ice hockey and everything cold

* die hard fans *

Sauna, coffee, and ice hockey – that pretty much sums up priorities in Finland. So on Saturday we went out to support Joensuu’s ice hockey team, the mighty Jokipojat. There was a band and rowdy fans, which is exactly what I had hoped for. We obviously brought with us some good mojo because they dominated. I learned more about ice hockey than I ever knew existed. Soon enough I’ll be the one standing by the band, yelling at the teams about what they’re doing wrong.

On another note, it’s cold here. All the snow that I boasted about before is sadly gone now (thanks to the massive amount of rain that we’ve had), but I did get a chance to practice for the world’s slowest bike rider competition before it left. Let me tell you, the conditions were just right for it. There was a bunch of slush on the ground that day. You’d think “Slush? How hard can it be to glide through some soft snow and water??” That’s what I thought. But when that slush is packed on top of a layer of thick, uneven ice, well that makes it a little more challenging. It usually takes me 20 minutes to ride my bike to school. On this particular day it took me at least twice as long (which is good statistics for slow competitions). I was going barely faster than you could walk. Going that slow on a bike is really a skill. If you slow down even the slightest, there is a very good chance you will fall over. But when you are riding on ice, if you speed up at all and hit the tiniest of bumps, there is also a very good chance you will fall over. So I’m working with this balancing act for over 3 miles. At one point I considered just collapsing on the snow in hope that someone would come along and rescue me. But after 29 near wipe outs, I had outsmarted the ice and made it to school. My feet were soaking wet from the giant puddles that I stepped in (to avoid a fall), but all was good because I made it to shelter. Of course on my way home some nice snow fairy had come along and plowed all the snow on the sidewalks – so it was smooth sailing. Compared to my previous riding time, I felt like I was flying down the road. All the snow is gone now, so bike riding is back to normal. But when the snow does come back, and it will, I just hope that the snow fairy comes back with it (and is considerate of when I need to go to class).