So I came back to Norway, after a fantastic couple of days with my family in the village in West Cork where my Mum grew up. Just such solid people, and always such a shot of positive energy to be around all of them. I had a fantastic couple of days.
So back to Norway with an ankle that was still hurting a lot. I was up at 5am with my cousin Aisling driving me to my flight in Cork, and after sneaking past the RyanAir guard checking bag size, I was happily on my way to Dublin. The really exciting part was that I had 50 minutes from when my flight landed in Dublin to get on my flight to Oslo, and really it was nothing short of the travel miracle that one can expect when in my presence, that I actually made the flight. We landed, had to walk about 10 minutes to the baggage area, come back through passport checks and security and then I had to walk back exactly where I had come from. I made it with literally 3 minutes to spare. Amen.
I got into Oslo, and my ankle was hurting still, I was exhausted from the travel, and felt very doubtful about my ability to participate in the game against the top team in Norway, and probably one of the best in Europe, Stabekk, the following day. I slept for a bit, and then met up with my team that had travelled into Oslo and was staying at a hotel closeby. It was nice to get the chance to get to hang out with a couple of the girls, and really nice to talk to one of the other American girls about her experience here. I’d think if we compiled our stories, it would make for an entertaining read and probably make people question our sanity levels for doing this still.
Anyways, after my ankle felt like crap in warm up, I took off some of the tape I had on, and actually my ankle didnt hurt hardly at all. Which was a great thing since Stabekk has about 6 National Team starters from Norway, and 2 from Denmark. They are an amazing team. We played hard and defended well and kept them to 1-0 til the 90th minute when we were pushed up trying to get a result, and they put 2 in quickly at the end. I played center back, and really am enjoying the position. Its kind of cool to be at this as long as I am, but still feeling like I am learning so much.
Anyways, this ankle is making me grateful for every chance I have to be on the field, so even though we lost, and I am not a fan of losing, I was still grateful for how good it felt to play such quality competition for 90 minutes.
I will be in Oslo now for a few days doing my thesis, and then head down to Kristiansand in the middle of the week to get ready for a huge game for us in Trondheim next Saturday.
Essays on Life 