From Gold to Friday Night Lights to a New Path

TOP: At a park in downtown Stockholm. Sweet fountain. Next: Sweet hotel we went into - owned by someone famous... nice bathrooms too. Next2: Walking down one of the main streets. Next3: Sweet church. Next4: The best lunch ever - pesto, cheese and crusty bread. Next5: Dinner at the hotel where Canada and Austria are staying. Next6: OG and a sweet pic with her glasses. Next7: Team by the Baltic Sea. Next8: Sailboat and awesome view. Next9: Our hotel and the police who wanted to meet our team. Next10: Vaz and me after our adventure in the city on Day1. Next11: Brief photo of the stadium. Next12: Our bus... Next13: Me Next14: The birdseye view from the plane of Sweden. The ground looks like this too. Next15: The coaches... from front: Coach K, Coach Mac, Coach Stone Last: Me, OG and Knegi (Ningeee)

Top: A few players bought the coaches big flags that we all signed and gave them as a gift. Second: The O-LINE on Team USA. Bottom: TEAM USA before success period.

About Tarsha my roommate in Sweden So Tarsha is my roommate in Sweden and we spent today exploring Sweden in our free time. She's been awesome to get to know because she's very easygoing, she never complains and she's funny.... see below. Also, an invaluable asset to a roommate: she gets up to shut off the alarm clock and wakes me up too. (Note the TP in the window of this cafe. These two guys came in, ordered and had just been to the market (?) as they had two rolls of LAMBI in hand. She rocked the new Swedish word/brand all afternoon). Middle: Janae Dinner: Seafood, pasta & alfredo sauce Occupation: TSA - baggage screener - "You know how people say they've seen everything but the kitchen sink? Well, I've actually seen a kitchen sink." (and she means literally). Other top items include dead ducks in a cooler and a goat head in a trash bag in luggage. Travel advice from Tarsha: 1. Never put fragile stickers on your bag - it means throw it around some ...

We started the day around 6:30 and it really doesn't get dark here - a bit dark-er, but never dark like at home. We woke up at 3 a.m. to some people having a good time outside the window.... and so we had to be a bit warmer, and close the window to get some additional rest. We had practice on the game field at 9 a.m. - which was very cool. The turf is the old style that is hard and has the very supershort material. It was hard on my feet, but nice to get there and see things before our first game tomorrow at 1 p.m. We're going to start our pregame at 9 a.m. We have the afternoon off so Tarsha and I are going to head out and find something to eat and shop and check things out. A few photos to come....

I did fall asleep on the bus during success period - my first time to do it on the trip --- we are all mentally and physically exhausted from the trip, but what I heard of it needs to be expanded upon before I hit the hay. Coach Mac is one of the most inspirational people I've ever met, and he opened with the parable of the boy with the cross and expanded into words on the concept of "believe". We have to believe in ourselves to reach our goal on this trip. We have to believe in our teammates and the preparation we've had so far on this TEAM USA. We have to believe in our training - which connected for me to my last bad practice before we left. We have to believe in our sport - we had a chance to meet the head of the IFAF who told us that he was tired of hearing his male colleagues say the women's world championships couldn't/shouldn't/wouldn't be done, and he had to do it. We have to believe..... and it's hard at some times to do in spite of every...

Today was the experience I love about travel - feeling a bit out of your comfort zone - not knowing what to do or where to go and just having the opportunity to leave yourself open to new things. When we arrived, Heinrich our bus driver picked us up at ARD airport in Stockholm and gave us a partial tour - pointing out the royal palace and several monuments. Tiger Woods apparently has a flat on the most exclusive street here in Stockholm. We were dropped off at Zinkensdamm Stadium - which is about two blocks from our hotel - which is a boutique-style. It reminded my roommate Tarsha - O-LINE from Baltimore - of a college dorm room, but is pretty well appointed. I was surprised to have a towel warmer and a hair dryer... and there's free wi-fi in the lobby - though I won't be using as it cut me off this morning. The bed is pretty comfy so far and we have a tv which has been on for about five minutes (world cup now while I type). We dropped off our stuff in the room and learned on t...

and the internet experienced a technical difficulty and erased our entire trip (48 hours and counting on today it seems with the time change)... so I'm going to do my best to duplicate in several posts to not do the same. The day started at 5 a.m. with a wakeup call - not sure I would've heard it if not for my roommates. We boarded a bus in Round Rock for the Austin airport and met many nice people at the airport. I overheard one woman working security wishing she'd had the chance to play as she could run the 40 in under 5 seconds and might've been good. Those stories make me sad, but this experience is partly why we are here. It's so good that we've been focused on the fact that we aren't just doing this for ourselves and our iconic players that are hitting retirement soon, but we're doing it for every girl and every woman who wants this chance to compete on the world stage. The airport was pretty easy - we had lots of time - and I had the pleasure of s...