Birthday Day!

Happy 26th Birthday to me! o man 26 years old. crazy. But it was a good birthday! Woke up and went to practice where my team sang happy birthday to me in Finnish. Then came home and baked a birthday cake for my team for after our night practice, which everyone devoured after practice! My cake says happy birthday in Finnish, hyvaa syntymapaivaa. In the bottom left corner you can see a lil piece missing, I had to try my cake first before I let the team eat it! But everyone loved it and it was delicious!

In the afternoon my coach brought over a washing machine for my apartment! yay! Now I can do my laundry at my place instead of walking to the gym to do my laundry. double yay!

Then I went to night practice where they sang to me again but this time in English, but the girls also had a present for me. They got me a candle and candle holder for my apartment, a magazine in english and some yummy Finnish candy.

After practice I went over to the place next to my apartment,Birger, where some friends of mine work and like to hang out. I also got a great present from them too. There is a store in Helsinki, Behnfords,that sells American foods so one of my friends bought me some oreos, mac and cheese,marshmellows,pop tarts and peanut butter! A lil taste of America here in Finland. It was an awesome gift!
I also had my birthday package from home and that had a bunch of goodies in it also! It was a great birthday considering Im away from home, but thank you for everyone who wished me a happy birthday! You made my day! :)

love getting mail!!

Yay!! So I got a birthday package in the mail today from home!! yay! i love getting packages in the mail when Im away from home!! But I am going to be patient and be a good girl and wait to open it on my birthday! It will kinda make it feel more like my birthday if I have presents to open!! Yay!!

HPK ~ first home game

Here in Finland there is the Finnish Cup and then the Championship. The Finnish Cup is a tournament that goes on during the beginning of the championship season, where we play the Cup games every few weeks. If you lose in the Finnish Cup you are done and do not play anymore games, so you play till you lose, just like in regular tournaments. The Championship is just like a regular volleyball season. We had our first regular season home game last night against the team that won the championship last year. Unfortunately we lost in 3 :( but we had a huge huge crowd. After the game someone told us that there was probably 1000 people at the game, which is alot for a volleyball game. But the crowd was awesome and really into the game! There was one section of guys, all ages, wearing bright orange shirts right behind our bench cheering for us and heckling the other team. It is fun to play when you have a crowd that is into the game, and they promised us they would be back for more games.

Our team name is HPK and our team colors are black and orange. I really like playing in our gym, its not to big but not to small. Here are a few pictures from the game last night. Here we are waiting for them to introduce us by name. The next picture is my friend translating everything for me during the opening ceremony of the new club team because this was our first home game with this new club.

the team getting together and cheering before we start the game, you can see the guys in the orange shirts right behind our bench, they were loud and i have no idea what they were saying!

here are a few during the game and of me hitting the ball.

more randomness

OK so I have to cook for myself everyday now which I am not used to because last season I was living in a hotel and they had my meals prepared for breakfeast, lunch and dinner, but this year is a little different. Like I have said before it is hard to go to the grocery store and find exactly what you need because I do not know what the labels are saying. I guess alot and have had a few hits and a few misses. Milk -hit. Mayonaise -miss. So I decided to have the "Tuna Test". ( I love tuna and eat it all the time at home. ) I bought tuna a few weeks ago and I just did not like it, so I decided to buy a few different kinds of tuna and test them out to see which one I liked and would buy from now on. Ill let you know the winner when I complete the test.

I also have added a few more months onto my scrapbooking calendar, October, November and December. My wall is slowly but surely becoming more decorative

As many of you know my all time favorite candy is Skittles. I love love Skittles. But unfortunately they do not have Skittles here in Finland, none that I have found anyway, and plus they never taste as good in other countries. But many of you may or may not know that I have a weird OCD when it comes to my Skittles. I have to, have to eat them in pairs and when I come to the end of the bag I have to have the same amount of each color and then I eat one of each color so they all still have the same amount. Weird, yes I know. But I was talking to my friend Trey on skype and he was making fun of my OCD with Skittles and then I had to show him what I have done with the Skittles that I have left from what I have brought from home. He got a good laugh about it!The sad thing is I would probably have done this if I was in California too! :)

night out with the girls

We had the weekend free one weekend so a few of us girls got together for dinner and for a night out. One of the girls on our team made some pizza for all of us and it was yummy! Then had some ice cream while watching Big Brother Finland. I never watched that show Big Brother at home but here i guess it is quite popular because they have a channel where you can watch it 24/7.

So after the show we headed out and were going to meet up with some friends at one place, then preceded to go to a few other places. The cool thing is that I know one other American that is playing here. She played with the USA national team the same time I was playing there and me and her were actually roomates in the dorms in Colorado at the Olympic Training Center. We lived together for 3 months before she ended up leaving. I havent seen her since we both were playing with the national team. She also played for the team I am playing for last year so she knows alot of the girls and some people in the city where i am. So she came to visit the girls and her friends here in Hammelinna so we all met up and had a great night together. It was nice to meet her friends here in the city because they were really nice and one of the guys works at the coffee place/restaraunt/bar that is right next door to my apartment and he invited me to stop by anytime. Its great to have more friends in Hammelinna!

Here are a few of the girls from my team! I love how everyones hair color is different! Too cute!

Here is my friend Tess, my friend from the states who I roomed with in Colorado. It was good to see her! We play her team this week, which is a really good team so it should be a good game! Hopefully we get the win tho! :)

1-0

Last Sunday we had our first home game of the season. I was excited to start playing and only a little bit nervous. The atmosphere in the gym was great, there were alot of fans there, more than I expected and also they were louder than I expected. They really got into the game. It was a good game with lots of good rallys, it went to 4 sets with the 4th set going to 33-31 points when usually first to 25 wins. We kept going back and forth, point for point for a long time. But in the end we won the battle!! It was an exciting game and definetly fun to play. At the end of the game we lined up at the end line and they announced the Player of the Game and I won it for my team! My prize is a trip to Stockholm on a cruise boat. I am very excited to use my awesome prize! After the game we had dinner altogether which included the womens ice hockey team and the pepole that run the club. They wanted us all to meet and start the season off with a celebration. It was a fun night. Finland is a fun place to play and they really make it an event to go the game. This weekend the womens ice hockey team was playing so since they supported us at our game a few of us went to go watch them play. This season we will have to go work at the games, doing tickets, the music, stats or opening and closing the penalty box. But we just went to watch this time. I am not a huge fan of hockey but I figured Im in Finland so I am obligated to go some games. Our team ended up losing 2-1 in the finally 4 minutes. I couldnt tell you if it was a good game or not because I do not know much about hockey. But it was good to go do something different. After going to the game I am still not a fan of hockey. I was waiting for them to do the flying "V" like in the Mighty Ducks, but it never happened, maybe I will have more luck with that when I go to a mens game! :)