In 2003, I graduated on May 12 and landed in Finland on May 26.  I did not know what to expect other than to see a new place and to play football again.  I ended up learning a lot, meeting new people and making friends, having a great season with a great team, and had an overall awesome experience. 

 

While I was there I wrote journal entries on my web site.  Essentially I was blogging before there was blogging (or at least before I knew about it).  I hand coded some basic HTML pages so that I could post pictures and text for all back home to see.  This was before I had FrontPage, much less DreamWeaver.  Anyway, I did what I could with the little web knowledge that I had. 

 

When people around the city and league caught wind of my online journaling, they took interest in it and posted my web site's link in the league's forum and I even got asked about it during a TV interview before a playoff game.  I also, had a school teacher email me wanting to use my journals as a resource for her kids when they studied "culture shock".  So it turned out to be a pretty fun time all around and I got about 9,000 hits during the season.

 

Since then I have revamped my web page, but I have moved the content to my new server in hopes of retaining the memories.  The journals and images are here if you would like to know more.

 

Jyvva Suomi!  Kiittos :)