Well this is my first entry and I must say it was an eventful trip just to get here. When I went to the Charlotte airport in the morning the first problem that I had was that the team paid for my tickets in Euros, which messed up the woman at the counter. After 20 minutes of her trying to get that straight the computer would not accept my seat #...it turned out she was entering invalid codes into the computer and she had to call a superior to tell her what she needed to do. After she got that fixed it was time to weigh in my bags. Being that I had to pack for 3 months my luggage was 5 lbs over weight in one suitcase. She said pay 80 dollars or redistribute the weight. So you can see Pat and I unpacking all my stuff and trying to cram it into the other luggage in front of everyone. It was great to have to do this and have everyone thinking we were idiots. This whole process took about 40 minutes.

 

After I finally got through with her it was time to go through the scanners. I had to first re-open my carry on to take out my lap top computer. When I did this I noticed that while redistributing the weight in my bags that Pat had put my razors and blades into my carry on. You can imagine how this went over with the people at the counter. When I showed those guys my ticket he handed me a red card and told me that the airline had chosen me to be further screened and questioned. I guess this is do to me traveling a lot in the past few years. Lets not forget that I am the international man of mystery.

 

Then to Baltimore and had a 10 hour lay over which was lovely. Though I did get bumped up to club because I sweet talked the lady at the desk in baltimore. I did watch my personal DVD player and watch Tv and keep track of where we were by the gps system, but I missed some of these options because I was kicked back in my recliner knocked out. It was already starting to mess with me as I was ready to go to bed and looked out my window only to see sunlight. They fed us the whole time and that may be the most food I've ever had on an airplane in my life. Upon arriving to London I only had a 2 hour wait this time before my plane left so it wasn't that bad. They did have signs posted everywhere about "If you have recently been here or here or here then you may have SARS". They were telling people to go to the doctor and stay at home if they visited China. I did spot a few hotties in London and got to quickly check my email for free. That place is like a shopping mall on the inside. There are definitely some different people in this world I will say. If I would have had some Euros then I would have eaten, but since I was still full from the flight and since the layover wasn't long....I didn't eat. 

 

On the flight to Hellsinki (Finland's capital) I slept the whole way and only drank some water. I guess this is due to the jet lag. When I arrived here I had to go through customs which wasn't that bad. Now when I was waiting on my bags to come through I heard someone saying something over the intercom and it was a lady trying to say "Will the passenger Patterson please come to the desk". I couldn't really pick up on it due to her accent. I went over there and she informed me that my bags were still in London. You can imagine how thrilled I was at this. That made 2 times that this had happened to me and the first time it was in Costa Rica where they stold a lot of the stuff out of my bags. So I was like 30 minutes late getting outside because I had to give the woman all my information and such. When I walked out there I was just looking for anyone to be coming toward me. Finally a skinny guy smoking a cigarrette walked over and said "Clint" and I knew I was ok at this point. We had like a 1:40 minute ride over to Turku, which is where I am now. I went straight to practice when we got here. The team practices in a dome with turf. The turf is outdated as well. They actually have some big guys. I will fill you in on them more later. After that coach took me to the grocery store and I bought some groceries because the "money man" as they call him was at practice and paid me half of my first payment. Then I went to my apartment which I will talk about later. I have to go to practice now because it is like 11:05 where you are, but 6:05 here and practice is at 7. I will keep posting entries if you care to read them.

 

Regards,

 

Clint