As I stated last week, my cousin David had flown in to visit and so this week we toured around the city and tried to show him a little bit of Scandinavia.  We had a good time, though it rained the majority of the week, which limited our sightseeing since we were mainly traveling by foot.  Having David here on his first time in Europe it made me realize some differences that I saw in Finland and Sweden as well, but since my eyes have become use to them I failed to mention them on here.  I will try to recap a little.  I have failed to mention are the fact that there are rocks everywhere here and they are some big ones at that.  The fact that everything is in the metric system can get confusing sometimes.  The fact that I never really know how much money I have or am spending unless I specifically count it and convert it in my head.  I think I did mention the stop lights going from red to orange then to green.  The general structure of bathrooms is different.  There aren't many bathtubs and usually you have a floor with a drain in it and a squeegee to push the water toward the drain when you're done.  The structure of the buildings here is different than at home.  This is probably due to the age of them.  The buildings are very artsy in the fact that they are pleasing to look at. They have like designs, or peoples faces or scenes carved in the concrete or stone and statues are frequently found around the streets.  They use spiral staircases over here a lot.  The keys that you use to get in your house are cut in a different manner than the ones we use at home.  A mall here is not the same as a mall at home.  They are just set up differently on the inside and the building structure is also different.  Its like not as open aired and spacious or whatever.  So those are some things that I have failed to mention, but that hearing David talk about them opened my eyes to the fact that I did not write about them.  Not to mention the price of gas over here.  We also took some pictures with his camera, but we couldn't get them to my computer because he uses some off the wall brand chip that isn't compatible with my laptop...lol.  Like it could be my computer's fault or something...lol. He is going to email them to me so I'll have them up sometime soon.

We pretty much had the same routine and schedule as any other week just with a little less time on the net.  He even went and watched practice this week.  We did bust up in the KPMG headquarters over here in Stockholm and get him a tour of the complex so he can have some international contacts you know.  Got to get that networking down.    We went and saw the changing of the guards and while we were there the Royal family was exiting the building so we saw all of them.  We saw the princess who is all over the magazines over here.  She wasn't all that, but I did get eye contact so you know....lol. Also this week one of the guys on the team had us over to eat at his place which was nice of him.  We ate some steaks, fries, and some béarnaise sauce.  This is a sauce that I've never seen at home, but I have never really looked for it either.  It's really buttery and I can't eat too much of it, but Rauge (self proclaimed " Diesel " ) said he could live off of that stuff.  I think David was also VIP 3 times in 3 different places over here so that's not bad for an App State graduate you know.  I guess there is hope after all.  We did see a Michael Jackson impersonator who was dancing for money and he danced all day long.  David also sat in a real sauna and officially threw some "loylu".  One funny comment that David made was that he said " Watching those girls dance made my hip hurt "....hahaha.  I thought that was hilarious, but then again it helps to have seen what girls he was talking about.

The Game

So for the game ........the Tyreso Royal Crowns are no longer winless.   We got our first W yesterday against a team named Solna in a very crazy game.  First of all let me talk about the field that we played on.  David has pictures of it and I will definitely post them because my words will in no way do it justice.  This field may be worse than the turf in Sejaiolki (or however you spell it ) Finland, but its a close call.  I'm not sure which is better to fall on; the turf with small rocks all in it or the turf with sand all in it to cut your skin up.  Its a close call and right now I'm torn between the two.  You could lift this turf up and look under it every ten yards.  It was so outdated that I couldn't believe that they still let people play on it.  There was like half a centimeter of padding on that thing.  Before the game they were lifting up the mat (in 10 yard increments) and sweeping the rocks back under the turf.  When it rains it brings all that stuff to the surface and the small rocks come out.  I had seen this stadium before so I was prepared and I had about 8 wrist bands on going up one side and down the other on both of my arms.  It was like I was sponsored by Nike or something.  I got out of there without too much turf burn, but with an odd ankle bump.  Some D-lineman fell on my ankle and when he tackled me and right now its just sitting here throbbing.  Never fear...time is the best healer and I got some ice and athletic tape.

As for the game itself...it was an offensive shootout.  Neither team's defense could stop the other team's offense.  The final score was 67 - 62 (Yes, really) and I threw 9 td passes and ran a 2 point conversion.  There are rumors of 9 Td passes in one game being a Swedish record, but I'm not sure about that.  It was a very boring game to watch probably as there were not too many pads popping.   However there were some pads popping on one play as the other team had the ball with like a minute or two to go and they tried to run a play action pass and our defense finally stepped up and hit the Qb, he fumbled, and our guy picked it up and ran it in the zone from about 55 yards out.  This put us up and they got the ball back and tried to throw a pass, but it got picked.  We then ran the clock out.  Due to the odd nature of that game, the play where he got hit, fumbled, and we scored has been coined by the guys over here as " The miracle at Bergshamra ".  Bergshamra is the name of the field.  The great turf field that is.   After the game they gave the MVP of the game to one of our receivers, but he just turned around and gave it to me so that was pretty nice of him to do that.  I guess there was some hating going on somewhere around there, but who knows.  Everyone got paid in Stockholm this week and so we all went out and the streets were packed and so David again missed his flight, but this time purposely, and is again flying standby.  In other news: Turku Trojans defeated the Pori Bears 24 - 7 in a head to head battle in the maple league of Finland.  And another page turns...

Regards,

Clint

Well week 3 went by pretty quick, though we did have some things happening around here. We did go lift weights and sit in the suana on Monday through Wednesday which was nice again. I couldn't bend my leg due to the charlie horse so the first few days were pretty tough and I really couldn't do squats, but most of the time I was stretching and doing leg exercises trying to pump some new blood into leg. I did get 2 massages on it and we did go to the  The Caribia Spa Hotel and that helped out a little too. By the end of the week I could run and all, but my leg was still tight and sore, but mainly just at the top.

Marlon and I also located the mall in town. It's inside of some buildings just right here in town. The malls here have a different construction type than the malls at home. The ones at home are more roomy and there is more free space. This one has like stores on top of stores. Marlon and I walked through there for a little while one day when we didn't have practice just to see what it was like. It was pretty neat and yes the girls do shop there. As we were walking through the mall one gentelman stopped us and told us that he was on the board of directors for the Trojans and that he wanted to let us know that we played a good game. It was pretty nice of him I thought. Every day Marlon and I go eat at the restaurant Blanko just in case you want to see some pics of it.

Well on Monday the head coach of our team told us that our offensive coordinator would no longer be calling the plays and so that was kind of a twist for the week. We are still using the same terminology, but just signaling the plays different and trying to mix the formations a lot.

This week we played the Vaasa Vikings. This was an away game and it was like 4 1/2 ride to get there. The team we played had a pretty good middle linebacker (his brother is playing at Nebraska now). I got to know him well throughout the day as he flushed me from the pocket very frequently. We beat them like 56-0 as their offense was also lacking. I played the whole game until the 4th quarter when I scrambled right and was running and had a collision with this linebacker and he rung my bell a little bit. I did stay in and finish the drive though and yes we did score. I came out after that as I was a little foggy in some areas. I haven't seen the final stats, but I think I threw 3 td passes. I actually threw 4, but our tight end was having some problems as he fumbled one into the end zone from the one yard line with no one around and I also had a pass dropped in the endzone as well. I didn't feel like I played that well though because I couldn't sit back in the pocket and pick them apart because I was having to roll out of the pocket so much. I did run over a corner back though. That was about all that there was for the game.

On the way home we saw a moose in the road. They have signs everywhere on the roads here saying watch out for a moose crossing the road. I was wondering if we would ever see one of these huge animals and so we finally did see one and man they are big. I wouldn't want to hit one of those in a car at all...because they may would flatten the whole car. So I have been telling you about how the guys drink on the way home and so I got some pics of it so that you can be visually informed. Check these pics out

Regards,

Clint