The Helsinki Stinka

Hello,

Landed yesterday morning in Helsinki. Sat next to a Latvian guy for 8.5 hrs. and he had horrible breath. I was picked up from the airport by the defensive backs coach, who is this 22 year-old guy named Jesse, (pronounced Yesi) whose dad help found the Roosters back in the 70s. The airport is a good 20 mins north of Helsinki City and he took me by the Velodromi, our home field, as we came into the city. It was a cycling stadium for the 1952 Olympics and as high-grade curves all around it. My apartment is not going to be ready until Monday so they put me uo in Sokos Hotel Pasila until then. We then met up with one of the Americans on the team, a WR named Sonte Wong, D-III player for Washington State at his apartment in the same Pasila neighborhood as my hotel, a little north of the city centre. Pasila is mostly a business district. We then went downtown to met the head coach and offensive line cch for luoanch. After searching for a parking spot and getting a bit of tour of downtown Helsinki, we meet the coaches at a Mexican restaurant, (classic, I know. My first meal in Finland is burrito con carne.) After being joined for lunch by two guys in the mid to early thirties, Talle the head coach tells me he is also the starting middle linebacker for the team. Apparently this is common in European sports, for the coach to also play. The offensive line coach pretty much tells me that I mostly likely know a lot more about football then he does, and asks me to feel free to help coach the other players. They tell me that the team is made up of a few veterans and many students 18-22 yrs. old who haven't been playing for many yrs, and that the other players look up to the American who've played the game for years.

After lunch Jesse walks Sonte (who arrived just last week) and myself around the neighborhood we ate in. The are many pedasterian only thoroughfares, that Jesse says are full of clubs, pubs, and cafes that swell in the summer months with Finns and tourists getting wasted. Jesse needs to return his car to his parents who live east of the city centre so he drops Sonte and myself off at a massive mall complex named Itakeskus (eh-tok-ess-kus) and returns the car. I buy a map and commom Finnish phrase book. I am about to pass out on my feet so we take the Metro (subway) back downtown, and then catch a tram to get back near Pasila. Public transportation seems huge here with trams( they are everywhere and run down the middle of the street on tracks with guidewires similiar to San Francisco), Metros, the buses, and the trains.

I pass out for about 2 hrs. until practice which is a 10 min walk from the hotel. Practice was a little weird, there was a brief stretching drills, and it was a this point a realized that all instructions and conversation from that point on was going to be in Finnish. The plays are in English but that is about it. The coaches didn't really want me to participate I guess because of the lack of sleep and not wanting me to get hurt. (There is seriously only 5 OL on the entire team) I just wore a helmet in most drills but wasn't really expected to do much besides what I felt comfortable doing. I took a few full speed sets against our best DE who really isn't bad. Turf toe might become a problem playing on the thin putt-putt surface. I am starting Sunday at LT against the Seinäjoen Crocodiles, who playing in the Euro League as well as the Finnish League, and is supposed to be the best team in the league.

After practice I was given an unexpected 100 Euro signing bonus by the team president Kaj, a Nokia cell phone, food coupons (pretty much every restaurant takes them, they are the equivalent to 8,70 Euro) and league pass for entrance to all league games for free.

On the way home, (which was at about 9.30 and it looked like it was 6.30) Robert Johnson, the QB from Texas Tech, Sonte, and myself stopped and eat dinner at a bar near my hotel and their apartment. I got the chicken basket, on faith alone because I had to be told it was a chicken basket, and not being able to read the description. 20 minutes I got Mickey D's style chicken nuggets on a bed of fries. On top was a sliced small tomatoes, and a lot of small gherkins style pickles. Exhausted and starving I wolfed it down. The sun was just past the horizon when we left at 11.30 or 23.30. I figured out the internet quickly called my folks over, Skype, a free PC to PC phone program,..... showered and passed out. Not being able to sleep I woke at 8.30 went down to breakfast and then sent this out.

I lost Travis's email so someone send that to me. I start a Hibernain email group so I don't have to send a ton of email. So send me anyone else's email that I don't have.

Kippsi,

John


Weird adjustments realized so far.

Helsinki is alot bigger then I anticpated, with a lot of downtown activity.
Colder then I anticipated, about 9 C at landing, which is like the high 40s.
No minorities, of any kind really. I don't even pass as looking a little Finnish.
24-hour clock system
Dogs are allowed everywhere. (Sonte and I followed a lady in the mall for 20 mins trying to figure out if it was her seeing eye dog or not)
Young people working many jobs. (Our cashier as Stockmann, (think Macy's but bigger) was a 14-year old girl, ... take it easy Nick)
No pedestrian signals... people just walk out into traffic and car stop.