Summer Camps

So it’s been a busy couple of weeks for me since I last wrote. I’ve been working really hard in training as usual, and we have been training a lot. On top of that I’ve been putting in an effort to get in the gym and lift weights as much as possible, so I’ve been feeling pretty tired lately. We've also had a few other activities outside of training to keep us busy the last two weeks...

Last week the club held summer football camps, which all of the players at the club coached at. When I found out I had to do two days of coaching I wasn’t too sure what to think. I really enjoy coaching, but I thought it would be a different challenge this time since I didn’t think the kids would be able to understand me. I was with a group of 11-13 year olds the first day and they all understood everything that I said. They all spoke almost perfect English, it was pretty impressive. The next day I was with a group of 7-8 year olds and it was a bit more of a challenge. But the kids seemed pretty excited that I was from Canada. They understood the basics and I was able to get my point across and we were able to talk about favorite teams, favorite players, etc, so it was a good day and I think the kids had fun all week.

The week before that, we were all told that we had a team activity after training one day and I didn’t really know what we were doing. All the players in the First and Reserve team were split into groups and given areas of town to go to and hand out tickets and club flags for people to put up on game days. I think this was a pretty good idea from the club to bring in more fans and it definitely seemed like it worked for the home game last weekend; at least it looked like there were a lot more fans there then there had been in recent weeks. Unfortunately the first team lost 2-0. Hopefully the fans were happy about their free tickets and continue to come out and support the club.

I have tomorrow off, which I'm really looking forward to... Next week we have a full week of training, which should be pretty intense. I'm going to try and update this more often, so keep an eye out for more posts this week!

Robbie.

Pictures of Bodø

Here are some pictures I have taken of Bodø, I will post some more later...

Saultstraumen (strongest tidal current in the world)

Midnight Sun in July

View of the whole city from the mountains

The other side of the mountains

View of the city from across the water

Town square in Bodø

Back in Bodø, Norway

I’m back in Norway after having four weeks off, which I spent at home in Canada. I had an awesome trip home and had a really great time catching up with friends and family. I also got to celebrate my 20^th Birthday at home. It was the first time I’ve been home for my birthday since I was 15, so I was pretty excited! I took a break from playing, other than the occasional fun kick around at the park, which was great because my body needed a solid rest. I did spend some time coaching for my old club Peace Arch Soccer Club, at their Summer soccer camps; the same camps I played in when I was about 10 years old! It was pretty fun for me. As usual it was hard to pack up and leave, but I’m happy I got a chance to spend some time at home and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season here.

I had a very tough trip back to Bodø. It started at 3 am Tuesday morning when I left my house and headed to Vancouver Airport. I then flew from Vancouver to Chicago, where I had 6.5 hours in between flights. I spent that time getting McDonalds and Starbucks for one last time, since I can’t get either of those things in Bodø. Then I got on a plane to Frankfurt, which was a decent flight. I had a seat in between me and the other guy in my row and he hardly moved the whole flight, so it was pretty comfortable. From Frankfurt I flew to Oslo, which was a pretty easy flight, but I was starting to feel pretty tired. I usually can sleep on planes, but not very well, so I had a pretty hard time staying awake during my 2.5 hours at Oslo Airport. It felt pretty good to get on my final flight to Bodø. It is only a bit over an hour flight from Oslo and I managed to sleep nearly the whole flight. I got some pretty cool pictures from the plane of the area around Bodø, its an amazing view from the plane. I will try and post them later if I can figure out how to upload pictures from my blackberry to my computer. I arrived in Bodø around 5 pm on Wednesday, which means I was traveling for about 30 hours straight. I went for a run as soon as I arrived, because even though I was tired I usually feel much better the next day if I get a run in as soon as I arrive somewhere. It felt pretty good to go to bed and I slept for 13 hours straight, until 1 pm the next day.

It felt a bit strange to arrive back in Bodø after a month in Canada, but it was nice coming back to somewhere I had already been to and to a team I had already been training with for around 6 weeks though. I was pretty tired when I arrived, but I was also excited to get back into training. I had my first session last Thursday and I was exhausted, but I felt okay at training. My legs were feeling a bit heavy, but that is to be expected because it was also my first competitive training session in a while. Training on Friday was also good and we had Saturday off. There was a game Sunday, but I was not eligible to play due to my International Clearance not going through in time. I am disappointed because I was looking forward to playing my first game, but hopefully it gets sorted out as quickly as possible. The team won 6-1 and played very well. It was a great first game back for the team and the perfect way to get things on the right track from the start. Today (Monday) I went to the gym to do some weights and then went straight to training from there. It was a hard session, but it was fun. We are training again tomorrow and then we have an away game on Wednesday, which I do not know if I will be eligible to play in yet.

Anyways, that’s all for now. I’m feeling happy to be back and looking forward to the rest of the week. I can't wait to get onto the field for a game, hopefully it's soon!

Robbie.