Team Sweden vs. Team Finland

This weekend was spent in Helsinki, the past years I've spent A LOT of time in Helsinki...

Game over :-D Finland and Sweden (photo by Vincent Micheletti)

Ouch, my body is drained and so is my brain... I had a great time playing rollerderby with Team Sweden, such an amazing team! Such a challange to play Team Finland, so many friends and so many amazing players! Scandinavian Rollerderby makes me happy, how far we have gotten the past years is beyond amazing...

On Saturday we played Finland, and they had a very strong team, and so did we. In the end they walked away with the win, but the entire bout wasa back and forth, and it could have gone either way. They were the better team at this time!
I had a great time playing with people I never really have played with before, but it took a while before we did find the synergy on the track, and truly got to feel like a sucessful pack. I am never really happy with my performance after a bout, well, I am happy, but I always think I can improve, and improve I shall.

(photo by Vincent Micheletti)

Both Team Sweden and Stockholm Rollerderby have VERY exciting futures, and I am more than excited to go towards that future! I want to be stronger, faster and more skilled!

On Sunday we got to Scrimmage against Helsinkis travelteam, and that was amazingly fun, I feel like many people were more relaxed, and we also figured out some things that we didn't really get to work the previous night. I am proud to be a coach of such an inspiring and hardworking team!

After scrimmage we set off to a REAL Finnish experiance, NAKED sauna! Yeah, it was a swiminghall, with a few saunas and a big pool. It's odd that I've been to Helsinki probably about 15 times the past years, and no one has taken me here. On Sundays it was women only and you could have a beer by a small table on the second floor, overlooking the lap-pool, where half of the women were swimming laps naked.. I had a beer, I deserved it, after the scrimmage I chugged a protein shake, so I was in need of cabs, and nothing could be better than this yummy beer! And after the beer I swimmeda few laps with Becky. It was a perfect ending with the team after an amazing but vey draining weekend.

Overall. this was a great weekend with rollerderby and a bunch of amazing people that I enjoy to play rollerderby with! Of course it was hard both physically and mentally, nad most of all I just want to lay down and sleep... sleep and sleep some more....

Watching mens rollerderby and longong for a shower (photo by Markko Nimleä)

Open sea!

Right now I'm on open sea - somewhere between Finland and Sweden.

I've had an amazing trip, I'm super proud of our B-team, they kicked ass, I got to pick mushrooms in a sunny Finnish forest and I got to acctually spend some time with friends and just stroll around in a city where they speak a language that is so strange I can't even guess what they are saying. I'm a big fan of Finnish culture, Only tells me I'd be a good Finn. I'm probably not good enough of a Finn to spend as much time at karaoke as they do.

This is the third night we have been at karaoke and I finally sang - Swedish child song - completely sober... And also an older Finnish lady asked me to dance with her, and I did that. Hopefully someone got pictures of that, you can't turn an old lady down, right? Especially not. When her husband is singing karaoke, some Finnish song.

Boats, bout, karaoke and walking in the forest...
And riding in Flukes very fancy car - I don't regret going to Finland this weekend, even if I missed out on watching all of Eastern regionals, but thanks to awesome friends I at least have been able to hear most of the scores from the most exciting games.

the Finns singing

On our way back to Sweden

The bout yesterday was great - but more about that later. We are now driving back to Turku to take the boat back to Sweden. We decided on a spontaneous mushroom picking stop - and it resulted in wet feet and some chanterelles! I was super excited to run around in the woods, I love nature, I just don't get to spend enough time in it. I often get trapped in the city - in the concrete of the city - and this lifted my spirit and made me just laugh to myself. Good thing I bought two pair of shoes at the flea market yesterday... When we get to Turku and the boat I will have dry shoes!

This could be a "funny mushroom" Glenn is the expert!

Kantarelli - I have an eye for those

Trolskt is all I can say!

Waking up in Finland

Kate Perry sings about waking up in Vegas and shaking the glitter out of your clothes. Waking up in Finland - no glitte to shake off yet - I do have it in my make-up bag.

We took the boat over, so I really fell asleep out on open water and woke up in Turku, Finland. But before falling asleep, we were dining in the Buffet and singing karaoke... Amy sang "I kissed a girl" while four or five of us where supportive dancers... I think we might REALLY have shocked the rest of the people at the bar.

We like to call the boats that go between Finland and Sweden "the Fuckboat" and they are cheap and usually people are really drunk. Since our reason for going to Finland is to play a bout (well, not me, I'm running line-ups) no one was drunk and we all went to bed early... Yeah... Exciting life of rock stars like us!
Today is quite a bout day in the Scandinavia (yes I know that Finland is not a part, but if everyone else does include I will too) Stockholm B-team is playing in Tampere, that's where I'm heading right now in Flukes fast car, an Gothenburg is playing Nidaros (Norway) while Crime City B-team in Malmö are hosting Oslo and Helsinki B-team... Exciting day for Nordic derby!

Can't wait for tonight! It's gonna be exciting!

Waiting for the boat to leave Sweden

Kahavi (coffee in Finnish)

Hm, this was found on the boat

Fluke by his sweet ride we took to Tampere

Summing hte weekend in Helsinki up...

For the first time in history, two national teams met and battled it out... Team Sweden traveled over to Helsinki to bout Team Finland... I will write a looonger re-cap of it when I have time, but I am off to Stockholm Rollerderby to coach a practice... But I have chosen to put up one picture that summs part of the weekend up... Enjoy HussInsane (team sweden) trapped in a Finnish dogcage Sunday morning...

In Hell...

Yes, I'm at MayDay in Hell, and yesterday I went to a Helsinki Roller Derby practice, and that was good times, floor was more sticky than I expected, wish I had worn all G-rods, instead of the Stingers with G-rods combination I decided on, after someone saying that girls were using Poisons... 
TOday I'm leading a couple of hours of practice and then there is scrimmage, mixed scrimmage that is set up as a bout. So as I said, I have a bunch of girls that are going to gel and play like a team, and I cannot make them too tired, since they are supposed to play a bout later.... yeah... HOW ABOUT THAT??

Time to chomp down some bread and a banana (all I have) for breakfast before I head over to the venue and start coaching, hopefully this will be a GREAT day...

MayDay in Hell

I think this says it all

So I totally am going to coach during MayDay in Hell - and it is going to be exciting, I love skating with girls I have never met before. Watching strides getting familiar with each other and all that jazz... and of course exploring Finnish culture. I can say very basic sings like ''kiitos'' (thanks), ei sa peitää and some basic swear words... yeah - I guess that is what makes me Swedish, the ability to swear in Finnish, say I love them and of course also tell people not to cover the radiator (if you are Swedish and read this, I know you are totally nodding now)

But anyhow - before I successfully will insult not only my own people but also the people from the country of the thousand lakes I will continue to write about MayDay in Hell...

I am going there, and it will be fun, fun, fun... and if anyone that is reading this is going there too, and wish that I bring gear, wheels, laces, socks... pretty much anything from SwedeVix Skateshop... let me know... I am not only an amazing skater... I am also a delivery bitch (this I cannot say in Finnish)