I am over halfway done with my stay here in Finland and I have to say that the first half was enjoyable. We are winning all of our games and getting more and more confidence with each game. Every game I feel like our team is pulling closer and closer together. I can't speak for the defense but I know the offense is coming together nicely. The receivers and I are finally getting on the same page and it is showing out on the field. Even though we have a bye week this week, I'm looking forward to playing the Crocs on the following weekend. The first time we played them was only my 3rd day here. I want to see how far we have come as a team since that game. The Crocs are still in 3rd place.
Anyway, the past week was a little more interesting. After practice on Wednesday, we went to Rio's house to watch last year's championship game. I was pretty impressed with the game. The team has changed a lot since last year. There were many guys on the team that I didn't recognize, especially the defensive lineman. We watched the game with Rio and Mikko and it was funny because they knew every play that was coming up, because they have watched it about 10 times. Mikko would say, *watch this play, I save Rio's ass here." It was funny to hear their commentary of the game. Watching it actually got me fired up again because I want to win a championship with this team too. Last year's win was the first Maple League Championship the Trojans have won. They have about 12 silver medals, but only one gold. It was cool to see the team win it last year, because they wanted it so bad. Hopefully this year we will have the same passion to win the title again. It is easy to get complacent in our situation, because we are the defending champions and undefeated this season.....
On Thursday, we played some Putt-Putt, or mini golf, whatever. Mikko is on his summer vacation and felt the urge to play so he called us up. This place is right next to the place where we practice, so we see it everytime when we go to practice, but now we finally got to play it. There are some things I need to explain about Finnish putt-putt that I found humorous.
The first thing I noticed was the balls. They are not golf balls or even close to golf balls. They are rubber balls. No dimples or anything, just a rubber ball. Next I looked at the putter more closely after noticing it resembled a normal putter. They also have rubber inserts in them. So we are putting rubber balls with rubber insert putters. As we approach the first tee, I notice that we don't tee our balls on rubber mats but metal mats (if there is such a thing). See they got it all wrong, instead of putting on metal mats with rubber putters, we should be putting on rubber mats with metal putters.
Anyway, they have this thing called "the red line," as Mikko called it. The rule is if your ball doesn't go past the red line on the first shot you have to re-tee. It doesn't seem that difficult unless you have to putt through obstacles to get past the red line. Sometimes you will have to putt the ball through a few walls in order to get it past the red line. So if you can't get the ball past the line you can't finish the hole. This made things a little interesting. The last thing that was a little different was that all the holes weren't normal circular golf holes, sometimes the holes were big rectangles. There was one hole where you had to putt it up this little hill and at the top of the hill there was a rectangular hole instead of a circular hole, that's just weird. I don't feel comfortable putting my ball in a rectangle hole.... haha, just making fun of some Finnish putt-putt.
Anyway, all these differences threw me off my game (yeah right) and I lost by one stroke to Mikko. I had a 58 and he had a 57, although he choked in the end and I picked up 7 shots on the 16th hole. Scott got off to a slow start and finished with a 72. This put Finland ahead in the USA-Finland Olympic games... 1-0. Although a win by the USA in basketball earlier in the summer was declared unfair by some Finnish participants. I will have more on the USA-Finland Olympic games when we partake in more events. Possible future events include a rematch in basketball, bowling, and of course Madden. That reminds me that after putt-putt we went and picked up another controller for Playstation so we can have two player games now. Mikko and I played for the first time and I put him to shame beating him 38-7.
Okay, on with the week.... On Thursday after practice, Scott and I headed up to coach Haula's house to go to the Pori Jazz festival this time. So Klaus, the tight end, took us back from practice and Jari, the defensive lineman, picked us up and took us down to Jazz Street. This is a street right across the island where the concert for the jazz festival was going on. On Jazz Street there are a bunch of tents with people selling food and merchandise, much like a festival in the US. We weren't there for very long but it was good to see at least. Then we hung out at JP's bar. He is a defensive back and is a bouncer at one of the nicest bars in Pori.
On Friday, we had concert tickets so we got dropped off right before the concert started. Coach Haula packed us with some drinks and sandwiches because you could bring that stuff inside. We also had a blanket so we didn't have to sit in the grass. When we walked in, the festival area was surrounded by trees in this open area. There were no permanent seats or anything, just grass. We walked in from the back and there will people already packed in on the grass with their blankets and picnic stuff. We thought it was going to be packed. Then as we walked closer to the stage, we saw a guy that had rigged up a hammock between two trees. They also had a mini table with wine and cheese on it. Then the more I looked around almost everyone was drinking wine. Obviously it was an older crowd because it was a Jazz festival.
About halfway to the stage we noticed all these wooden benches that were empty, close to the stage. Scott and I instantly thought that you needed tickets to get into that section, but you didn't. Everyone just wanted to sit in the back and chill on their blankets and no one wanted to go to the front. That is very different than the States. So Scott and I found a nice spot fairly close on the side. The music was pretty cool. There were two blues bands from the States and then Van Morrison. I took a nap on the blanket during the second band for a bit and then woke up when Van Morrison took the stage. Scott said, I don't think this is the same Van Morrison that we know that sings "Brown Eyed Girl." The band had all these orchestra instruments, with trumpets and saxophones like the first two bands. They played for an hour and we didn't recognize any of the songs. Then all of a sudden "Brown Eyed Girl" came on, so it was the same Van Morrison that we knew. I guess we expected something different. That was the last song of the concert, so we went for 5 hours and 3 bands and only knew 1 song. It was that kind of day, but it was still nice to get outside and relax for a change.
When we got back to the house, Coach introduced us to one of his friends that he had over. It was the bass player for Dingo, who is a real popular band that came out in the 80's. They are one of Finland's most popular bands and still go on tour. So that was cool that we met him. Earlier on Thursday, we also saw a bunch of Finnish celebrities. We saw the same movie director again and we saw one of Finland's most famous rappers when he came into JP's bar. His name is Paleface, haha, and he said whats up to me and Scott as he walked by. Of course, we also got some good food again from Haula's house and that alone is worth the trip. The only bad part about the trip was that we had to drive an hour and a half back to Turku for our game at home on Saturday. Other than that it was pretty cool....
That was a long entry....... I'm out.