So I left Montreal Sunday at 7pm. After what felt like a couple hours of short naps interrupted by someone bringing me food I landed in Amsterdam at 8am local time.
I met up with the 9 other members of the team at gate C9 for our connecting flight. To my surprise the team was conversing with two men with a dog and the words DOUANE across their backs. After a short second of ‘oh my gosh what have they done’ I quickly realized that they were simply taking part in a training exercise for the dog. They had hidden a wad of cash in our staff member’s purse and the dog was trying to find it.It was pretty cool! I’ll be sure to share pics of this on Flicker.
We then boarded our plane to Helsinki which was about two hours. Some of us were able to sneak in a nap while others were not so lucky (thank you man snoring next to me!)
For the 10 of us travelling from Amsterdam it was a success! NO lost luggage! Nice!
We proceeded to make our way to the bus where we met up with the 3 athletes from Ottawa. Their adventures thus far = lost luggage, missing equipment bag, no sticks and lost Blackberry. It's a good thing this is one of the practiced scenarios they went over. :)
But we loaded the bus and drove the 2hours to Tampere. We checked in to the hotel (Very organised front desk might I add. I was very impressed! They scored huge points on the service providing scale, just saying.)
Dinner at Telakka, a local pub style location just around the corner, was delicious! Discussion at my end of the table revolved around daylight savings time (Finland changes a week before Canada does), 'is Finland 6 or seven hours ahead?' and around the fact that we don’t tip in Finland (Lyndsay told us and so did the Ottawa radio station last week).
To fight the jet lag the thirteen of us ventured off for a short walk downtown. Who knew the grocery store could be such a main attraction. First of all we TOTALLY looked like tourists following each other around the store, amazed at how one buys produce in Finland. A couple athletes also realized that they could read Fin! (Cheerios, Special K... this is easier than we thought LOL).
After about 15 minutes and a short search for a washroom (or WC as they are identified here) we returned to the hotel. A couple hot chocolates at the hotel restaurant and confirmation of tomorrow’s schedule and we are all off to our rooms to unpack... or in some cases go straight to bed.
Wave 2 and 3 of athletes and staff have landed in Helsinki and should be on their way to Tampere as we speak.
Day 1 (and2 depending on how you count) is done. A good night’s sleep and we are ready to go tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s Schedule includes a team practice and exhibition game vs the FIN U19 Team.
Stay tuned...
À plus!
GO CANADA GO!
-FL
P.S. Luggage, equipment and blackberry have all been located and are on their way to Tampere.
