Well there was not too much going on this week as it was rainy and dreary outside and since we had no game.  As I stated before this was our originally scheduled off week.  Since it was raining outside a few days this week, I stayed in and messed around.  The weather over here is very fickle.  For those of you with a weak vocabulary, fickle means that it changes easily.  It will be hot one day, then cold the next and rain can come and go at the drop of a hat.  During the week I was on the net until my eyes crossed and then I watched some TV as well.  This is when I noticed that the censorship here is not as tight as it is in the states.  That is audio and visual censorship.  It was similar in Finland as well.  We still had practice this week and I lifted weights a time or two, but I was still sore from the game.

I squeezed in my first tennis match early in the week.  I have never played tennis before and if I could keep it between the lines its pretty hard to return, but the keeping it between the lines part gives me some problems.  I went and played with some friends and Ilija and his brother.   When Ilija and his brother played it was like watching 2 professionals.  They made me stand in there for a few hits and the balls were coming so fast I couldn't hardly see them, much less return them.    Tennis is a big sport over here, but soccer seems to be #1 with hockey coming in at #2.  Who knows where American football falls in that sequence.  I also saw a rugby match this week as well.

This week they had a holiday on Thursday, I believe, so everyone was out in the street during the day and out on the town at night.  During the day they have people just singing in the middle of town square to everyone.  Its like a free concert if you like that kind of music.  They seem to draw somewhat decent crowds.   I went to the big mall here called the NK one day with some friends and also went in several other stores downtown.   Lets just say that I will never be buying anything inside of the NK building.  One of my friends here bought a T-shirt that that would equal a price of 40 dollars...just to give you an idea.  Though there were some attractive females on the inside.  On a side note...I don't think that I have my hours adjusted totally as I continue to stay up late and sleep in.  This way I can talk to my friends on line from the states as well as manage my schedule here.  The nights are starting to be lighter longer which makes it hard to adjust to.

On Friday night some of the guys went out downtown.  We went to 2 different clubs/restaurants or whatever you want to call it.  There was a woman in there taking pictures.  I asked her what she was taking them for and so she informed me that there is a nightlife website for Stockholm and so I jumped in behind two girls while they were having their picture taken.  I was laughing, but click here to see it.  Then I was able to get Ilija away from all of the women long enough to get a picture with him.  Check it out here.  Yeah so maybe I should have shaved, but there wasn't anything worth me shaving for in there anyways...hahahaa.

So on Saturday since we didn't have a game we went to  watch 2 teams in our league play.  I also met another guy from my last years team in Finland at the game.  We had planned to meet there and so it was good to see none other than Mr. Kasper Johanson and his woman at the game.  He rode the boat over to hang out with his brother who lives in Stockholm so he just swung right over to the game and watched it with us.  We watched the Stockholm Mean Machines vs Carlstad.  Upon entering the game we got a free magazine that had half clothed women in it.  Another thing you wouldn't see at home.  Carlstad is the team that wore us out in the first week and Stockholm beat them 26 - 21.  Stockholm capitalized on some big plays during the game and were able to hold on for the victory.  There was some pad popping going on in that game too.  During the game one player injured his inner thigh.  So what did they do...he just laid down on the sideline, pulled his football pants down and the female trainer was their massaging his inner thigh.  I mean he still had other clothing on, but it was just something that you would not have seen at home.  At half time they had a punt, pass, kick contest, but I didn't enter though I would have won by a long shot.  I was tempted though.

On another side note Arlanda beat the team from Moscow in the Eurobowl series.  I'm trying to paint a picture here for you so you can see how the deck is stacked.  The team I played for last year ( Turku Trojans ) beat Arlanda 10 - 0 two weeks ago.  The following week we played Arlanda and lost  22 - 21.  Turku lost to Moscow 42 - 0 on that same day and then Arlanda beats Moscow this weekend 17 - 7.  So it seems that on any given day any team can be beat.  Hopefully we'll get our act together and be able to compete.

Today is Sunday and my cousin David Patterson flew into Sweden.  He just recently graduated and this was his first time in Europe and I was present when he sat foot in Scandinavia.  On the way there and on the way back we saw some moose.  We saw a total of 3.  One of the guys, " Diesel " as known by females all over Stockholm, was with us and he said that its not that frequent that you see something like that.  He said that he's seen maybe 3 or 4 in his whole life.  So as you can see whenever you have more than one Patterson at the same place anything magical can happen.  Who knows what will happen downtown this week.  We had some girls at McDonald's giggling already.  I think they notice that you're not from Europe when they see you with baggy pants on.  That's pretty much the tip because baggy is not the style here.  We will try to get some good pictures while David is here and post them on the site next week.

Now we are preparing to play against the Solna Chiefs.  We need to have a good week of practice because its time that we get a W.  Hope all is well for all of you.

Regards,

Clint

This week we were supposed to have a game, but the team we were scheduled to play is competing in the Euro Bowl so that game took precedence over a regular league game thus giving us an open week.  Each year whichever team wins the league championship in their country gets a bid to the Euro Bowl in the upcoming year.  Well last year at Turku we won so this year they are playing in the Euro Bowl series.  The leagues in different countries across Europe intertwine the regular season games with the Euro Bowl games so it can get confusing.  Anyways...Turku played against the Arlanda Jets from Sweden and beat them 10 - 0 this past Saturday and now will be heading to Moscow, Russia to play in the next round.  So congratulations again to my guys in Finland.  Many of them called me after the game and it was good to speak with the guys again.  I hope they can pull it off in Russia as well.  Now our upcoming  game for this week is against who...none other than the Arlanda Jets.  Yes, it seems like a coincidence to me too, but who knows.

Since we didn't have a game I did a little sight seeing.  Some of the guys here took me around to different places in Stockholm to see some sights.  We went to the castle as you will see in the pics.  It was a pretty big place that sat right by a lake and seemed to be on the outskirts of town I guess.  They have guards that walk around in blue to " protect " the castle.  They walk with a unique step I might add.  The king has a nice sized yacht sitting out back beside the castle as well.  I did not go in for the tour because I'm too cheap to pay money for that.  The pictures will explain the castle better than my words so I will just let you view them here.

So as you can see the King is fit to throw a good party if he wants to.  Somebody said something about a single princess around their somewhere, but that doesn't necessarily mean she's good enough to be Mrs. Patterson you know. So after we did MTV cribs at the king's house we went into town and checked out where he works.  There were guards there too and we just happened to catch them when they were changing.  If you care to view a small segment of that then click here .  There is more to it than what that video shows, but I don't have enough space on my server to put it all up there.  So that was pretty neat.

After this we went to the highest point in Stockholm, which has a good view of the city.  I put a span view of the scene there online too, so click this if you want to see it.  I can't make the resolution to high on these for storage sake as well.  If you look at it you will see a theme park on the right hand side of it right when the clip starts.  They have a drop zone that is higher than the one at Carowinds.  Needless to say I will not be participating on that ride when we go there.  From this view I got some pics as well.  Check them out.

We saw some more things as well in the city, but none that I thought I should put on here (picture wise that is )...for example we went by the embassy.  This was all early in the week.  I still did the general weight lifting and practice stuff too so don't think I'm trying to slack.  I did receive a very nice package in the mail this week too so thanks Karen for throwing the hook up and I do mean the hook up.  We also had some fun @ McDonald's this week.  Check out the European version of the double nodd .  However the double nodd was unsuccessful in achieving anything.  Speaking of McDonald's ... I went into a McDonald's and was looking around when I noticed that they serve beer.  I was informed that its only " light beer " so its ok. hmm.  I was thinking of suing because they didn't offer low carb beer with the meals, which aids in making consumers fat due to lack of beverage options, but I'm not sure if I'll pursue it or not yet. lol.   Since we didn't have a game some of the guys went on Saturday and scouted some of the other teams in the league that were playing.  It was a pretty good experience, but I saw some turf that I am not looking forward to playing on.  Then on Sunday I went down with the juniors and watched them play a game in Nyköping Sweden.  It wasn't a bad ride.  We had a pimp bus driver that Rauge interviewed.  Seems he was a guru of facts on Thailand so therefore he gets his picture on the page and also because he also gave us a ride to McDonald's after he dropped the team off. 

I know I have said McDonald's like 70 times now, but you don't realize how many McDonald's there are over here.  They have a monopoly.  You can find a Burger every now and then. 

Also I saw some of the weirdest referees ever...check out the pics

Regards,

Clint

Well this week was our off week for the season. This didn't bother me that bad because obviously it was like a week off. We only had practice one day so that was ok. We did the normal lift weights and sit in the sauna Mon-Wed. Wednesday night we went to a club and saw Miss Finland from last year and yes she was fine standing about eye level to me. However, I wasn't going to let her think that she was good enough for me to talk to or something. She was being harassed enough as it was, but then again..she was fine. I almost witnessed my first Finnish street fight as well. Some drunks where harassing a man at his hamburger stand and he did shove the guy and they were about to get into it, but then the cops came and arrested the drunk man before any dukes were officially thrown.

Marlon grilling it up

On Thursday afternoon we left for a town called Pori, which is where my head coach lives. In Finland they have a festival in the summer that is basically called "midnight summer" or something to that effect. Its the day with the longest amount of sunlight and marks the middle of the summer. They say it is tradition to go to people's summer cottages/cabins and celebrate. So on Thursday evening we went to the golf course where they were having a tournament that my coach played in. I don't think he won, but he did beat JP so its all good. After that on Friday we went to the cabin. We had to ride about 20 minutes or so and we were deep in the woods sitting right on the baltic ocean. Now this ocean is not like the ocean that we have at home. I didn't see a beach, but this may have been due to my location. I do know that our water never gets that cold though, specially in the summer. I think they must feed their mosquitos protein powder or something because they are big and they are plentiful. It was a job to keep them off of you, but we did have some OFF with us and a grill going and some candles and things so the combination of smoke and off helped keep them down. And yes, the cabine did have a suana in it. This one was a wood suana though which is a little bit different than an electric suana. They say it is tradition to sit in the suana and then go run and jump in the ocean. Now before I came here one of my friends,(PGA Champion) Paul Tucker gave me some advice. He said "no matter what they tell you, don't jump in the Baltic Ocean". Well sorry Paul, I had to go against his advice and jump into the ocean with the rest of the guys. We sat in the suana for so long that when we came out we were steaming like we were on fire, then we jumped in the ocean and it still took my breathe. I could only stand to be in there for like 25 seconds then I had to get out and go directly back into the suana. What had seemed to be so hot, now seemed nothing. They also brought some leaves in off of this certain type of tree and put them on the rocks of the suana. These leaves gave off a fragrance that opened up your sinuses and smelled like aroma therapy or something. It was pretty neat.

	Me eating some of Marlon's cooking

I did go fishing on the Baltic ocean though I didn't catch any fish. This could have been due to several factors. My fishing guide was slack and claimed to know where the fish were. Instead of finding fish, I found water all over my back from the wakes of the waves. I didn't have my own rod and reel, which we all know is crucial and I couldn't feel my fingers for the second half of the trip in the boat. Not to mention that this wasn't one of my frequent fishing holes.

We did get to eat some different things while we were there too. We ate perch, salmon, and heron or something like that and some of these were raw. I had trouble getting some of these raw fish down, but I did try them. You can see the pics for better explanation. We grilled out and ate hot dogs, sausages and everything. The people were all nice and we were always outside doing something or listening to music. There must have been about 15 people in all. Mainly everyone was chilling and relaxing. We did play spades and representing the USA, Marlon and I did win 20 euros off of some Finnish patrons. We were also taught about our government and all of the political issues at hand. After a long day on the ocean here's what JP had to say about one topic Click . I never knew that we, the USA, are wrong in everything that we do, but I was informed of it all day long. Nah, just joking we had a good time though we were outnumbered.

You don't understand how cold this water is

Trying to get to sleep was another battle in itself. Marlon and I both slept with cans of off in our hands, but still suffered bites from these cornfed mosquitos. I tried to cover my body with the blanket , but this just made me hot...so you could see the dilemma. After overcoming the magnified snoring and afer the singing of 2 strangely dressed Finns we were able to sleep for a few hours. We stayed at the cabin for 2 nights.

Side notes:

• The bark doesn't go all the way up the tree on the pine trees here
• I can now order a hamburger and fries in finnish along with a few other key sayings
• Darude, the techno musician, is from Turku
• From now on the time that the sun will be out for will be decreasing everyday, though it will still be light outside

Marlon in the freezing water	The Cabin we stayed in
JP & Eric - We were freezing	A Rainbow off the Baltic
Pics of the fish we ate	Pics of the fish we ate

Regards,

Clint