I can be your Lance Armstrong

A lot of firsts going on over here! The first first (LOL) is that we have moved into the new arena, which is beyond sick. In our locker room we have showers (pretty standard unless you aren’t in to that), a sauna, a massage table, and shelves are being built so we can have food and PROTEIN SHAKES/supplements. There are 16 of these locker rooms in the arena, and this has been the first week where I have seen people from other sports like hockey and gymnastics, because we all use this arena now. This leads into the second first which is the arena is a little farther than the old gym we were practicing in.. It is actually about 2.5 miles away, so I have also started my Tour de France training. I am actually not a very good bike rider.. I never really have been. When I tried to learn, I remember I was in some grass and my mom stood me up on the bike and I think I was too scared to pedal so I just tipped over on my side. This is weird to me because spinning is my favourite work out? AND, this leads me to my third first: It has snowed. It didn’t stick on the ground, but there were flakes. It was September 23 when this happened, and I don’t think this is the best sign of the winter to come. I have heard from my teammates that in the East, there has already been about 3 inches.

Another first: the first full weekend plus Monday off. I cannot even explain to you the excitement I had after we were done with our “friendly match” on Friday (even after getting our butts whooped). Not setting an alarm has never been so awesome. Off days are dangerous. They are scary because you love them so much you don’t want to return to your daily schedule that you previously had been a part of. This was very true of my off days. Saturday was me in bed pretty much all day.. I watched some rom-coms on Netflix along with some Mad Men (Christina Hendricks is so sexy), and then Noppi and I went out. I bought this whiskey/brandy (?) from the liquor store because a bartender once told me that “all of the Finnish rockstars drink it,” and being like a rock star is what I live for. Kidding, but it sounded cool. Highlights from the night: requesting Anaconda with Noppi and getting it changed after 30 seconds, a 3 Euro cookie that I apparently did not care was extremely over priced, and getting a huge pizza (that was my first Finnish pizza). I love that they put pineapples on pretty much everything, because I love pineapples on my pizza. Sunday was another pretty chill day, I had a sugaring appointment, the equivalent to American waxing, went on a run (when I was pretty far out, it started to pour), and made this avocado banana hair stuff that hasn’t really done anything for my hair.

MONDAY. Monday really made me want to make something that will make me billions so I can live in a big city, never work, and just look fly for life. I went to Helsinki and this time I really wanted to check out the Design District. They have some really cool museums like the Finnish Architecture museum, the design museum, the art museum, etc. I am a nerd for big cities and the design of them because that is what I studied in college and if I had enough money to buy the clothes that I pin on Pinterest, I would look fly in the city. Also, I had my first pumpkin spice latte and paid the American equivalent of 9 dollars for it (that is what the selfie is of.. completely basic, but completely necessary). I drank that thing so slow and can honestly say that I got my money’s worth. I also had my first macaroon which I am now addicted to. Macaroons, to me, are like edible pillows of sugar. Find something bad about an edible pillow of sugar and we can chat. I got to go to an art museum that explained the HUGE peeing boy statue in Helsinki by the market square, and this artist is kinda freaky. He has plenty more peeing statues, I saw them all in his section of the museum. He said something like he just molds stuff together and is always surprised by what comes out of it, but I don’t know… Can an artist really not know that what he is molding is going to make a peeing boy statue?

A Classic Mixup

I have finally arrived in Hameenlinna, Finland. There is something incredibly fun to me about being completely clueless and just figuring out a new place. Clueless is/looks like: 1) Thinking coffee is self serve in the hotel you are staying in, only to find out that you are in the back where only the employees are allowed and you are kinda stealing coffee (I paid for it after I figured this out), 2) Tying all of your suitcases together using your jackets you packed because you didn’t know who would be at the airport to help you and now you are moving at the speed of a 100 year old turtle, or 3) Forgetting everything is in kilos here and wondering how the hell you lost so much weight overnight. I was worried that today went too smoothly and I wouldn’t have anything substantial to put in the blog, but the tables have turned!

First, the flights were awesome. I got these super strong sleeping pills to take (I am terrified of flying and have to physically shake myself in the seat to avoid feeling turbulence, better known as twerking in a seat next to someone you don’t know.. just don’t make eye contact and you’re good..), but they worked for maybe the first two hours. SO, Lufthansa hooked it up with free wine and I was out for most of the flight. I watched Bend It Like Beckham for a little female athlete inspiration and then I was in Frankfurt. Made my flight to Helsinki and then drive to Hameenlinna with Marina who spoke awesome English and was really helpful. I am now in a hotel and tomorrow morning I will move into my apartment! 🙂

Last on the agenda of the day was to meet with my general manager, Ville. Now, I was really nervous about this because I had recently posted a picture with a beer in it and Ville commented saying girls get sent home after a week for breaking drinking rules. I go to meet him (at a bar, ironically) and he asks if I want a beer to which I reply no, because I wanna get out of the dog house ASAP. He tells me that it will help me sleep better, so I get a beer with Ville. He is awesome. His English is really good and I can understand him perfectly fine. It took me a while to bring up the Facebook post, but when I did he told me don’t worry he was just joking (which sounded a little like choking, so it took me a while to figure it out) and trying to be funny to scare me (it worked). They are really honest here, so he had no problem telling me that my hitting was pretty average, but I was lucky I could pass to make up for that. He also told me about the town called Rovaniemi which is the official Santa Claus Village (I will be going there to play, so pictures will definitely be attached to that post). He explained in detail to me that the Finnish Santa doesn’t go down the chimney like the USA Santa does, and he also broke it to me that the USA and Finnish Santas are not real, to which I responded by tearing up… Joking, I didn’t do that. I keep thinking to how freaked out I was that I already messed up the drinking rules, that I couldn’t believe I was getting a beer with Ville. Conclusion: Ville is a jokester. And not going to send me home.

Finally, as I head to bed, I am across from the nightclub of the town called “Up,” and they are blasting Avicii and some Rick’s American Cafe tunes, so its not much different than trying to sleep on Arch St. while the White St. houses blast their music the night before Ally and I have to wake up for serve and pass.

Pictures of the bachelorette pad and the city to come soon! Hyvää yötä!