Trip to Tampere

Since we had a game on Friday (which we won 3-0) and our next game isn't until next Saturday, we had the entire weekend off! Although the temperature has been getting colder, the weather has actually been a lot nicer lately. There is more sun and less rain! After doing our regeneration on Saturday (I have reduced this from a 5k run to 30 minutes on the elliptical), we boarded a bus to go to Tampere. Tampere is a bigger city about an hour away from Hameenlinna. They have a lot more shopping and things to do and we all needed new winter jackets, so we thought that we should go while we had a few days off. 

The bus to Tampere was quite expensive (11.80 euros= $16.50 each way), but both of the buses were new, clean, and very nice. Luckily the bus station is located close to the center of town and some major shopping areas. We started off at what would be considered a mall. As many of you know, I am drawn to more to summer clothes like shorts, skirts, and tank-tops, so it took a lot of me to just look at the winter gear. I tried on lots of hats, scarves and jackets. I didn't want to buy any accessories until I had a coat just to make sure that everything matched. At one of the last stores in the mall, I found a winter jacket. It was not as expensive as I anticipated and really cute:

The entire hood is removable and so is just the fur portion. I really liked that you can cinch in the sides so I don't look like a big box! It is also long enough which is often a problem for me! (Please ignore the mess on my floor- cleaning day is today! :))

After leaving the shopping center, we just walked around downtown. None of us are familiar with Tampere, so we thought the best plan was to wander around. We stopped in some more stores, but I did not find anything else to buy. And after walking for so long with my new coat, I realized that it is probably going to keep me very warm because it was so heavy! Towards the end of the day, we were all getting hungry, so we stopped at this Italian restaurant to grab a bite to eat. It was really nice to sit down after a day of walking. We headed back to the bus terminal after dinner, not sure of when the next bus for Hameenlinna was leaving. Luckily, there was a bus waiting at the station to leave so we just hopped on it and were back in Hameenlinna by 8 pm. Overall, it was a beautiful day outside and exciting that I found a new winter coat! Here are two pictures taken while walking around Tampere:

 View of part of the city from the bridge right by where we ate dinner. This was one of the fastest moving small rivers I have ever seen!

A pretty little church located near the bus station.

Busy week!

Since my last post, I have been pretty busy. Here are some highlights from the past week or so:

• We lost our first league game 3-2. The game was on Wednesday (we got back from Germany on Monday night) and I think we were all a little bit tired. However, we still should have won because we are definitely a better team. 
• We had two more matches (one Saturday and one Sunday) over the weekend. These were against the two Estonia teams that joined our league this year for the first half of league play. Both times we were victorious, winning 3-0. Neither team was very good, but it helped our team regain confidence and get back in the winning column.
• Saturday was Marina's birthday. My mom had sent a funfetti mix in my birthday package, so I made it for Marina's birthday. She was pleasantly surprised, and the entire team loved the cake. I didn't have any icing or decorations so it wasn't my normal birthday cakes, but it still tasted delicious. One of my teammates asked me yesterday if I could make another one soon! haha
• Each game, a player from each team earns Player of the Game and wins a prize. I guess I played pretty good on Saturday and ended up winning the award. After having my teammates translate the gift, I learned that I had won a free cruise from Helsinki to Stockholm for 2-4 people. I don't know the details about the trip, but it is valid from December to mid-February. Marina won the same prize on Sunday, so now we can take a total of 8 people on this cruise! Hopefully, we will be able to find some time to go and visit Stockholm.
• We had a girl from Cuba come for a try-out a few days ago and her English was very poor. My coaches knew that I spoke Spanish, so I was designated as the translator for her time here. I did not realize how much I had forgotten in these past 3 years or so of not speaking Spanish. Of course I managed the easy stuff, but it was much more difficult than I expected. Turns out the girl is not staying, so I will not be perfecting my Spanish this year. We have another girl from Serbia who actually played at South Carolina coming for a try-out today. Thankfully she speaks great English! :)
• I received a second package from my parents today which is so much fun. While packing to come here, I did not include enough cold-weather (and water-proof) gear. Everything is so much more expensive here, so my mom picked up some new stuff and picked through the items at the house. I think I will definitely be warmer and dry now! They also included some caramel apple lollipops (yum!) and Swedish fish. Thanks mom and dad!

I think that's about it. We have another game tomorrow. I want to give everyone the two websites that you can use to follow my team and our results. The first is the website of my team. It has some information, but the second website (the one for the league) is much better. Of course, both are in Finnish so just plug them into the Google search box and when your options come up, click on translate to the right side of the option. The name of my team is HPK. Enjoy!

http://www.hpk-naiset.fi/

http://www.mestaruusliiga.fi/

Wiesbaden, Germany

This past weekend, my team competed in a tournament in Wiesbaden, Germany. This was my first time spending any time in Germany besides a stop at the Munich airport. Everyone was excited to leave on Friday and head to warmer weather (It was supposed to be in the 20's in Germany, more than double the temperature in Finland!). We took a bus to the Tampere airport (the smallest airport I have ever seen), and boarded our RyanAir flight. For such a small airport, the plane was surprisingly large. Unfortunately, RyanAir does not provide any food or drinks during their flights, so by the end of the 2.5 hour flight, we were all starving. Once in Germany, some of the people from the host club (VCW) picked us up at the airport. We traveled for about an hour to the hotel, then finally went to grab a bite to eat. After dinner at a traditional German restaurant and once back at the hotel, Marina and I passed out because we were so tired from traveling, it was pretty late at night, and we had an early start in the morning. 

Saturday was filled with volleyball! We started with a one hour practice from 9-10. Then we had opening ceremonies for the tournament, followed by 2 games. In all we played 8 sets in a row on Saturday. The first game was against a team from France, and we split sets with them (2-2). The next game was against another French team who we ended up beating 3-1. When we first left for Germany, we only had 9 players healthy enough to play. Once in Germany, one of girls got a stomach bug of some sort and ended up not being able to really play. This dropped our total to 8 healthy players, 2 of them being setters and 1 libero. This meant that everyone else had to play all the sets. Also, because of the positions of everyone still healthy enough to play, I had to play right side. Although I have experience playing this position and the fact that I like it because I get to defend, it was difficult at times because I have been training in the middle for the most part. At the end of the day we were exhausted, so we ate some dinner at the hall and went back to the hotel to go to sleep.

On Sunday we had a match at noon against the host team and then depending on how everyone finished, we would either play in the Championship game or the 3rd place game. My ill teammate was still sick on Sunday, so I played opposite the entire day. We ended up splitting sets with the German team, but it was good enough to put us in the first place game against the German team! We had to play them again after the 3rd place match. After winning the first two sets in the Championship game, we lost the next two to force a deciding, fifth game. It was back and forth until we switched at 8. From there we went on to win the next points, winning the game 15-8. It was a great feeling to know that all that hard work and effort during the last two days was worth it.

 The team with our trophy and huge bottle of champagne (which we never drank). Not a great picture, but the best I could get!

 As the winners of the tournament, we were each given a rather large book filled with the sights of Wiesbaden and a little cosmetic bag with nail polishes and make-up. The book was really nice because we spent all of our time in the gym which did not allow us any time to see the city

.

I was able to take one picture of the street outside our hotel. There was a little walking street that was really cute with little shops, restaurants, and such but this is the best picture I was able to get.

Overall, we played 17 sets of volleyball in two days! Everyone was tired and ready to get back to Finland in order to play our first league game on Wednesday. Hopefully more people will be healthy and get can get the first W of the season. I am also attaching a website that I found that has lots of action shots from this weekend. The ones that say HPK Naiset are the albums from the games my team played! Enjoy!

http://www.wiesbadenaktuell.de/galerie.html