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.