Left out of Amarillo with Mom, Dad, Monte, Kristen, and Ted seeing me off.  It was pretty hard so leave but very exciting.  The flight to Dallas was easy then a two hour layover with just enough time to get some Cowboys gear to bring to the guys here and meet two girls from University of Dallas. 

 

Flight from Dallas to London was just about miserable.  Had a 3 year old kid behind me that kicked my seat, screamed, cried, and played with the overhead lights for 9 straight hours.  We flew up through Missouri and up through eastern Canada towards Greenland.  About the time we got to Greenland I had had enough and got out of my seat and stood at the back of the plane with a lady from Plano and a man from Scotland.  We just chatted about random stuff till our plane ride turned into a roller coaster ride.  Just south of Greenland we hit some of the worst turbulance that i could ever imagine on a plane.  It was pretty fun though!  Finally landed in London and had to change airports.  So I ran into a guy named Drew and we navigated through Heathrow airport with the two girls from UofD.  We finally got on a shuttle that took two hours.  Spent the time talking to one of the girls from UofD name Lane, she was headed to Rome for a few weeks. She was really cool and we had quite a bit in common. 

 

Finally got to Gastwick (airport), I said my goodbyes to drew and the girls and got on my plane to Helsinki, Finland!  The nerves started to get me now, because I had just said goodbye to the last Texas people I would see for 3 months. 

 

I was absolutely exhausted by this point because it was about 4 a.m. Texas time and I hadnt slept a wink.  I decided to try and doze off but about the time I did we were making our decent towards Helsinki!

 

We landed and I walked right through customs with no questions asked. Tatu and Juha (ill write more about them later) were there waiting for me.  We got into Juha's car and headed towards Kouvola.  As you can tell the landscape here is a lot like Colorado or North Georgia.  Lots of trees and very very green.  There is water everywhere (somewhere around 70,000 lakes).  We arrive in Kouvola around 7:30 and I headed straight to practice!