The Return 2013

I’ve been back in Sweden for a month, and can’t even describe how nice it has been to be back at work. Especially when I got the news that I was cleared for contact 2 months ahead of schedule!

The 4 months I was able to spend at home were incredible. Having so much time with my friends and family was a nice change after spending so much time abroad. However, as my recovery progressed and I was able to do more soccer related activities, it got harder to enjoy my time at home and feel like I was doing my job as well. Especially since my coach had asked me to serve as the captain for the upcoming season at the end of January. Trying to spend time with friends and family while also making sure that I was staying on top of my fitness and rehab were frequently pulling me in different directions. So it has been nice to have my life simplified again even if it meant taking me away from family and friends.

However, not all of my friends were left back in Chicago!

Having Charlie Campbell, who has been one of my closest friends for many years, here with me this year has been awesome. I have been able to ease his transition into life over here in Sweden and having him here has made it easy for me to resume my life. He was able to find an apartment in downtown Gothenburg, which is both a good and bad thing, as we are not able to spend a ton of time together outside of practice. But it gives me the opportunity to make it to the city once a week to hang out with him and explore Gothenburg more than I was able to last year. We have been able to find a lot of cool café’s and restaurants that will need to be re-visited as the weather improves!

With the weather being so cold in this part of the world the team decided to send us on a preseason trip to Turkey. We were in Antalya on an all-inclusive resort for 6 days and it was an incredible experience. I only wish that I had been closer to Istanbul! However, the bazaar that I was able to visit was a really unique experience and I am glad I was able to get a taste of what Turkey has to offer.

After our brief visit to a tropical climate we were thrust back into our preparations for our opening match of the season. We met Hammarby, who are tipped to win the league this year, at home. Due to the rough weather we had to play the match at a neutral location, 2 hours south, but earned a 0-0 draw. It was a result that we were very happy to claim despite having the better chances to score.

This past weekend was a different story. We traveled south to meet Falkenbergs FF in their home-opener in a contest that ended up being more of a fight than a soccer match. We were unable to cope with the horrendous conditions of the game and lost 2-1. On the bright side I did record my first league goal for Ljungskile in the match on a penalty kick. Here’s a link to watch the goal. We are hoping to get back on track this Sunday when we meet Assyriska at home.

Grandma Hopkins I know that you will be able to recover quicker than the doctor’s think! Hope your recovery is going well!

Thinking of everyone at home and in Boston. Proud to be an American!

Quick Update on Surgery

I realize that I haven’t updated my blog in some time now and want to apologize for that.

I dislocated my shoulder for the 3^rd time this year a few weeks back and haven’t played in the past 3 matches. The team and I decided to have surgery hoping to permanently stabilize my shoulder and prevent any future problems. I had been planning on updating everyone when I had a surgery date and was able to book an earlier flight home, as I assumed that I would be having the surgery as quick as possible. However, as things progressed I never really had a full grasp on what exactly was going to happen, and still don’t. What I do know at the moment is that my surgery is scheduled for November 6 and I will be flying home on November 15. I THINK that the surgery will be an arthroscopic procedure so it should only keep me out of full training for 3 months, but again I am still unclear about all of this. Even getting those small bits of information has been an extremely frustrating experience.

The only positive thing that has come from this process is that I can now say I have dislocated my shoulder and put that shoulder back into place all on my own, so that’s pretty awesome. At least I think so!

I wish I had more interesting news to write about but the past few weeks have just consisted of my going to the gym and running 2x a day as they have held me out of training fully with the team. So, I am really looking forward to being back home! I’ll be forced to take some time off and can’t wait to spend that time with everyone and eat some good pizza ha. I even think the Chicago weather will be a relief after living here! Our last match was postponed and moved to a turf field because the grass pitch at Degerfors had frozen! It’s not even November!

Can’t wait to see everyone soon!

Change in Season

Summer in Sweden is officially over (and has been for a few weeks now), and although the nice weather was only here for a short time I find myself very excited for the fall season. I haven’t experienced the fall in 2 years and it just feels right being able to watch some football Sunday evening and have the weather outside be just cool enough to wear jeans and a sweatshirt when I venture out. Hopefully, I’ll even be able to teach these Swedes how to make a proper bonfire with some S’mores one of these evenings, even though everyone thinks I’m crazy for being so excited that the weather is getting colder. 

I also thought that I would be really homesick at this time of year. It’s exactly 8 weeks until I make my way back to Chicago, which is close enough that I start to think about having some good pizza nearly every night, but not quite close enough that I can start to get excited about being home. But with the fall finally here, and the next 8 weeks broken into 3 separate blocks of time (3 games in the next 10 days, then 1 month left in the season, then 2 weeks until I’m home) I know the time will pass quickly.

Speaking of the season, we lost to a red hot Halmstad on Monday night, and now find ourselves in need of a win Saturday afternoon against Umeå to stay in 5^th place in the league. At this point in the season promotion is an unrealistic aspiration, and we are just a few good results away from being safe from relegation as well. If we can continue to string together solid performances, and win our remaining home matches, we should finish the season right around 5^th position which would be a very good result for this team considering the significant disadvantages the club faces financially and how unlucky we have been with injuries this year.

In other news, I am only a few weeks away from becoming a functioning member of society in Sweden. I believe I’ll actually be immigrating to Sweden, which will allow me to take Swedish classes offered by the town, pay my own bills, rent movies, and a lot of other things that I haven’t been able to do on my own. Needless to say it will be nice not to have to rely on other people to take care of simple tasks. I’ll most likely have to wait until I get back in January to start taking Swedish classes but it’s something to look forward to!

Hope all is well back in the states, go Bears!

The "Kids" Visit

It has been a few weeks since my sisters have left Sweden, and I know that I had promised to have a blog up soon after they departed, but I have been busy enjoying the nice weather that has FINALLY arrived to my part of the world. It was a change that began while my sister’s were still here in Uddevalla, and since they left we have been lucky enough to have 5 or 6 days of sun a week, with temperatures in the high 60’s. So sorry I’m not sorry that I have been spending more time at coffee shops like this, than writing blogs…

It was nice having the kids here to visit me for a few days after they wrapped up their own travels around the continent. I got to show them around the small slice of Sweden that I call home and they were lucky enough to get to see us win a game.

I took the kids a few of the coffee shops I enjoy, introduced them to my second family down at Butler’s, and also drove them to Smögen, a neat little tourist town on the coast. 

Mo and Eddie fearlessly exploring the archipelago around Smögen

The two highlights of their stay with me were the trip over to Smögen, as it is just a really cool town to spend an afternoon in and have a picnic and also having them at a game, since it has been 2 years from the last time they had been able to watch me play live. 

Action shot courtesy of cousin Nel

I think that by the end of their stay with me, the kids were real envious of my lifestyle here, which, with the appearance of the sun, has only gotten even more relaxing.

The past few weeks soccer-wise have been somewhat frustrating, as we have struggled to find some consistent form. Although we are still hanging around near the top of table I don’t think we have any chance of being promoted unless we can win 6 or 7 games in a row. Whether or not that happens, I think that we have already exceeded our expectations for the year and now we have to continue to improve so that we can be successful again next season.

That’s all that I have for now, ha det brå!

At my sunset spot that overlooks Uddevalla

Nel diligently taking pictures at my game

Dislocated

This past weekend I had one of the most painful and frustrating experiences of my life. During our match against Trelleborgs I dislocated my shoulder for the second time. Dislocating your shoulder is a very painful injury for those lucky enough never to have experienced it, and I had been told that the first time is the most painful. Because, after your first dislocation, your shoulder joints have all been torn and stretched it is more likely to happen again. So when I felt my shoulder pop out in the 50th minute of the game this past weekend, it hurt, but I knew that the pain would last only so long. Usually, when I have an injury like this I'm rather easy to deal with. I may be in pain but I can make jokes and laugh with the doctors as we figure out what needs to be done. This time was no different. However, as the doctors on site were unable to fix my shoulder we had to call an ambulance. I figured it was no big deal as this happened last time. The paramedics will show up, give me some laughing gas and then pop the thing back in. But, to my dismay, the paramedics decided they needed to take me to the hospital. At this point 50 minutes had elapsed since the dislocation. I was beginning to struggle with the pain and my patience was already growing thin. I was relieved when I was finally given some morphine for the pain and muscle relaxers to aid in setting the shoulder in the ambulance. The relief lasted only minutes as the morphine had little effect other than to make me very dizzy, and the experience only got worse from there. The ambulance ride was 20 minutes long, over bumpy roads jolting my shoulder with increasing pain, I was unable to hold my head up or my eyes open, and the paramedic is interrogating me for every last shred of information on my life in Sweden.

When the ambulance ride mercifully ended, and I was finally in the care of the doctors, I figured the experience was over. But alas, they decided I needed more muscle relaxers before they could move my joint back into place. Another round of questions soon followed. They needed to know all my information from the U.S. as well. As I watched the time slowly tick by, and 4 nurses stood in the hallway gawking at my complete agony I decided that this was the single worst experience of my life. I have never been in more pain or been more frustrated. By the time I was finally put back together an hour and a half had elapsed, I had missed celebrating a good win with my teammates, and I had completely blown any opportunity to ask out the cute nurse when she saw me in tears in the hospital bed. I blame the morphine.

Although I was injured, the team put in a solid performance to preserve our 1-0 victory, that sees us move back up to 5th position. It was a good way to start the second half of our campaign.

One of the factors that contributed to our performance was our match against Dynamo Moscow a week and a half ago. Dynamo Moscow had been having their pre-season in Sweden and we played them in a friendly match right before they departed for Russia to begin their own season. We were lucky enough to play their full first team in the first half, which is made up of players who all represent their countries on the international level. This was a great experience for our team, because when you make mistakes against a quality opponent like Dynamo Moscow, they score… every time. After getting our butts kicked we took a boat from the island just off the coast where we played the match back to Ljungskile for a team dinner with everyone’s families. I wish that the day had been sunny enough to take pictures because being out on a boat on the Swedish coast is a stunning experience. The pictures below should give you an idea, they were taken by a small lake that is a short walk from our stadium

Also my game this saturday will be on TV here in Sweden. That means that you can watch a live stream online at 9 am central time. I don't have a link right now, but if you search wiziwig.tv at 9 you should be able to find one easily. I will be playing in the match Saturday, 7 days is more than enough time to recover my pride from crying in front of a cute nurse.

I'll have more to write about soon as Katie, Eddie, Mo, and Nel will be here to spend some time with me in 10 days! 

The Return

I’ll quickly acknowledge that it has taken me far too long to revitalize my blog and keep everyone up to date. Ok, since that is done and dusted, we can move on to the interesting stuff, like are Swedish meatballs in Sweden really better than those found at Ikea in Schaumburg? And do all Swedes drive Volvo’s and Saab’s?

As I can’t really get everyone up to speed on what has happened in my first 6 months here in Uddevalla, Sweden, I will provide a quick recap of how the season with Ljungskile SK has gone up to this point and promise to be a more reliable fountain of information for the remainder of my time here.

We had our first day back in training today after having a full week off for our mid-season break. I had planned to do some traveling over this week to Ireland, but due to some unforeseen complications with my bank here in Sweden I was unable to see this trip through. I had to settle for staying in Uddevalla for the holiday, which actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I nearly finished 3 books, was able to soak up a miniscule amount of sun (more on that in a minute) and indulged in a few Gin & Tonic’s, while listening to some blues every evening, and I refuse to complain about a vacation when I’m able to enjoy a few G&T’s. Shout out to Beth Hopkins for providing the Gin. My prior indulgence also failed to keep me from completing my fitness test in the proper time, so successful holiday indeed!

It was nice to get back to work today feeling refreshed and looking forward to the challenge that we face in the second half of our season. We are currently sitting on 20 points from 15 games, which, leaves us stuck in the middle of the pack in the Superettan. With some better luck with injuries I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think we could be sitting on at least 25 points. But what’s done is done and we have to focus on improving on our first half results. Which, I most certainly intend on doing.

As for life outside of football, I have had some difficulties adjusting to life in Sweden. Most of those problems are completely out my hands and it has taken me some time to realize this, but now that I have I think life will be much more smooth going forward. The weather certainly hasn’t helped either. I think in the past 4 weeks there has been maybe 7 sunny days? The rest of the time it has rained. A lot.

So in the interest of moving forward I am hoping that re-starting my blog will force me to explore my area a little bit more, that people will get in touch with me and ask me questions about life in Sweden so that I can learn new things if I do not know the answer, and I’m also hoping that writing the blog will help me hold myself accountable to learning Swedish.

To answer those burning questions from the beginning, Swedish meatballs are better in Sweden when I cook them, and Swede’s don’t show anymore of a preference for Saab’s and Volvo’s than anybody else.

Hej då!

Grand Final

Yes everyone I am still alive. I know you were all worried about my well-being but I just haven’t had anything noteworthy to write about for the blog. So I figured, rather than bore everyone with the mundane details of my life as a waiter/ janitor I would wait until I had something more exciting to write about.

This past Monday I attended the end of the season banquet for the Brisbane Premier League with the rest of the Wolves squad. It was a fun night, especially having the entire team and support staff there to celebrate our achievements thus far. In addition to receiving the Premiership trophy for keeps ,the league passed out individual honors and named the team of the season. Steffen Vroom took home the Golden Boot award for scoring the most goals in the league this year, he was also named to the Select XI team of the season along with myself, Drew Jeskey, and Trent Clulow, and our head coach Sam Saif was honored as the coach of the year. I just missed out on being named the player’s player of the year by one vote, the reason being I didn’t play in the final game due to suspension, guess that’s what I get for being a rebel.

After attending the banquet most of the team decided to extend our night a bit further, and where else to go on a Monday night at 11 than the Treasury Casino, which was conveniently located across the street from the hotel our banquet was at. Now, this is my first visit to a casino ever so I was quite happy when I walked out up $5 including drinks, some high roller I am. I was able to make my money playing roulette on these monitors that they have at the casino, that way you don’t have to bet in front of everyone, and it gives you all the information on the 15 previous rolls so you can make a more informed bet, or at least makes you think that you are. Either way it was a good way for me to get my feet wet and learn the game.

Other than this night out with the boys, these last few weeks have been focused on ending the season on as good a note as possible. We have finally been able to get back on to a regular training routine leading up to the Grand Final this Sunday evening. We also know that our opponents will be Rochedale, who will have played 3 games in 8 days, including a double OT Cup final Wednesday night, while we have been regaining our legs and sharpening our play in anticipation for the final. Needless to say I can’t wait to play Sunday night, and I know the entire team is looking forward to capping the season the proper way.

So look out for the result of the Grand Final. Hope all is well back home!