Last weekend could have possibly been the longest weekend of my life! Here is how it went down:
I'll start with Friday. We had weights in the morning and then a video meeting followed by practice in the afternoon. Directly after practice (after we showered of course), we boarded a bus with one of the other Finnish teams to go to Helsinki. Luckily they told us that we were not going to be given food, so I had went to the store to buy a sandwich and chips. I devoured that on the bus and listened to music with Marina for the hour and a half bus ride. We got to Helsinki early, so we ended up just sitting in the terminal for a little while before we were able to board the boat. After lugging my heavy bag plus this extra bag for the team to our compartment, we finally got to our "room". It was very small especially with all our bags, but it worked. One bright spot was that we were able to catch the end of X-Factor. We walked around the boat for a little bit before going back to the room to try to get some sleep.
Ivana and Marina in our cabin.
Saturday started bright and early at 6:00 am after a night of poor sleep. The boat was pretty loud and moved around a lot. Breakfast was served at 6:15, and we had to be out of our room by 6:45. After a quick breakfast, we got our stuff out of the room and got off the boat. Once outside (it was still dark) I thought a bus was going to come pick us up and take us to the hotel. Wrong! We had to walk about 15 minutes to our hotel. This would not have been a problem except my duffel bag seemed extremely heavy, and I was still partially asleep. When we finally arrived at the hotel, we learned that our rooms were not going to be ready until noon and it was only about 7:15! Since I was really tired, I decided (along with a lot of my other teammates) to lay on the couches in the lobby to take a nap. The lady at the receptionist told us we couldn't do this (I was told that it was probably because we were from Finland. Supposedly the Finnish and the Estonians don't like each other too much.). So, I spent the next 4 hours playing UNO, taking a walk around Tallinn, and sitting in the lobby. Around 11, we needed to get on the bus to drive the 2.5 hours to our game. I was hoping to sleep on the bus ride, but it was a smaller bus and we had to share seats. Due to the fact that I could no longer keep my eyes open, I was able to take a little rest. We ate a really good lunch on the way. Before we left the hotel, the other team told us that we couldn't practice before our game because there was a basketball game. When we got to the gym, we found out that basketball game was at 11 and that the gym was open. Although I didn't think I wanted to practice, it was actually really good to move around and loosen up our muscles before the game. Anyways, we won the game fairly easily 3-0. We showered, ate, and drove back to the hotel. Once in the room, I laid down and fell asleep pretty fast.
This statue was outside of the hall. I already forgot the guy's name, but he was the first Estonia Olympic gold medalist!
Estonia/Finland had their Daylight Savings Time on Sunday morning, so we were able to get an extra hour of sleep! This was fabulous, but none of our phones changed automatically which meant we woke up an hour earlier than necessary. However, I called the front desk who told me the correct time, and I went back to sleep. After another hour of sleep, we woke up and went down to breakfast. The team went for a walk after breakfast. I thought we might get to walk through the old town which is where most of the tourist sites are in Tallinn, but instead we walked somewhere else. I was able to get a few pictures from a distance. I am not sure what any of them are of though!
And then I took this picture to prove that I was actually in Tallinn:
After our 45 minute walk, we had video. It was a little hard to concentrate because I was still tired, but I fought back the yawns. The game on Sunday was only about 45 minutes away which was nice, and we got a bigger bus this time! After losing the first game, we came back to win the next three. I think we were all a little tired and needed some time to get back in the flow of the game. After showering, we boarded the bus to go back to the hotel where we ate dinner and waited for the boat. We played some more UNO and then boarded the bus. This boat ride was only 2 hours, so we did not get cabins. Instead we had to find a place to sit somewhere on the boat. There were not enough tables and chairs or sofas for everyone, so we ended up sitting in this hallway which was perfectly fine. We played some more UNO and ate candies. Around 11:30 pm, we got off the boat and headed back to Hameenlinna. I wasn't in my bed until probably 1:30, but came home to a nice surprise of my manager joining my two beds together. Now I have a big, queen size bed which is so nice.
Overall, it was a really, really long weekend without much sleep, but we came away with 2 wins and six points (You get 3 points for a 3-0 win and a 3-1 win, 2 points for a 3-2 win, 1 point for a 2-3 loss, and 0 points for a 0-3 or 1-3 loss) which is ultimately the most important thing. Go HPK! :)
