Hallo from Copenhagen

Hello, world. I apologize for my lengthy absence, but apparently preparing to leave the country takes a lot more time than I originally anticipated. So, to catch you up: I left Boston for Copenhagen on Sunday night last and arrived on Monday afternoon. I must say that after flying to Papua New Guinea (circa 25 hours in the air, plus layovers, I believe) any flight will seem short. In fact, I think that the flights may have been TOO short...before I knew it I was in iceland (paying about 6 bucks for a freakin' cup of tea!) and just after that I was in Copenhagen. The time flew by (seriously, no pun intended) and I didn't even have the chance to collect myself before I was picking up my bags and going to meet Bjarn. As many of you know, I have no foresight, so I wasn't too nervous before leaving, but the feeling of wanting to throw up hit me like a thousand tiny gnomes using my stomach as their punching bag as soon as I hit the ground (you'll have to excuse the gnome reference, but I'm kind of in withdrawl until I find one to be my traveling companion).

Luckily I had no immigration problems as I originally thought - hell I didn't even have to go through immigration except in the Iceland airport (boo for no Denmark stamp) - so the whole charade you may have heard about involving applying for a resident permit and all expensive stuff like that was virtually a waste...meaning I got up at 5 am to call Copenhagen a few weeks ago for no reason at all!

As I said Bjarn, team equipment manager and one of the girl's fathers, picked me up at the airport. He is at first a very quiet man, who wouldn't be when you're picking up someone you've never met? But he is an amazingly warm individual, who I can tell is going to be quite a father figure to me. I was quite impressed by how much love his family exuded...they're huggers just like me! He is a fireman (yes, we all respect them now, that's for sure!) and an excellent cook after cooking at the station for 30 years, so he cooked us all dinner, including Laura, the Canadian player/coach who has been helping me out, and Jeanette (a goalie) and Michael, who are letting me stay in a room in their townhouse. The dinner was a great chance to start feeling comfortable with everyone, and it is true that the Danes have wonderfully dry wits and like to mess with people, much like myself, so I should be alright.

Despite my jet-lag, I am indeed an overachiever and thought I should join the team for an hour of spinning and practice that night...by the time practice was over at 11pm I don't think my body knew what was going on. I slept until 1pm the next day and I'm sure I could have done more if I wanted to.

The past few days have been dedicated to finding my way around the city. I am about a 30 minute bike ride from Copenhagen (an hour and a half if you get lost like I did today), which is not the easiest of cities to navigate, having no grid whatsoever. I still have to hit up all of the tourist spots, but I at least now know how to get to the city and even found the perfect coffee shop for living out my poetic aspirations! (http://www.robertscoffee.com).

As for the hockey, these girls are good! They range in age from about 13-40 and I'd say they are all at least on Division III level hockey. They say a large part of it is due to their second year coach, Hecky, who is Finnish and specializes in skating technique (much like John Dillon only this one knows how to play hockey). He doesn't speak a word of English, but the girls are doing their best to translate (however, that too proves difficult since he is known to go on just as much as one PVB). So I am thoroughly impressed by their skill level, dedication and work ethic. They are also one of the smartest group of girls I've played with; everyone always knows where to be...and most of them have only been playing for a few years! Quite honestly, they don't need much from me to better their team. Hopefully I'll have a little more to show them once I get back into the swing of it. Apparently, though, their team is quite different from most other women's teams in the nation. There is one team that gives them good competition, while all other games are complete blowouts. I just happened to wind up with the national champions, which works for me becaus that means I get to go to the Eurocup with them in Budapest in mid-October.

On the ice it's kind of like shock therapy right now, since I had practice the first night I was here and my second time on the ice was a GAME last night. The game was against the U-14 boys national champions, which means that they were amazing skaters (Hecky also coaches them) so we shouldn't feel awful about losing 6-1. We play in a women's league and two boys leagues, meaning that we get to check sometimes. Checking is a totally new experience for me, but I think I will grow to love it, especially since Europeans don't make checking the center of their game like so many Americans do.

So tomorrow is another day of wandering the city and then hitting up the Copenhagen night-life with some girls on the team. I'll try to upload some pictures once I figure out how!

Yours in green,
Meghan