, I have been close to slipping and falling far to many times to count....Finland doesn't take it easy on clumsy people like myself.





So to sum up, we lost one and we won one, Finland is freezing, I reunited with an old playful rivalry, and now we have two full weekends off. Definitely going to try and get out of this town and to a bigger city to do some shopping and some socializing. Thanksgiving is this week, I think some of the Americans and I will try to put something together. Less than a month until I go back to Sweden, I can't say how excited I am to go back for the 2 weeks we have off. It will definitely rejuvenate me for the last 4 months of the season. Enjoy the pictures!

New digs, a loss, and a men's vball match

After a little over a month living in the team apartment or other wise known as "PBB, Phitipudas Big Brother" as our manager and assistant coach Martti likes to call it, I was told that I was going to be living in a teammates temporary apartment here in town while she has surgery on her knee and recovers. She was supposed to be our main setter this year but unfortunately acquired a torn ACL in the beginning of the season during match play. I have only seen her set in practice standing at the net and let me just say its a shame that she is injured, as a hitter I appreciate a good setter when I see one and she has got some great
hands for a setter. Hopefully she will be up and back in the saddle by next season ready to make her come back. She has her surgery tomorrow morning so I hope all goes well for her and I will be sending positive energy and thoughts her way. Its an unfair trade to be living in this new apartment but I am so happy to be here now. The apartment is on the other side of town (down the street) behind the church and on the main road into to town. I walked in and the first thing I noticed was the lovely ("Ihanaa" in Finnish language) fragrance of freshly washed sheets. I will always love the smell of laundry for as long as I live, its one of the best smells in the world, besides the way a kitchen smells on Thanksgiving or Christmas, laundry is top of the list for awesome smells. The second was the huge bed, so stoked on that. It is been difficult getting a good nights rest in a dorm style twin and a thin mattress. The living room is decorated with a three person grey couch, black and grey carpet, computer desk and chair, small rolling coffee table, TV, and cute flower curtains that frame the bay windows that look out onto the small parking area and woods. I also have access to a pretty sizable balcony. The kitchen is small but big enough to house a table for three. The cabinets are white with gold fixtures (something I thought I would hate but they are actually cute), a small refrigerator and a lot of counter top space. The bathroom holds the washing machine and the shower is hid by a dolphin scene shower curtain, cute. I think I am going to like living here for the next couple months.

My teammate Nikolina, her boyfriend, and I went to a division 1 men's volleyball game about 140 kilometers away sunday night. She knew two Serbians on the team. I was excited to see the game because a friend of mine was the setter for the team the Serbians were on. He is from Texas and we first met in Slovenia when we had come to the womens team of the town he played for as well. I saw him play there and also when he came to Sweden to play in a tournament with a Danish team and now this year I will see him play again. We keep running into one another, seems like such a small world out here sometimes. We watched their match as did all of Finland, it was a televised match. They wanted Nikolina or I to say something during the 15 minute break after the second match. I was totally interested (my mom was supposed to be watching so I wanted give a shout out) but Nikolina, not so much, she said she hated talking on TV. After the 2nd match I went down to say a few things about the match and give my shout out but then they told me that they wanted a little more so I decided to ask for my friend to come back and give a short interview. Long story short the "interview" was unplanned and pretty horrible. Oh well. Next time if there is one I will be a little more prepared. My friends team ended up winning in 3 sets, turned out to be pretty easy win.

Game against the giants Tuesday, should be an interesting show down. I want to win, but knowing how good they are we all would have to be on our best game to beat them. Important thing to remember is that we have nothing to lose so might as well go for it.

Liiga Match...playing with giants

Wednesday night we played another Finland Cup game against the number one team in the league, Salo. Now before I talk about the match, I just wanted to preface who was on the other side of the net and why they should maybe play in higher league. The libro is about 5'4 a buck ten, amazing on defense and passing, other wise known as the best libero in Finland right now. The setter is also national team royalty with quick wrists, making it sometimes hard to read where she is going to send the ball. Both middles were 6'5 with fast arm swings both I think were from Belarus, Russia. And the last of the notable players on the team and easily argued their best player on the team, the opposite, De Carne. She is around 6'9, over 2 meters when she takes a full approach and swings putting the ball inside the 10 foot line. Even though she is 35 years old she has quite the resume, playing almost everywhere important in Europe. Getting to the point, we lost in 3 sets, thankfully breaking double digits in scoring but getting no higher than 16 points. The other team was just really good at playing the basic game. They never did anything mind boggling or super acrobatic that we were all shocked at what we were seeing. Salo is a team to beat for sure, they have won 50 consecutive matches in a row here in Finland. Yes, they are very well respected, yes, they have some amazing players on their team, but they are human just like everyone else and can be beat, we just need to not give them so much respect that they know that everything will be easy.
Our team had moments of genius in the match but we all know that we can be better all around. The fact that they were making hot dogs and the smell was permeating the nostrils did not help at all. But non the less I was focused on the game at hand, my nose was the only thing distracted. Luckily the match does not count against us in league play. So this weekend we face Eura, a team we have already played and beaten so its time to get fired up about that. Not throwing the Salo game totally away, but learning from it and moving on. There is only so much one or a whole team can do when playing against giants. I hope we get that win this weekend, that is where it really counts. One point at a time to the finals is the goal for everyone on this team I hope.
I am moving into a teammate who is getting surgery on her knee apartment this weekend as well. Will be by myself at last, at least until the end of January, then she comes back for work and I will move somewhere else. There are only so many apartment buildings in this town so we shall see. Until another time.

Kuusamo, Finland and another Win!

This weekend we traveled to Kuusamo (Norhtern Finland) for a match against a team called Paka. They were currently seeded 2nd in the league with 2 powerful Brazilians as outside hitters. We left on Friday because the trip would take us 7 hours and we were to spend the night at a hotel about an hour and a half from our destination. On our way we were stopped by a dead moose in the road. A smaller car had plowed right into the poor animal, smashing in the drivers side car window and front hood. No one was hurt luckily….except the moose. A man with a shot gun was walking towards the huge animal ready to shoot it if it wasn't completely dead. He nudged its nose and decided that the animal was in fact dead. Steam rose from the animals nostrils, reassuring us all that this was a recent accident. Our bus driver snapped a few pictures and we were on our way.

 We got to the hotel around 10pm, exhausted from the trip. The accommodations were a little on the shady side, but I am just going to believe that it was maybe undergoing a small remodel. The rooms were typical european hotel rooms….small and the beds were super close to one another. I was so tired and already used to this sort of hotel living that I could have cared less at that point. I fell into bed around 11pm and my roommate and I were out by 11:30. Unfortunately for me, I was having a very hard time reaching REM sleep for two reasons. One was the consistent clicking noise coming from the unnecessary mini fridge by the desk. I tried to see what the problem was quietly but nothing was getting better so eventually I opted to shoving wads of toilet paper in my ears. The second was my uncontrollable and rogue cough that has been plaguing me since I have gotten here. At first there was something to cough up, but now, I've got nothing, just the constant tickling sensation before the wrath of the ultimate dry cough. I hear it in a few of my teammates as well so going to chalk it up to being a Finland thing for now. 

We had a short practice in the morning on Saturday, had some hotel breakfast (so good) and then headed to our final destination. On the road we watched video of the other team, critiquing and contributing our own perspective on how we were going to beat them. It was apparent that one of the brazilian outsides was very powerful indeed and celebrated like a soccer player when she scored, running around the court making her teammates run after her for a high five. I love it when opposing players celebrate like that, gets me even more fired up to block the crap out of them. The other "star" hitter on their team also looked good as well but where they lacked was in their reception. Both Brazilians could not pass and their libero wasn't much help either. So we had our game plan, serve tough and block both star hitters out of the game. While on our drive to the gym we were stopped a couple times because reindeer were either crossing or on the side of the road feeding. I remember them being brown but their fur was changing from the brown color to white. I felt like we were on a Finland safari….kind of a lame safari only seeing one animal but whatever, it was still fun and exciting to see them since not to many are roaming around Manhattan Beach back home. 

Their gym was similar to our gym again, having the court on one side and the stands on the other. The match was emotionally exhausting, there were good judgement calls and really bad judgement calls to make it that way. Personally I had a good game, I blocked one of the outsides pretty well, although they were not blocks that went down unfortunately. My hitting was better but I still need to make better contact with the ball and the setter. We are getting there, slowly but surely. By the 4th set we were all about winning the match. We came back from a 3 point gap and won! It was a great feeling but for the other team they looked and acted extremely pissed, I am going to guess it was mostly because of the bad judging calls by the refs. Oh well, a win is a win, which puts us at second place in the league right now. Hopefully we can hold on to that placement for the season and maybe even take the title!

This month is already flying by. This week will be fast as well with the league cup game wednesday against the former Finland Champions (going to be a tough game) and then another match this weekend. Hope for the best! Got to keep a fighting spirit on the team and in my own head. 

Sorry I didn't take any pictures of our trip because I didn't want to bring my big camera along so there are some pictures that other people took, thanks other people :) Take care all!!

Pihtipudas, Finland

 I haven't yet gone into depth of where I am living so I thought I would do it now in this post. The first thing I noticed about the town, or should I say village was how compact the "center" was. The town sits on one street with surrounding buildings, housing small shops and an alcohol store. There are three grocery stores, a couple of clothing and appliance shops, a library, two churches, two pizza and kebab restaurants, another random restaurant, a sports shop, two banks, a taxi station, two gas stations, a taxidermy museum of fish, a history museum, a hair dresser, small hospital, pharmacy, and a flower shop. I am sure I am leaving out a few more things but that sums up most of the town. There are many forests and lakes surrounding the town and on sunny, rainless days you could walk for hours through the wilderness. However I was warned about being aware of bears and moose while I'm out there. This town is known for two things, 1. the annual yearly javelin throwing contest in the summer and 2. Mounted taxidermic fish. So if anyone is need of a mounted fish, let me know because this town rocks at doing just that! I have yet to the visit the museum but I am bound to go there one of the days that I am living here. Yes this town is small, but there is a lot of beauty in it as well. The forests are bombarded with birch trees, they are the ones with the white trunks. When I see them I am reminded of Ansel Adams and the photo he took of a forest full of white trunked trees. I am constantly trying to get the same effect in my photos as he did but am coming up short a lot of the time. I'm not certain if they are the same kind of trees but they are similar in appearance at least. I went for a long walk the other day when the sun was out. I took my camera with me and took a few shots of the surrounding area and the town itself. Pretty soon the lakes will be frozen over and we will be snowed on (I hope) which will bring more light then dark to this part of the world. Right now the sun has been setting around 4pm and completely dark by 5:30pm. Everyone hates this time of year even the locals, but its the way of life up here and so we push through. Some do it by getting drunk at a local pub, some by walking outside during the day rain or shine in freezing temperatures...to each his own right?                                                                    Lonely Bench              



               Lake next to Pihtipudas
We are traveling to a lot of other volleyball towns and all are similar to the one I am
living in, however I think I might be living in the smallest one of the league. Luckily the girls from the team said to me that I would be more then welcome to come to the city of Jyvascula any time I like to visit. I enjoyed that city a lot so I am sure I will be back there very soon. We have a match this weekend that we are leaving for tomorrow night since it is a good 7 hours away. Saturday night we will be driving straight all the way back to Pihtipudas after the game. Luckily it starts at 5, so we will be getting home around 3 or 4 in the morning....sleeping on the bus is a must then. Good thing its a big bus with a bed in the back. Will be taking this computer with me as well so more things to do on the bus :) Enjoy the pictures!

                                                          

Another Win, This Time it Counts :)

This past weekend we traveled 3 hours east to another small town to play against Orpo. This team is different then any other team in the league for one specific reason, their uniform is fashioned after field hockey uniforms. In other words, they wear spandex skirts instead of spandex shorts. Interesting choice they made, however towards the end of the match I started to think they looked good, but one of my teammates snapped me out of it. The gym was like ours, grand stands to one side and the court to the other. There was quite a crowd there as well. I was told after the match that our team hadn't won in their gym since 2006! I felt pretty honored and super stoked to have played in and witnessed the win. Personally, I played better this match and seem to be progressing as we go along. I am now hitting and defending on the right side, a position I played in college my senior year. I hadn't played right side back row defense however, so that was a new and somewhat tough experience for me these last two matches. I think that this position is a good fit for me on this team. I am a good passer so I am a little bummed I wont be in the passing rotation but I feel like a smarter hitter from the right so it sort of all works out. After the win, we piled into the bus at which point our coach got on the microphone and announced that we had a great game so we deserve some ciders and beers, just as long as we are able to walk off the bus unattended at the end of the trip. I grabbed two Cider drinks because I have never had them before, so why not. I ended up liking them a lot, it was like drinking sparkling fruit juice. A bunch of us were dropped off in a city called Jyvasckula, the closest city to the town I live in, Pihitipudas (still not sure on the spelling, nor do I think I ever will be). Some of my teammates live in the city and go to the University during the week. I stayed with the setter and one of the libero's. They had a great two bedroom apartment close to the center and to the lake. Their place had a huge balcony perfect for parties during the summer and winter maybe, a big living room, two decent sized bedrooms, a cute kitchen with windows facing the lake, and a big bathroom with...wait for it...a three person sauna. We got ready and went out as quickly as possible since we got to their place at around 10pm. We road bikes to the center, locked them up and decided on a cozy little bar to start, we also met up with the girls two friends who were really fun to talk to, their english was really good. After that we went to a club called the Giggling Marlin which was packed with some people in costume and a lot of people just there to dance. Apparently there was a famous Finnish DJ there. He was spinning techno records so we went to another one of the three rooms. One room was 90s music and the other was Finland music. We took a little time in all rooms and stopped in the 90s music room the longest and had a 3 song dance off with some Finnish guys dressed like fisherman. We ended up getting home around 4am, I was almost falling asleep at the last club we were at, I was so incredibly tired from the game and the two beers I had went straight to my legs and my brain. I could have fallen asleep next to the subwoofer, but the girls realized that I wasn't a dancing machine anymore and decided it was time to head out, thank god! Stopped at McDonald's for a chicken sandwich and fries (first time in like 5 or 6 years) then road our bikes back to the apartment. I think I was asleep by 6am. What a night, almost forgot how the europeans party, literally until dawn.

The next morning two of my teammates and I woke up late, went in their sauna for a bit and then headed out to the center for some shopping. Luckily there were a bunch of stores open, it being Sunday we weren't expecting this. The city had many shops that I recognized which was comforting. I went home that night with another teammate who was driving back to the town were we lived. We talked the entire time about our lives and got to bond a little bit more. She tricked me twice though, I thought she was driving on the wrong side of the road but she was actually just using the passing lane which I forgot was there some of the time. Freaked me out but once I realized we weren't playing chicken we had a laugh and I relaxed. Got home and realized it was halloween and I was doing nothing at all that night, for the 3rd year in a row....bummer. Luckily my friends in Austria were getting ready to go out and celebrate halloween American style. None of them had costumes so they borrowed dresses and skirts from some girls they knew and went to a party dressed like chicks. I skype called with them and watched as they accessorized and twirled their skirts in front of me. It was a hilarious site, being that they were all over 6'5 and in tight fitting t-shirts, dresses, and long hair wigs. Was nice to see some people living it up USA style on halloween in Europe. Today we had regeneration program we did in the weight room that took about 45 minutes. Woke my body up for a little while but I was still pretty tired from Saturday. We have a match next weekend near Santa Clauses supposed home town. I was told that we will definitely see reindeer, but Santa Clause? I don't know, we will see if he comes out to show his face. Until then, good night.