Off to Vancouver

So continuing on with my busy summer, I came home from Croatia, went back to work for a couple of weeks, and then headed off to Vancouver for a friend's wedding. It was for Shankari Venugopal's wedding, good friend from high school. Actually there was four of us that hung around quite a bit during those years and still manage to stay in touch some how. Shankari is now living out in Vancouver finishing up her master's in Architecture. The other two girls, Erin and Ashley, also flew to Vancouver. Ashley flew from Regina with me, whereas Erin met us there from Saskatoon.

It was just a blast! We were able to rent a car and stayed with a close family friend of Shankari's right in Vancouver. Luckily for us we were there about 5 days and had enough time to take in quite a bit of the sites, spending time on Grandville Island, shopping on Robson street and walking around (almost) Stanley Park. I hadn't been to Vancouver in quite a few years and forgot how beautiful it was!

The wedding and the events leading up to it were just amazing! We were invited to all the family functions in the days prior to the wedding where we were able to meet both sides of the family as well as eat some really good Indian food, although a tad spicy! Shankar's wedding was spectacular to say the least. It was outside at a country club out in the mountains near Port Coquitlam. I have never seen such a fancy club house as you'll see from the picture below. The reception was held on the second floor at the country club overlooking the golf course with the mountains in the distance. Shankari of course looked beautiful in her Indian dress! Did I mention that throughout all her events I think she had 6 or so new sari's that she wore!

It was such a great time being back again with the girls from high school and just hanging out. Kind of felt like old times as really none of have changed minus a couple of weddings, kids, degrees and so on. It's pretty awesome to have friends like that and really amazing that we've still kept in touch all these years...and miles apart.


Ashley and I at Granville Island


Part of the wedding ceremony (Shankari is the one sitting down in the middle of the picture)


The country club where the wedding and reception took place


Erin, Ashley and I at the wedding


The newlywed couple the day after the wedding

Training Camp in Croatia

From June 5-17, Chelsa, Jeni and I were able to take part in our team's training camp in Croatia. That's right I said training camp in Croatia...my owner flew Chelsa, Jeni and I over just for the week long training camp in Croatia. Pretty crazy if you ask me. It was awesome to have Jeni along as it was her first time spending time with the team. We had quite a few hours on the plane to try and get her ready for the culture shock or the city and more so the way our team operates as it's much different than back in North America. Upon leaving June 5, we arrived there June 6th in the afternoon. We were able to make it to our apartment, which we still have, then took a phone call from a teammate saying that we were leaving that night to drive to Croatia. Um...excuse me...driving through the night? For some reason they enjoy driving through the night to get to places...I'm not so much a fan. After a 14 hour bus ride, which could have been done in 10 hours (they stop wayyyy too much!), we made it to Croatia. Not such a great start to a week long training camp with one night spent on a plane and the other night spent on a bus.

We were put in groups of four and shown to our apartment like rooms. We have a new Slovak girl playing with us called Martina who stayed with us and speaks great English, so that was awesome to have her around! We stayed in these older 2-star apartment style complexes. The area where we were was really quite large with a couple of hotels, camping area, and these apartments. We were right close to the beach, where it also had a ton of tennis courts, and not too far from where we were there were outdoor soccer fields, which is where we did most of our training. The style of everything was older...probably built in the 70's or early 80's. It reminded me of Dirty Dancing where Baby went with her family to that family camp for the whole summer. For food we would go to one of the hotels for breakfast and supper with some all inclusive deal, and then had lunch as a nearby restaurant.


The apartment complex


View from the hotel where we ate


Jeni, myself and Chelsa at dusk

The training part of the trip was definitely interesting to say the least. I guess our team was doing aerobics once a week with an instructor before the camp. So they decided to bring her along. I have no problems with doing aerobics but the stuff we were doing was not exactly hockey specific exercises or training. They would tell us that we would have a "stretching" session for an hour. Great, sounds good, I like to stretch...well this was not the stretching I was used to. The first full day we were there we had a marathon aerobics session lasting about 3 hours. My calves were shot from then on as I was not used to all this bouncing up and down and being on your toes most of the time. The sprinting part of the training was great and was hockey specific and I really enjoyed it, with the hardest day doing 15 hill sprints up some hill for about 20sec. It was good though and hockey specific. Our weight sessions were also very interesting with our weights being more of a circuit type training. We didn't have any free weights to use, just cut off re bar, and handles for raised push ups. These sessions were not all that intense minus the last day where I we did a push pyramid and I think I did close to a 100 push ups...I hate push ups too. It was interesting though as one day our coach came to us and asked us to come up with a training session for the team. That was really fun to do as we incorporated as much North American exercises as we could with the little equipment that we had. The girls really like it and it was a good chance of pace from the rest of the stuff.


Us Canadian girls at the back doing aerobics


A good example of why my calves were shot with all the jumping we did


The whole gang

Luckily for us our time spent in Croatia was not all training. One day our owner rented a boat for us to go over to the main town of Porec. We had a couple of hours to shop/look around the streets. Along the way our strength coach had us stop at the ice cream store and told Jeni to stand outside the door. From here the guy in the shop threw a ball of ice cream and tried to hit Jeni's mouth. He got it in on the second try! It was pretty amazing. Next he made a ice cream cone pyramid for both Jeni and Chelsa as you can see from the pictures below. It was pretty fantastic! Later we met up with the rest of the team and had supper on the roof of this medieval tower. The view was great and the food was all seafood making it probably the best meal of my life! There were three courses with the waiters bringing out everything on huge platters for everyone. It's funny as you don't exactly know what your what you're eating or really how you're supposed to eat it. For example they had dried meat like prosciutto over top of cantaloupe. I thought that that meant you ate them together, which of course I tried and it tasted not that bad. Afterwards they told me it was just for decoration and you didn't have to eat it like that. Oops.


Waiting for our boat to take us to Porec


Hanging out on the boat


Porec from a distance


Streets of Porec


A very pretty building


Ice cream creations Jeni and Chelsa got


View from where we ate


Not a bad set up at the restaurant

Along with going to Porec we were able to have a couple of fun days just stretching on the beach and one afternoon we were allowed to take out some jet skis. That was a complete blast. It was really windy that days so there were some huge waves on the water and I think we were completely airborne a couple of times. The last few days there were not very nice with it raining quite a bit, so that kind of sucked, as we then headed home that Friday night...and drove through the night again of course. It was nice to have a couple of days in Prague, just hanging out and showing Jeni some sights. We were there during the European Cup, so that was exciting watching the Czech's play while being there...it was pretty crazy but unfortunately they didn't make it past the round robin. Then that Tuesday it was back to Canada for us, and back to work for me that Thursday. By that time I was definitely missing Croatia aerobics and all!


Coastline by our apartment




The three of us after jet skiing

Back to Madtown!

Back at the end of May...I know this is long overdue...I was able to fly down to Madison for my old assistant coaches wedding. Old as in previous coach of my University it team. I had not been back there since June 2006 when I graduated so it had been awhile! But of course, if you know me, then you know that a simple trip and flight down is really not that simple.

I had been in the process of obtaining a Visa for the Czech Republic for the upcoming season and had to have the Consulate in Toronto mail me back my passport as the Visa had not come through yet, but of course I needed it in order to fly down to Madison. Well it never came...was lost, or I think stolen in the mail. It was sent by Express Canada Post, so I definitely would think twice before I would use that service again. Okay so what do I do know...the only thing left was to drive. So I started that Tuesday night to drive down to Madison. Luckily for me I have a smart brother who came up with the idea of me flying out of Minot (in which case I do not need a passport, just and ID). Well that's a great idea and all, but how much am I going to have to pay for a new flight the next day? This is where my dad comes in and somehow talks to a representative from Northwest and is able to change my flight for only $50. Unbelievable I tell you!

So instead of driving all the way to Madison, I only had to go to Minot and was able to make my flight, then catch up with my friend Carla in the airport in Minneapolis airport and continue our way down to Madison.

I had a fantastic time being back. Obviously a ton had changed. There was always construction going on with the campus when I was there, and even more so now that I was back. New dorms were up and a whole bunch of other buildings where torn down. Not to get sentimental on you or anything but of course a ton of memories came flooding back especially seeing old house on Orchard St. with the slanted floors. You kind of forget how amazing college was and the life that we lived as a student-athlete, and I have to say that those five years were truly an unbelievable time in my life.

Carla and I were fortunate enough to stay a Phoebe and Tyler's house for the weekend were able to catch up with them along with Molly and Bobbi Jo who came down for it as well. I had a blast hanging out with everyone, going to all my favourite old places, which was basically consisted of all the restaurants that I have missed over these past 2 years.

Tracey's and Darren wedding was amazing as well. She looked like a million bucks of course and had a great reception with an awesome dance to follow!

It was great to be back in Madison and hopefully I'll be able to visit it again soon! On Wisconsin!


Bobbi Jo, myself, Carla and Phoebe at our golf outing.


The happily married couple outside the church


Carla, Molly, Bobbi Jo and I outside the church


Carla and I with the bride

Egypt!!!

Wow, so really where do I begin...humm...many people, or those of you left still reading my blog are probably wondering, why the heck did you chose to go to Egypt? Well there were a couple of reasons. First it seems to be the hot spot of the Czech Republic, as in people go there like people go to Mexico in Canada. So really why not? Second, the prices. We got a stellar deal through a Czech travel agency on a last minute deal. Taba, Egypt ended up being our destination. It’s a little area right beside the Jordan and Israeli border located on the Red Sea. It wasn’t really close to Cairo where the pyramids are but we figured we would try this spot this year and then head to a spot closer to Cairo and visit the pyramids next year.
So Chelsa and I headed to the airport early in the morning to catch our flight to Egypt. Like I said before we went through a Czech travel agency so it was a little bit interesting as we were the only non Czech people on our chartered flight to Egypt. I thought it would only take us about 2 hours to get there, and of course I was completely wrong, four hours later we arrived. We flew over desert which was pretty cool and then landed in the middle of nowhere and I mean nowhere. All that was there was a little airport amongst rocks and desert. Hum...at this point, I was kind of like, what are we doing? But amongst the ways and whistles from the airport workers, we boarded our little bus and off we went to our hotel. There were three buses for all the people on the plane and as you can see from the picture below we had a bit of a caravan going on to the hotel area. If you’ve ever seen the move Babel you maybe can make a bit of a connection to the terrain we were driving through. It reminds me of the same type of terrain that was in the movie when the lady got shot on the bus. That kind of crossed my mind at that point in the trip, but no worries, we made it to our hotel safe and sound.

Taba airport middle of nowhere

The bus caravan to the hotels...where is the water?

Found it!

Our hotel was call the Three Corners Hotel and it was located probably about a kilometre or so from the beach. We did have a nice beach area that was designated for the hotel guests along with a beach bar and swimming pool right on the beach. Not a bad set up. Between us and the beach was an 18 hole golf course which I never did end up golfing on. There were two hotels on each side of us along the beach. There was a nice little path that connected all the hotels to each that you could walk along and if you wanted to explore each other’s restaurants and bar. But not without going having someone check your bags that you were carrying before stepping foot on the hotel site. Secerity there was...let’s just say... heighten. On one of the last days we were there, we headed to the Hyatt to explore a bit and had one of those guys jokingly ask us if we had any bombs in our bags. Ah...nope...but glad you’re here checking for that. It was funny because literally upon arriving people were asking us where we were from and guessed that we were Swedish or German by the looks. Nope Canadian, that pretty much shocked them all and we were told that we were the first Canadian’s to come through that hotel, so that was kind of neat. Not to mention word got around and every time someone on the staff saw us, they would be like “Canada!” Yep that’s us.

Our hotel

View from our deck

Looking back up at our hotel from the beach, with golf course in front

A typically day for us pretty much had us at the beach the whole day! And it looked kind of like this...

The beach!

The beach under the hot sun!

Beach Bums!

We did manage to take a couple of trips though throughout the week. The first one we did was a shopping trip to Dahab, a city about 2 hours away. It was a really pretty drive going right along the coast. Along the drive you could see some abandoned hotels, or more like unfinished hotels in prime locations on the beach. I was wondering at the start why there were no workers there finishing them up as it was a week day. Come to find out that I guess some business owners took out loans for the construction of the hotels, started going on them and then once got the loan fled to Jordan. Interesting business strategy. Also there were about 3 to four stop checks along the way to Dahab. We would be in the middle of nowhere rounding a corner and all of sudden there would be a couple of little huts and blockades where we would have to stop and the bus driver would have to show the police his permits of some sort. The city of Dahab was fairly touristy with a ton of knick knack type shops but Chelsa enjoyed her time bartering down the guy in the store for a pair of shoes from $100 to $15. Shopping is quite the process.

Looking out the bus at one of the check points along the way

Dahab

Where do I start?

One of the highlights of the trip for me was taking our day long sail boat snorking cruise. We boarded this sail boat and headed off to two different snorkelling spots as well as being able to tour Pharroh’s island with the ruins of some Medieval castle. Our first snorkling spot was just off the coast of the main land. I tried to stay close with our tour guide in the water as he knew where all the good spots were. It was pretty awesome as many of you can attest to. I haven’t been snorkling since I was little in Hawaii and forgot how awesome it really was. But there was an interesting spin on the first leg of our trip. While I was swimming around once in awhile I would get a little bit of a sting on my arms and legs. The first one I got I pretty much jumped and got a mouth full of water thinking I had just been stung by a jellyfish. Come to find out after once we were sailing to Pharroh’s island that what was stinging me was something called Slep. They were longer string like things that were maybe a little thinner than spaghetti. So at the second spot there weren’t as many and I stayed clear of the ones I saw. Although I was a little surprised that they didn’t warn us about them the first time as us land folks don’t really know what we’re getting into. Pharroh’s island was the next stop and probably the better spot for snorkling. The island and ruins was pretty interesting but the tour guide that was there had a horrible accent and I really could not understand a word he said, so Chelsa and I did most of the exploring on our own. We were served lunch on the boat which was much better than the hotel food and on the way back they were able to put of the sails for awhile which was so relaxing!

Our sail boat

Pharroh's Island...second snorkel spot

Looking out from the ruins

Hotties again!

Our last big adventure was of course a camel ride. I had to take one of these before I left. We signed up to do a camel ride and supper with the Native Bedouin people. This was some adventure! Started off with getting on the bus and the introductions of the staff on board, this is Joe the tour guide, Tom the bus driver and Sam the body guard. Umm...the what? Okay should we be worried? We head off to the small town of to go where the Bedouin people live and where we will be taking the camel ride. Driving through the area is was probably comparable to a really really poor reserve in Saskatchewan. There were goats and chickens running wild and the poverity of it was evident. Our bus drives up to the coast, like literally and we get off and sit down under this tent to enjoy some tea before our camel ride. In the back part of it there are about 15 or so girls and women who have set out towels with hand made jewlery and also some wood carved camels (I of course bought one). I think the only English words they knew were “buy from me!” I shopped around a bit and ended up getting a cheap neckless and those wood carved camels. I went to take a picture at the end of some of the girls and one of them covered her face as she was made at me for not buying from her. I laughed aloud at that, nice one.

The town we were in...humm...

The little girl I bought my neckless from

So next up was the whole camel ride, wow was this an experience and a half. We went down the coast and turned the corner when there must of been about 20 or more boys and men with camels. Quite a chaotic seen as they our tour guide and kind of the chief Bedouin guy were trying to figure out what camels to use and who to put them with. Chelsa and I kind of stood back and watched the whole scene go down taking a bunch of pictures and videotaping the madness. It’s pretty much a collection of the the town folk and their camels to do this communal camel ride. I’m not sure how the whole money situation works, but it must somehow. I was happy with my guide as he looked to be about low twenties in age compared to the eight year olds that were leading some of the other tourists. Chelsa and I got on some of the biggest camels so we were in the front most of the time walking along the coast line. We stopped along the way to let the camels eat, or more so for us tourists to take a break from riding them. I thought it would be much like a horse. Ah...nope not so much, I was pretty sore the next day from my trek. Chelsa and I were stationed a little bit away from the group and had already gotten down from our camels and were taken pictures when all of sudden I hear a lady screaming “get me down from this camel!” Oh okay she must really need a break from the ride. Actually that was not the case. She was wife of the man who had just falling off the camel. I guess the camel was starting to sit down and if you know camels then know that their front two legs bend down and then their back ones. Well that started to happen and his saddle came lose in which case he just fell head over tea kettle. Ended up cutting his head and getting semi knocked out. I didn’t see this all happen, but did see him ride away in the back of a truck to the hospital. I think the whole group was a little shook up after that and many people decided to walk back. Chelsa and I went back to our camels and started checking the saddle to make sure all was tight. After we had dismounted our camel and were walking back to our camp for supper, I heard a bunch of commotion and looked back to see a couple of camels racing towards the couple of us that were walking back together. Well I pretty much jumped into the ditch with one leap to miss the herd of camels coming our direction. One of the little kids let go of his camel and caused a couple of them to run and fight/play with each other. So all in all it was a great way to end the trip on a camel right keeping us on our toes.

And the chaos begins...

The coast line where we walked with our camels

My camel

View from atop a camel

One of the guides

I am Alive!

For those of you who still might be reading my blog, I just want to let you know that I am alive and doing well. I've just been a little busy as of late and have not been keeping the blog site up to date. After my last championship post, Czech Championships that's right! Chelsa and I spent two days in Prague and then headed off to Egypt for a week for a little fun in the sun, then I came back to Prague, headed home pretty much right after and started working construction again. That pretty much consumed my life through the rest of April and the start of May, as well as training for hockey and trying to hang out with my friends in Regina. I also was able to get away for about five days in May to go down to Madison for my old assistant coaches wedding. But I'll write more about that later. Then on June 5th I flew back to Prague and from there went with my team to Croatia for a week long dry land training camp. I'm currently still am in Prague and will by flying home on the 17th of June. But no worries I have ditched out on the idea of blogging about my trip to Egypt and everything else. Stay tuned and I'll hopefully have pictures of that up along with stories to go along in a couple of days. Thanks for the patience and I'll be more on top of things in the future!

Champions Once Again!

Two Saturday’s ago are team played the final game of the season and were crowned Champions of the Czech league that we play in. Of course it was anti climatic like European league that we were in with the fact that there were no playoffs. The play off at the end of the year consists of a round robin play down and the team with the most wins coming out as champions, so of course that was it. We did get some pretty nice medals and a great team party afterwards to celebrate the win and the season.

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve decided to sign on again and will be playing another season here for Slavia Praha. Chelsa has decided to come back for another year but will be moving back to Regina and starting her career. But we will have two new Canadians with my friend Jeni Creary coming to play along with Chelsa’s friend Arial Shautty (not sure on the spelling of her name). So with those two new players we should be a stronger team. Here are some pics from our celebrations...


The Team


Canadian Girls - gotta love the Championship hats


Party afterwards sporting the championship Ts