Lunch in Lahti

Today was another typical grey day in Finland. Yesterday, we had sun, but it was much colder with the sun than today without it, so it is difficult to decide which to route for.

Yesterday, we had a typical day with a couple of practices and an off-ice session. Tim decided to set up a little badminton tournament for off-ice training. It was immediately a hit and many of the players were actually very good.

Back to today though… We had a morning pre-game skate then Tim, Kelly and I hopped into the Ford Focus station wagon for a trip to Lahti for lunch and to find the Western Union in town. Lahti is the second largest city in Finland and is only about 30 km from Vierumaki. We walked up and down the main drag trying to decide on a Lunch location. We finally settled on the Pizza and Kebab place. Apparently Turkish Pizza places are very popular in Finland. We had lunch in Helsinki in one when Tim and I were there. As a warning to those with seafood allergies, they like to put baby shrimp on a lot of their pizzas in Finland Turkish Pizza places (and the word for shrimp in Finnish is not easily recognizable). So, today I tried the Kebab, which was excellent. It had gyro meat, pizza sauce, lettuce, tomato, onion and some hot sauce, on a calzone type sliced bread. Tim had the same and Kelly went with the Hawaii Pizza. It was a good lunch and scouting mission to Lahti. The man from Senegal at the western union was helpful too! Lahti is definitely a town to come back and visit more, as it had lots of shops and things to do.

After returning from Lahti we had a little time to rest before the trip to Espoo to play the 7-time league champion Blues. On the bus at 4:00, we had a 7:50 game time in the big rink. We struggled against the top team in the league who had all but two players who have or had played for the Finnish National Team and lost 10-1. We got out shot 61-10. So we continue to work on defense.

It is a late night and time to regroup as we head back to face them again on Saturday! Happy Thanksgiving from Finland