Momma bear comes to Sweden!!! =)

A lot has gone on in the past couple weeks since I have written.  I can't believe it's already mid May and everyone has graduated and is done with school.  I also can't believe I graduated over a year ago! Time really flies!  I am so thankful for where I am at right now, and looking back a year ago I had no idea what I was going to be doing and I was so scared.  So far,  everything is working out wonderfully and I am so blessed to have the life I am living right now.

Well, the most important thing that happened was that my mom came to visit me!!!!! =) It was such a great time and I loved having her here.  The Friday that her and Debbie arrived my coach let us take his car to go pick her up at a train station about 45 minutes away from where we live.  My roommate Katie drove us because I don't know how to drive a stick and that's basically what every car here is.  We had our first little Swedish road trip and it was success =)) Driving in Sweden is not the easiest thing.  The roads are very curvy and so narrow.  When we arrived in Arvika our teammate Nanny meet us because she lives there.  We waited at the train Station and my mom finally arrived.  We drove back to Sunne and spent some time at the open market they had going on in town and spent the rest of the night catching up. My mom had brought we so many goodies and all my summer clothes so I was very happy about that =)  Saturday I had practice then we hung out and went for lunch at the Spa.  It was very good and Katie and I had moose burgers =)
Sunday we had a game against a very tough team.  It was the most physical game we had played in so far and we ending up coming away with the win 2-1.  It felt great to get the win against such a tough team and prove to ourselves that we are a very tough team with great potential.  Playing at our home field was such a cool experience.  Our field is a very small complex that is located in the forrest basically.  All the fans of our team are so dedicated and love Mallbacken very much.  We get about 300-400 fans and they basically surround the entire field and create a great playing atmosphere.

Tuesday we decided to take a day trip to a place called Ekenas which is on the southern most tip of a peninsula in our county.  Debbie had found it in a book about Sweden and it was suppose to have boat rides to look at islands in the area.  After a two hour drive we got there and it was not open.  Here is Sweden basically nothing is open until Summer and that is usually June, July, and August.  It is kind of a running joke that everything we say the Swedes always say " O wait until Summer, It is so beautiful in the summer."  Needless to say we are dying for summer to come!!!  After that was closed we grabbed some lunch and went to Karlstad to shop and hang for the rest of the day.  Wednesday and Thursday were pretty chill days.  Mom and Debbie left for Stockholm on Thursday and I met them there on Friday.  Friday, it was a beautiful Sunny day in Stockholm.  We did some shopping and then went on a tour of the archipelagos.  This was an amazing tour and so much fun.  We saw some beautiful scenery and amazing "Swedish summer houses" on these islands.  It was an amazing day and we had a great time.  On the train ride home we got about 30 minutes out of Stockholm and our train broke down.  We had to wait about two and a half hours for another train and ended up missing our connecting train to get back to Sunne.  They very nice about it and ordered all of us Taxis to our final destination. After a long day of travel we finally got home at 2am.  One thing we learned during my mom's time here is that Sweden is in a fact a pretty big country, but about 80% of it is forestry. Beside Stockholm and a few other big cities in Sweden the best part of it is its beautiful Scenery and there is not so much to do.  Especially in the small little "village" we live in =)

Saturday we had another game against the number one team in our division.  This was the best game I have seen our team play the entire game.  We played 0-0 through the first half and it was a very had fought battle.  We had about 4 or 5 solid chances in this half, but failed to put them away.  In the second half about 65 minutes in the refs gave the other team a PK and could not tell us why or who they were calling the PK on.  Our goalie, Katie had caught the ball on a free kick and the ref blew the whistle.  We had no idea what was going on and we thought they were calling the foul for us.  The sideline ref said it was a PK, but he had no idea who he was called it on or why.  This was very disappointing, but we kept fighting and didn't give up.  We ended up losing 1-0 on the PK and it was very frustrating and sad for us.  We had some more very solid chances in the second half, but could not put them away.  Luck was definitely not on our side.  I had a weak header the looked like it was going in the goal and bounced right before it was going in.  Since our field is not in the best shape and still very bumpy since Winter lasted so long when it bounced it hit a bump and it directly the other way.  It was a very disappointing loss and we were all so angry.  We deserved to win and were definitely the better team.  This game definitely proved that we are one of the top teams and can beat anyone in our league, but we also have to start finishing our chances.  Teams have been getting only about 1 or 2 chances on us, but they always finish one.  We have been getting about 6 or 7 solid chances and not finished any.  Right now this is our biggest weakness, but we have been working this week to improve on that.  I am very excited for the rest of the season and I know we are going to surprise a lot of people with how well we do.  Sometimes I think our team is unsure of our potential since this is our first year in this league, but Katie and I have always believed we would finish top two and this goal is definitely achievable.  The season is still so young.

After the game we had to literally run off the field and straight to the car to get my mom and Debbie to the train station to catch a train to Oslo for their flight the next day.  There were no trains early enough on Sunday morning so they had to go after the game.  It was very sad to see my mom leave and I felt like her trip was so short.  After we took them we stayed in Arvika and went out that night with our teammates Emma and Nanni.  This was a great time and Nanni and Emma are so much fun =)  Sunday we just hung out and ate lunch at a really nice place on the water.  After that we rented "The Change up" and watched that.  It was a very cute movie.

The past couple weeks have been a lot of fun!! Hopefully Summer is on it's way to Sweden because it has apparently been unusually cold.  Katie and I still believe that warm weather doesn't exist in Sweden and we are waiting for "summer." haha =)  So excited for all of my visitors in the next couple months.  My sister, cousin, and I are still trying to plan our trip when I have time of in July.  Right now our best option is a cruise in Greece and I am very excited to get it all planned!!!!!
 Shout out to my boyfriend who is Graduating college this weekend and is reaching the end of his college baseball career!! So proud of you Frank! Good luck to Tulane baseball in the conference tournament and at making a regional!

Another day in the life =)

Hej Hej!!! =)) Well, Another month has gone by here in Sweden and I have already been here for two months!! I can hardly believe how fast time is going by and I feel like this month and the summer are going to go even faster.  Starting this month I have people coming to visit me every month until September.  The first of these people being my mom and Debbie this Friday =)  I have enjoyed my time here so much and it seems to be getting better everyday.  I am starting to get closer with my team and feel more comfortable on the field and off the field with them.

This past week was my normal routine of work and practice everyday! This week was extra exciting however because I started my Swedish classes.  We have class every Wednesday and Friday and there is also another student from Uganda in there with us.  It is a very low level class and our teammates and coach like to laugh at us about it because it seems so simple to them.  I am very excited for this class and to start learning more and more Swedish.  Swedish is a very difficult language and the hardest part about it is the pronunciation.  This week in class we started with some basic things like learning to count and learning the sounds of their alphabet.  They have four extra letters (I believe it is four) that we don't have in our alphabet and those sounds can be very tricky.  Hopefully by the time I leave here I will at least be able to say a couple sentences ;)

Friday we left for our first away trip to the South of Sweden =)  This was about a six hour drive for us and we arrived at the hotel late Friday night.  When we got there it was straight to bed to get a good night sleep for our game the next day.  Saturday, we woke up, had breakfast, hung out for a little, and then went to the mall and walked around a little bit.  Then, we came back and had some lunch and then we were off to our game.  The stadium we played at was pretty nice and the field was in pretty good shape.  This week we were without one of our top forwards due to an injury from last weeks game.  She is a very very fast and strong player that helps us out tremendously up top.  Another injury that hurt us is one of our defenders is out for three months due to torn ligaments.  She is a very good player and has played with this team for about 10 years.  In the first half we battled to a 0-0 tie going into half time.  We had some solid opportunities, but couldn't put anything away.  In the second half they got on the board and made it 1-0 off a corner quick.  This was really their only solid opportunity where they were even close to our goal and got past our defense.  We had some more great chances in the second half giving us about 6 or 7 solid chances overall, but we couldn't capitalize.  It was a very tough game to lose and these are the worst kind of games when you definitely don't deserve to lose.  We were by far the better time, but we failed to come away with the result.  This was disappointing because this was suppose to be one of the top teams in our league and to come away with some points on the road would have been a great thing.  It was a tough loss, but we have to move on and learn from it =)  This week we will have a great week of practice and play the second round of the Swedish cup on Wednesday and another league game on Sunday.  We have two of the top teams coming up in the next two weeks so it should be a great challenge for us.  We play both games at home and I am very excited to finally get to play on our home field.  We are suppose to get the biggest crowd out of all the teams in our league for our games and I am very excited about that.

Sunday was such a fun day!!! Two of my teammates (Nanny and Emma) came and picked Katie and I up and we went to Karlstad for the day.  Karlstad is the closest big city to us and it is about 45 minutes south.  First, we started off by doing some shopping in the mall there, got some food, and just walked around the city.  After shopping we went to watch our rivals, QBIK play.  A lot of girls from our team were at the game so it was fun to see all of them.  After the game we went to get some Sushi and I was so excited for it.  The place we went to took forever to get us our food, but it was worth the wait to finally get some good Sushi =)  I don't think it was as good as a lot of places I have been in the U.S., but it was still nice to have some because I love sushi so much.  After we got sushi we went to the movies to see the Hunger Games.  Katie had been dying to see it and was so excited because she has read all of the books.  I thought it was an amazing movie and I loved it.  I want to read the books now and I can't wait for the other movies to come out.  Sunday was a great day and we had so much fun with our teammates.  I am looking forward to this summer when we get to spend more time with them outside of soccer and have days like this.  

My mom and Debbie Smith will be getting in on Friday and I am beyond exciteddddd to see them!!!  They will be here for about a week and a half and get to see three games in that time period.  I am excited to show them around and let them see my daily routine and how different life can be here in another Country.  I hope that the weather stays nice for them because it is starting to get warm.  Today is a big Swedish Holiday known as "the 1st of May"  This is suppose to signify the end of winter and warm weather coming our way.  =))