Believe

Last Friday I got the official word that I was headed to Sweden.  My new adventure is in Gavle. I'm playing for IFK Gavle. Its about two hours north of Stockholm. I packed up my things and I was on a plane Sunday night.  The flight was great. I only had one very short layover in Frankfurt and I arrived in Stockholm Sunday morning.  Two girls on my team  met me at the train station and brought me to my new temporary home.  I am living with a family.  The family lives down stairs and I am living upstairs with two other students. The students are really nice!  We each have our own room but share a kitchen and a bathroom.  I rarely see the family, it is basically like our own apartment upstairs. I will be living here for a few weeks until my apartment is ready.

Monday night I went to my first practice.  It was a fitness practice; we went through a circuit.  It was pretty good and it felt great to run around after traveling for so long.  The girls on my team are great! There is another American on the team as well. She is from San Fransisco and her name is Jamie. Everyone is so nice.  I have to say I have never met a mean Swede; I don't think they exist.  Besides playing in Sweden, I will be coaching the U15 girls in the youth club and I will be the "football" trainer in three of the schools.

 Tuesday I went to introduce myself and observe the girls I will be coaching.  The other coach of the team came up to me in the middle of the practice handed me a ball and said he read my blog.  He saw my video and wanted me to juggle in front of the girls.  I thought it was funny.  I took the ball and performed. Here is my old video from Finland.

 The girls all seem really into the game and from what I see they have a lot of potential.  I have my first session with them next Tuesday.  I'm excited to coach them! I had practice right after the girls practice.  We started out with a fitness test.  We had to run 30 meters and back.  Down and back was one and we had to see how many we could get in seven minutes.  I take great pride in my fitness and I thought everyone on the team did really well. 

Wednesday we had practice at the Stadium; Strömvallen.  It is beautiful.  We started out with one vs. ones (my favorite) and did a lot of playing afterwards.  It was pretty cold but we were moving around so much I did not even notice it.  It started snowing on us towards the end of practice. The practice was great! I had so much fun!!



Thursday we had a day off so I took a trip to Uppsala to visit my lovely friend Helena! She is studying there.  We met for lunch, walked around and then had a "fika" before she had to go to class. A fika is a midday coffee break from work. (I love the Swedish lifestyle)  It was so nice to see her! All of my Swedish friends from Florida Southern are some of the greatest people I have ever met; they are my best friends and like family to me.  I am so happy that I am living so close to all of them again!!

After the amazing visit I went to a Hockey game with a few of the girls.  Brynas IF is the team in Gavle, they were playing forlunda.  It was an incredible game.  Brynas scored in overtime making it 4-3.  I had so much fun. The Swedish cheers were awesome and the whole environment was incredible. It was truly an amazing day.

We have practice again tonight and an early scrimmage tomorrow in Tierp.  I think the team is looking good and I can not wait to play in a game. This morning I went to the stadium and juggled and kicked around a little bit.  The weather was beautiful and I was juggling in this beautiful stadium.  I stopped for a moment and just looked around.  I absorbed it all in and I am just so grateful to be playing. I'm living a fantastic dream. I have seen this before; At that moment knew I was in the right place and I could not be happier.

I feel like I have so much to write and I have a lot of more stories and updates coming very soon.