Update From Finland
2/18/2011 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Feb. 18, 2011
Well it's been another exciting week in Finland. Probably my favorite week so far and that's a pretty bold statement because I've been enjoying myself so much. I'll start with my trip to Oulu. Let me start from the beginning. On my flight from Helsinki to Kuusamo I met a woman named Leena (said Lay-nuh) and her husband who, coincidentally, are sponsors for our team. They own a big lumber and distribution company that operates all around Finland and Europe. I think it's kinda cool. But anyway, Leena gave me her phone number to call her when I had some free time. Well, on our bus ride back from Tampere last weekend she called our team captain, Jaana (said Yonna) and invited me to go to Oulu to watch a men's volleyball game. So I called Leena a couple days later and gladly accepted her request. So, on Wednesday we were off to Oulu! And even better, we were watching her nephew's team, Sun Volley, and the team we had met a few weeks ago, Lakapaa. It was so much fun seeing our friends playing and Leena's nephew. You can never watch too much volleyball. Before we went to the volleyball match we went to meet Leena's daughter, Laura, and went to dinner at a great restaurant. Emily and I both had the bbq pork and it was delectable. After that we went to the nut shop that had all sorts of dried fruits and nuts. I may have gone a little overboard on accident and spend 75 euros on nuts. Oops! It's okay because I've been enjoying them a lot. So back to the volleyball match. We were on the VIP list and got to hang out with all the big wigs and sponsors. It was pretty fun to experience what that was all about. We had a special area for tea, coffee, sandwiches, candies, and pastries to enjoy before the match and during half time. And Emily got to help decide the players to receive awards at the end of the match! After the match, Leena stayed in Oulu and Emily and I rode back to Kuusamo with the president of our club. It was really neat to get to know him. He spoke English to us pretty well and we had lots of fun and interesting conversations. I'm so glad I got the opportunity to do that! Now Leena and I talk most days of the week through calls and text messages. She and her husband live just down the road from us so I think I might be spending time at their place and she will teach me how to weave rugs and other fun crafts like knitting. I'm really looking forward to that.
Anyway, there's much more good stuff that happened this week. We had a great week of practices where we focused a lot on defense because the team we were up against over the weekend was going to be tough competition. It definitely paid off. We played them on Saturday and Sunday and well, Saturday wasn't pretty as we lost in 3. So we all came back on Sunday ready to go with our minds right. After a battle and fighting tooth and nail for every point, we came out on top! We won in 5. It was a great victory. Emily and I went to Ruka (the biggest ski resort in Finland) and had dinner and got away from our daily routine. It was a lot of fun and I think we'll probably go there more often, hopefully one of these times to ski! There are always a lot of interesting people there too, because it's a big ski resort a lot of tourists are coming and going all the time and you never know who you might meet!
Now, I'd like to share the highlight of my week...well probably my whole trip. I've been waiting for this moment since I've been here and it finally arrived. Yesterday on our day off, Emily went to Oulu to visit a friend and I stayed home to lounge around. Well, around 10:30 pm when she was on her way home she called me. My first thought was that she hit a reindeer or something so I was worried before I even answered the phone! Well, she said oh my gosh Jules, you're never going to believe what's out tonight! And you could just hear the excitement in her voice. And I hadn't the slightest clue what she was going to say. And she said the Revlon tulips! And that's what we call the Northern Lights. Both of us have been dying to see them and have been keeping our eyes out so we wouldn't miss them. They were the most majestic thing I've ever seen. It was beautiful the way they were dancing around the sky. They were mostly green but with other colors mixed in here and there. They were like an arc across the sky from one side to the other and they were moving around and changing colors before my eyes. I hope to see them again. We call them the Revlon tulips because in Finnish they are called revontulet (said rev-on-toolie) and that's the way we remember them. So we talk about the Revlon tulips every day now and hopefully we keep seeing them more often. ..we'll step outside every night to see if they are out.
I think this week is going to be pretty quiet. We don't have a match this weekend but we have a scrimmage on Saturday in Rovaniemi. Our next and last league match is next weekend so we'll take all this week to work on the little details of the game and get our bodies ready for that match. Rovaniemi is only a few hours away so it will be just a day trip there and back for the scrimmage. We've met a few of the girls on that team and it will be a great time to practice what we've been working on.
Well, that's pretty much everything that's been going on in Finland. I'll keep posting updates about what's happening here. Time is going so fast and I've got just a couple months left here to explore all of Finland! I've got a lot to do in such little time so I better get a start on it.
