Arriving in Valkeakoski

February 2:

Hey guys and gals!  It’s been a long day and a half but I am now in Valkeakoski!  I arrived at the club office then went to a house that is owned by the club where I will be living.  The club is called Haka, but I'll talk about them more another time.  The house is actually quite big, which is a bit surprising because I figured everything in Europe would be smaller.  That doesn’t apply to the more rural areas of the continent I guess.  The coach, Sami Ristila, seems happy to have me here, which is nice.  There’s no point in going halfway around the world to play if you have a coach that’s not interested in what you can offer.  Here's a picture of the room I'll be staying in:

After meeting with Sami, I got a ball and walked a quarter mile down the street to the indoor hall where the team trains during the winter to do some individual work.  I haven’t run in three days and I’m supposed to train tomorrow and play in 4 days so I needed to do something instead of fall asleep at 3pm.  The thing though, is that it’s -20 degrees farenheight.  That's not just regular cold.  That is the kind of cold that would literally make you die.  In my hometown of Indianapolis it gets cold.  It’s not unusual to be 10 degrees or less.  But -20 is ridiculous.  It makes you not even want to do basic things.  I didn’t eat dinner tonight because I had no food at the house and it was just too cold for me to walk the half mile to the city center to get groceries.  I’ve brought big enough coats though, so tomorrow I will venture into the cold and get food!  Or, if there’s never any more blog posts, you’ll know I’ve died from going outside for too long.