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.