As many of you know, or for those who don't, I believe that the most comfortable combination of footwear is wearing socks with my Nike flops. Their black in color with a giant white nike swoosh across the wide slip-in strap over the end of my foot....if you know me, you have definitely seen me in these with and without socks. You can wear them with black socks, white socks, and grey socks...these 3 choices can be ultimately used to "accessorize" the rest of your outfit (white socks to match your white shirt, black to match the black sandel and the black shorts you're wearing, white and grey go really well with navy blue shorts, and all 3 colors of socks obviously go well with black shorts). I have to give proper credit to the man that turned me on to this brilliant use and style of wearing slip-on sandels, Mikey A. Reeves. A man I love, and a man I have always looked up to for outlooks on life....so why would I change my style moving to a different country for a summer? I wouldn't in fact, I'm trying to spread this style across the world!
My first shock to the european public was on my way to practice...one of my teammates comes up to me and asks, "James, why are you wearing socks with sandels?", I replied with, "Bro, this the bee's knee's and the cat's pajamas where I come from..." "He then replied with, "You know guys are talking about it and making fun of you for it," I answered, "Ask me if I care bro?" JUMP ON OR STEP OFF, because if you're reading this you have a chance to join the revolution....and honestly, I always see the european tourists with dress socks and double strapped sandels, ok, this is outta control and straight nerdy if you ask me! Mike, myself and whoever else where's nike flops with socks are past this type of nonsense, so again I say, JUMP ON OR STEP OFF!
My second encounter was in Munich, Germany. Andrew and I had just arrived after a very long train ride from Bern, Switzerland and were looking to hit up some beer gardens and relax for a while that night. I had been wearing my shoes all day long, so whats the next move to get as comfortable as possible? My nike socks and nike flops...we're in the heart of Munich taking pictures and drinking beer and all of a sudden this small crew of hammered Brits comes rolling through and starts screaming at me "socks and flops! socks and flops! yeah! socks and flops!" in the most drunk, loud english accent you could ever imagine....Andrew and myself immediately start bustin up laughing and look around and everyone in the entire Munich square is looking at me, and looking at my socks and flops, then back to me, and back down to my socks and flops, meanwhile Andrew is now almost to tears he's laughing so hard....
Moral of this story is obviously start wearing socks and flops; when you're just starting out feel free to contact me via facebook or email (perezjr5@gmail.com) on what combos work.....Become part of the revolution....
Perez....out
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Suck It Poseidon, Sun's Out Gun's Out
As you know, our trip has had its ups and downs...so to totally relax and chill for a whole day, we decided to make a beach trip for one of our days here in Pisa, Italy. No stressing about trains, where we should go, no hiking all around towns look for tourist attractions, JUST CHILLIN. Woke up around 10 (slept like a champ) and headed for the market to get some food for the day. At this point, it's 95 degrees and Andrew and I are fiending to take our packs off and dive into the lovely Mediterranean. We grabbed some bread, meat and cheese from the local market (typical Andrew and James traveling meal), found the bus that would take us to the beach and we were set! Oh wait, this is Europe and backpackers like Andrew and I are never set, safe, or in the clear...naturally, it gets better.
We got to the beach entrance and started making our trek to find our spot for the day...we looked to our left and found about 200 empty lounge chairs on the beach, oh, did I mention they had umbrellas? SPECIAL...we took off our 605 pound backpacks and set-up shot. Little did we know, you had to pay to be there, about 20 euros, and 4 euros for each of us to just be on the beach! Highway robbery as Andrew would say. So we moved and set-up our own spot so things were good...got into our monkey line to put our sun screen on, you know, all those discovery channel shows where you see the mom and her kids sit one in front of the other and they pick and eat lice off each others head and back, thats how Andrew and I put our sunscreen on....IT'S TIME TO TAKE ON THE WAVES!
Being born and raised in California, you've grown up near or on a beach, and know what to do with or without a boogie board or surfboard...you body surf! we body surfed for about a total of 5 hours, with breaks in between. We were tackling, punching, head butting, and gettin rowdy in the waves, seriously, just what we needed. Every time we rode a wave or ducked under a big wave we would screamed at Poseidon to keep 'em coming. I think he heard us and got mad, so he sent a sea urchant, probably one of his little messengers to let me know it wasn't my ocean...
So I'm walking out of the water and I step on this thing and it sticks me with about 8 or 9 little stingers (I don't knwo what you call them) but who cares!!!! they freakin hurt!
Andrew: "Oh, dude are you ok?"
Me: "I don't know, I think I stepped on something sharp..."
Andrew: "Let me see, oh gosh, dude you got stung by a sea urchant!!!"
Me: "Is this bad? Is this bad?"
Things started to spin and go into slow motion, everyone's voice went into the deep slow motion tone....
Me: "Wait, wait, wait, is this bad?"
Andrew: "Ya dude, you got freakin stingers in your foot!"
Me: "You're crazy...I like you...but you're crazy"
I felt myself fall onto the sand and woke up about an hour later......surrounded by about 5 naked italian babes telling me I should move to Italy forever, I said sure....
Sorry, I could not resist using one of my favorite Old School scenes....No, what really happened was.....
"dude, you have to pee on it and then we can get them out"
"Bro, I'm not peeing on my foot with everyone watching...here take my toe nail clippers and try and get them out..."
I tell ya, if the whole MBA thing doesn't work out, Andrew might just want to follow his girlfriend to medical school, because you my friend have a future in on site surgeries! I'd be dead if it wasn't for this man....oh and suck it Poseidon!
Cali Boys: 1000 (for 9 stingers pulled out and 991 waves shredded today)
Poseidon: 0
Be putting the good vibes out for us to make it out of Italy, into Switzerland and through Germany back to Finland!!!
We got to the beach entrance and started making our trek to find our spot for the day...we looked to our left and found about 200 empty lounge chairs on the beach, oh, did I mention they had umbrellas? SPECIAL...we took off our 605 pound backpacks and set-up shot. Little did we know, you had to pay to be there, about 20 euros, and 4 euros for each of us to just be on the beach! Highway robbery as Andrew would say. So we moved and set-up our own spot so things were good...got into our monkey line to put our sun screen on, you know, all those discovery channel shows where you see the mom and her kids sit one in front of the other and they pick and eat lice off each others head and back, thats how Andrew and I put our sunscreen on....IT'S TIME TO TAKE ON THE WAVES!
Being born and raised in California, you've grown up near or on a beach, and know what to do with or without a boogie board or surfboard...you body surf! we body surfed for about a total of 5 hours, with breaks in between. We were tackling, punching, head butting, and gettin rowdy in the waves, seriously, just what we needed. Every time we rode a wave or ducked under a big wave we would screamed at Poseidon to keep 'em coming. I think he heard us and got mad, so he sent a sea urchant, probably one of his little messengers to let me know it wasn't my ocean...
So I'm walking out of the water and I step on this thing and it sticks me with about 8 or 9 little stingers (I don't knwo what you call them) but who cares!!!! they freakin hurt!
Andrew: "Oh, dude are you ok?"
Me: "I don't know, I think I stepped on something sharp..."
Andrew: "Let me see, oh gosh, dude you got stung by a sea urchant!!!"
Me: "Is this bad? Is this bad?"
Things started to spin and go into slow motion, everyone's voice went into the deep slow motion tone....
Me: "Wait, wait, wait, is this bad?"
Andrew: "Ya dude, you got freakin stingers in your foot!"
Me: "You're crazy...I like you...but you're crazy"
I felt myself fall onto the sand and woke up about an hour later......surrounded by about 5 naked italian babes telling me I should move to Italy forever, I said sure....
Sorry, I could not resist using one of my favorite Old School scenes....No, what really happened was.....
"dude, you have to pee on it and then we can get them out"
"Bro, I'm not peeing on my foot with everyone watching...here take my toe nail clippers and try and get them out..."
I tell ya, if the whole MBA thing doesn't work out, Andrew might just want to follow his girlfriend to medical school, because you my friend have a future in on site surgeries! I'd be dead if it wasn't for this man....oh and suck it Poseidon!
Cali Boys: 1000 (for 9 stingers pulled out and 991 waves shredded today)
Poseidon: 0
Be putting the good vibes out for us to make it out of Italy, into Switzerland and through Germany back to Finland!!!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
France, and swimming in my underpants...
What it do?! What it don't?!
Just a quick update from the Andrew and James Europe Tour! Things have been really going our way so far....NOT! Borat? Anyone? We have definitely been making the best of what we've been dealt. We're having a blast! Meeting some crazy people that have just made us think what a small world we live in.
All along our backpacking trip, we've hit some bumps, but that's to be expected and they brought alot of humor to our trip, which we proably don't need anymore...that would be dangerous. Paris was amazing, highly recommend it to anyone who wants to make a romatnice getaway and see some incredible sights! Of course, my date was and is Andrew, and it's actually been pretty romantic :) What's the first thing you think of when you think about Paris? "I don't know Lloyd, the French are assholes..." No, they're cool, but the Eiffel Tower, especially with my date, Andy Pants, was our first priority of seeing. Where the train station is in comparison to the Eiffel Tower is incredibley inconvenient but it worked out because we got to see a bunch of other amazing sights on the way; The Louvre, Notre Dame, The Arc de Triumph...I'm really getting side tracked, Andrew and I enjoyed a bottle of champagne, a bottle of wine and two beers all for 25 euro with the illuminated Eiffel Tower towering over us....SPECIAL.
But on to more important things, my underpants....our overnight train from Paris to Venice that we were supposed to be on got over-booked by the railways and so we had to find an alternate round down to Italy. Arnaud!!!! Here we come!!!! If any of you reading this were around my junior year at Willamette, you should have remembered a certsain French-exchange player named Arnuad Vidaller; a.k.a the man! Our atlernate route took us down to Montpellier to Monte Carlo to Nice. Well, Arnuad was not home in Montpellier, but his best friend Dario was, and another awesome dude to put into the good dudes collection for Andrew and James...he showed us around, and was extremely helpful. After a great night in Montpellier we made it to Nice to find that all the hostel's and most of the hotels were full and/or out of our price range....what to do what to do.....oh, let's go swimming at 1:30am in the northern part of the Medditeranean and then sleep on the beach! yay! We stripped down into the only bathing suit we had (Champion boxer briefs) and jumped in. It was incredible, the water was warm, clear and blue. After swimming we sent up our spot on the oh so comfortable rock beach :( and tried to fall asleep. There were bogies all over the place! "Bogies" as we call them, are potential threats of stealings or muggings that could be hamrful to our two-man regiment. Once we secured the area, we started to fall asleep, I woke up about an hour later to my entire body shivering from the cold wind of the coast. I looked over at Andrew and he was doing the same thing...PLAN B; find some cardboard for a bed and find a park....we did, and I will never be more grateful for any bed than the one I slept on the next night. Our neighbors in the park were not helpful either, always asking us for money, food, and drugs....Bro! we don't have nay of those! That's why we're hear sleeping next to you! "Our neighbors aren't very friendly dude," I said as I nudged Andrew "Ya, that's because our "neighbors" James, are bums!". It was quite the experience....
The next day, we got up around 7am, got some breakfast, got back into our underwear and wnet to the beach fro about 4 hours until our next train from Nice to Milan, Italy. I will remember this trip for the rest of my life, and I will never need a sleeping pill or warm milk to put me to sleep for the rest of my life, thinking about the night sleeping on the rockiest beach in the world, and then finishing the night in a park on cardboard will do just the trick....
PEACE!
Just a quick update from the Andrew and James Europe Tour! Things have been really going our way so far....NOT! Borat? Anyone? We have definitely been making the best of what we've been dealt. We're having a blast! Meeting some crazy people that have just made us think what a small world we live in.
All along our backpacking trip, we've hit some bumps, but that's to be expected and they brought alot of humor to our trip, which we proably don't need anymore...that would be dangerous. Paris was amazing, highly recommend it to anyone who wants to make a romatnice getaway and see some incredible sights! Of course, my date was and is Andrew, and it's actually been pretty romantic :) What's the first thing you think of when you think about Paris? "I don't know Lloyd, the French are assholes..." No, they're cool, but the Eiffel Tower, especially with my date, Andy Pants, was our first priority of seeing. Where the train station is in comparison to the Eiffel Tower is incredibley inconvenient but it worked out because we got to see a bunch of other amazing sights on the way; The Louvre, Notre Dame, The Arc de Triumph...I'm really getting side tracked, Andrew and I enjoyed a bottle of champagne, a bottle of wine and two beers all for 25 euro with the illuminated Eiffel Tower towering over us....SPECIAL.
But on to more important things, my underpants....our overnight train from Paris to Venice that we were supposed to be on got over-booked by the railways and so we had to find an alternate round down to Italy. Arnaud!!!! Here we come!!!! If any of you reading this were around my junior year at Willamette, you should have remembered a certsain French-exchange player named Arnuad Vidaller; a.k.a the man! Our atlernate route took us down to Montpellier to Monte Carlo to Nice. Well, Arnuad was not home in Montpellier, but his best friend Dario was, and another awesome dude to put into the good dudes collection for Andrew and James...he showed us around, and was extremely helpful. After a great night in Montpellier we made it to Nice to find that all the hostel's and most of the hotels were full and/or out of our price range....what to do what to do.....oh, let's go swimming at 1:30am in the northern part of the Medditeranean and then sleep on the beach! yay! We stripped down into the only bathing suit we had (Champion boxer briefs) and jumped in. It was incredible, the water was warm, clear and blue. After swimming we sent up our spot on the oh so comfortable rock beach :( and tried to fall asleep. There were bogies all over the place! "Bogies" as we call them, are potential threats of stealings or muggings that could be hamrful to our two-man regiment. Once we secured the area, we started to fall asleep, I woke up about an hour later to my entire body shivering from the cold wind of the coast. I looked over at Andrew and he was doing the same thing...PLAN B; find some cardboard for a bed and find a park....we did, and I will never be more grateful for any bed than the one I slept on the next night. Our neighbors in the park were not helpful either, always asking us for money, food, and drugs....Bro! we don't have nay of those! That's why we're hear sleeping next to you! "Our neighbors aren't very friendly dude," I said as I nudged Andrew "Ya, that's because our "neighbors" James, are bums!". It was quite the experience....
The next day, we got up around 7am, got some breakfast, got back into our underwear and wnet to the beach fro about 4 hours until our next train from Nice to Milan, Italy. I will remember this trip for the rest of my life, and I will never need a sleeping pill or warm milk to put me to sleep for the rest of my life, thinking about the night sleeping on the rockiest beach in the world, and then finishing the night in a park on cardboard will do just the trick....
PEACE!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Andrew and James Do Southern Europe
It has been brought to my attention that blogs I write are far more important to a certain someone (I'm not going to name any names but HIS name starts with an "A" and ends in "ndrew Ross"), than our actual relationship...the only words he says to me morning, noon, and night are "hey dude, I need a blog post out of you..." I reply with "Oh, good morning sunshine! How are you?"...very one sided friendship if you ask me...but who's complaining??
I don't write these blogs for the man at the top reaping all of the benefits for my genious writing, exploiting my talent as a writer, and just throwing my friendship away like a popsicle stick....haha I'm just kidding....but seriously, these blogs are for you, my loyal followers, and I apologize for not being as consistent, there are (believe it or not) many distractions that have to do with babes, hot weather, babes, beaches, football, babes, and football...hopefully you'll understand and forgive me.
Andrew (the guy who has NOT been mentioned at all in this blog so far) and I have about 10 days off from practice and games with the Jaguaarit starting this sunday after our game against the Crocs, and we're heading south for the summer? thats not right...SOUTHERN EUROPE HERE WE COME!
Starting to the think about where we wanted to go was the easy part...we heard good things about Eurail so we bought a 5 country access rail pass and each picked some countries we wanted to visit....well, the really cool thing about Eurail is that you pay alot of money for this pass (which supposedly gives you access to any rail in the countries you specified when you bought it) and then you have to pay each time you get on a train for a seat reservation, which can be anywhere from 5 to 15 euro for a seat, great deal right?! WRONG, in my opinion, why should we pay all this money to get "access" to the trains (whatever that means) and have to pay more to actually ride them..."Oh look honey, with this pass we get to get on the train and walk around in it, oooooohhhhhh look at the nice seats! but if we actually want to ride it somewhere, say OUR VACATION SPOT we have to pay more, sounds like a great deal to me!" If you marry this man or women, don't come running to me, I've warned you... In all honesty Eurail seems like a pretty legit way to travel around Europe for a week and a half, but I guess we'll see!
Andrew and I decided on Germany, France, Italy, Greece, and Switzerland, which seem like awesome places to visit but planning out our trip, however, was not so awesome...Train by train, hostel by hostel, what time the train leaves, the time it arrives at our destination, how many strangers we want to sleep with for a night (which has been anywhere from 4 to 20..."cozy, if you're Hannibal Lector") so you know we're in for a good time...Needless to say I have a map my Dad gave me of Central and Southern Europe marked up with pen to all the cities and routes we're taking, not to mention about 3 pieces of paper covered back to front with Hostel reservations, Train times, Train numbers, directions to Train stations, where I'm going to eat, sleep and poop! And I gotta tell ya, I feel hung over from all of this planning...if only I had all the money in the world...
In summary, one of my best friends and I get to travel around Europe for 10 days!!! I can't wait! I knwo there will be some kinks in our itinerary, and stuff is going to get crazy and wild, but BRING.....IT.....ON!!!!!!!!!! Frankfurt (Germany), Paris (France), Venice (Italy), Rome (Italy), Pisa (Italy), Bern (Switzerland), back up to Munich (Germany) and end it in Bremen where our plane takes off back to Finland. Notice how Greece, my number 1 choice in countries to visit is not on there...well, we found out that the most "efficient" way to get there would be to take a ferry from Bari (Italy) to Patras (Greece), but the oh so efficient ferry (recommended by Eurail) takes about 15 hours one way....pretty damn efficient if you ask me....NOT! So, unfortunately we had to give the ol' axe to Leanitus and my fellow Spartans, I will get to you some day....Ladies, if you plan on proposing to me (which Im not opposed to role reversal) our honeymoon spot will most likely be some tropical island or Greece....FYI.
Til my next post which will be
I don't write these blogs for the man at the top reaping all of the benefits for my genious writing, exploiting my talent as a writer, and just throwing my friendship away like a popsicle stick....haha I'm just kidding....but seriously, these blogs are for you, my loyal followers, and I apologize for not being as consistent, there are (believe it or not) many distractions that have to do with babes, hot weather, babes, beaches, football, babes, and football...hopefully you'll understand and forgive me.
Andrew (the guy who has NOT been mentioned at all in this blog so far) and I have about 10 days off from practice and games with the Jaguaarit starting this sunday after our game against the Crocs, and we're heading south for the summer? thats not right...SOUTHERN EUROPE HERE WE COME!
Starting to the think about where we wanted to go was the easy part...we heard good things about Eurail so we bought a 5 country access rail pass and each picked some countries we wanted to visit....well, the really cool thing about Eurail is that you pay alot of money for this pass (which supposedly gives you access to any rail in the countries you specified when you bought it) and then you have to pay each time you get on a train for a seat reservation, which can be anywhere from 5 to 15 euro for a seat, great deal right?! WRONG, in my opinion, why should we pay all this money to get "access" to the trains (whatever that means) and have to pay more to actually ride them..."Oh look honey, with this pass we get to get on the train and walk around in it, oooooohhhhhh look at the nice seats! but if we actually want to ride it somewhere, say OUR VACATION SPOT we have to pay more, sounds like a great deal to me!" If you marry this man or women, don't come running to me, I've warned you... In all honesty Eurail seems like a pretty legit way to travel around Europe for a week and a half, but I guess we'll see!
Andrew and I decided on Germany, France, Italy, Greece, and Switzerland, which seem like awesome places to visit but planning out our trip, however, was not so awesome...Train by train, hostel by hostel, what time the train leaves, the time it arrives at our destination, how many strangers we want to sleep with for a night (which has been anywhere from 4 to 20..."cozy, if you're Hannibal Lector") so you know we're in for a good time...Needless to say I have a map my Dad gave me of Central and Southern Europe marked up with pen to all the cities and routes we're taking, not to mention about 3 pieces of paper covered back to front with Hostel reservations, Train times, Train numbers, directions to Train stations, where I'm going to eat, sleep and poop! And I gotta tell ya, I feel hung over from all of this planning...if only I had all the money in the world...
In summary, one of my best friends and I get to travel around Europe for 10 days!!! I can't wait! I knwo there will be some kinks in our itinerary, and stuff is going to get crazy and wild, but BRING.....IT.....ON!!!!!!!!!! Frankfurt (Germany), Paris (France), Venice (Italy), Rome (Italy), Pisa (Italy), Bern (Switzerland), back up to Munich (Germany) and end it in Bremen where our plane takes off back to Finland. Notice how Greece, my number 1 choice in countries to visit is not on there...well, we found out that the most "efficient" way to get there would be to take a ferry from Bari (Italy) to Patras (Greece), but the oh so efficient ferry (recommended by Eurail) takes about 15 hours one way....pretty damn efficient if you ask me....NOT! So, unfortunately we had to give the ol' axe to Leanitus and my fellow Spartans, I will get to you some day....Ladies, if you plan on proposing to me (which Im not opposed to role reversal) our honeymoon spot will most likely be some tropical island or Greece....FYI.
Til my next post which will be
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Im in Lithuania-ville and the Drunk Taxi Driver is the mayor!
Ah yes, one of my favorite quotes... an Ace Ventura quote from Ace Ventura Pet Detective. He is by far one of my favorite people in the whole wide world and I quote him constantly, just ask Andrew and Lukkes...I felt that I needed to title this blog with a little humor in a tribute to our quest through Lithuania which was extremely comical...I can say that now because its over, but it was quite terrifying. Mom, you are always telling me to make good choices and I made an innocent choice that good have turned out very very very badly for me and my boys...
In Kaunas, Lithuania they have what they call "Micro Buses". Basically, they have taken an old minivan, completely gutted it out and put 3 or 4 rows of metal seats in the back and called a taxi. It only costs 2.50 Lahti (which is the currency in Lithuania) and you can go where ever you want. We flagged down this "Micro Bus" and handed the man our money and sat in the back...first off, the people of beautiful Kaunas do not speak a lick of english, and of course he asked us in Lithuanian where we wanted to go? I think? or so thats what we thought, we said "Mega," which is this big famous mall jsut outside of downtown (ya it was raining cats and dogs, and we figured we could do some shopping for the relatives...ya you're welcome). He surprisingly understood us and we were off!
And I do mean off! We were swriving through traffic and going around 80 km/hr through downtown...Im thinking, did we get in the wrong Micro Bus? you bet we did...It didn't take long until my wondering, curious eyes, fell upon a half empty bottle of liquor resting in the door pocket of the drivers door....uh oh. I quickly nudged Lukkes and pointed to the bottle...He looked at me and then looked at Andrew and I said, "Hang on boys! It's going to be a bumpy ride..."
After running at least 3 red lights, cutting 7 people off, almost running over poor little grannie in her babooshka, and seriously 3 minutes later...we arrived at our destination.
Once we had conluded our shopping (you're welcome again whoever you are...) we walked outside and saw a Micro Bus in the distance, we flagged it down deciding to give this type of transportation another shot and who do you think the driver was?
Im here and healthy and pumped for the Roosters game this Sunday (THE 4TH OF JULY!!!) so you can make your own conclusions...
Perez....OUT!
In Kaunas, Lithuania they have what they call "Micro Buses". Basically, they have taken an old minivan, completely gutted it out and put 3 or 4 rows of metal seats in the back and called a taxi. It only costs 2.50 Lahti (which is the currency in Lithuania) and you can go where ever you want. We flagged down this "Micro Bus" and handed the man our money and sat in the back...first off, the people of beautiful Kaunas do not speak a lick of english, and of course he asked us in Lithuanian where we wanted to go? I think? or so thats what we thought, we said "Mega," which is this big famous mall jsut outside of downtown (ya it was raining cats and dogs, and we figured we could do some shopping for the relatives...ya you're welcome). He surprisingly understood us and we were off!
And I do mean off! We were swriving through traffic and going around 80 km/hr through downtown...Im thinking, did we get in the wrong Micro Bus? you bet we did...It didn't take long until my wondering, curious eyes, fell upon a half empty bottle of liquor resting in the door pocket of the drivers door....uh oh. I quickly nudged Lukkes and pointed to the bottle...He looked at me and then looked at Andrew and I said, "Hang on boys! It's going to be a bumpy ride..."
After running at least 3 red lights, cutting 7 people off, almost running over poor little grannie in her babooshka, and seriously 3 minutes later...we arrived at our destination.
Once we had conluded our shopping (you're welcome again whoever you are...) we walked outside and saw a Micro Bus in the distance, we flagged it down deciding to give this type of transportation another shot and who do you think the driver was?
Im here and healthy and pumped for the Roosters game this Sunday (THE 4TH OF JULY!!!) so you can make your own conclusions...
Perez....OUT!
Saturday, June 19, 2010
"Everytime I Come Around Your City Bling Bling"
I'm sorry I have not been posting so frequently, I've been busy with new additions to my life. Welcome to another adventure in the life of James in Finland, I would like to tell you about the newest change in my life...(mom don't kill me) I recently pierced both my ears with 14 carrot diamond earings...just kidding! there not 14 carrot... but seriously, I did pierce them, with something a bit smaller. One day on our adventures through downtown Jyvaskyla, I decided that I was finally going to get my ears pierced...call me crazy! but I did it. We went to this little shop in the middle of the downtown mall which consisted of 1 small curtain (with what looked like a dentist chair behind it) and 2 employees (whom were pierced from head to toe), I said, "This looks promising,". We asked the man (pierced from head to toe) how much it would cost to get both my ear's pierced, he said "30 euro, and what kind of earing would you like in them?", he pointed to 2 possibilities, I turned to Andrew, Luke, and Taylor (Lukkes's girlfriend) and said, "Wow, I have a lot of choices!" the two choices were a small pair of cubic circonium earings? And a pair of metal balls, (I don't want to be a punk rocker) "I'll take the two diamond ones please,". He then took me to the dentist chair behind the single curtain (I HATE THE DENTIST) and gave me a cleaning and care brochure for my new investments, it was all in Finnish, WONDERFUL! I'm very grateful, however, that he spoke pretty good english and so he explained MOST of what I needed to know...I guess. So he marked my ears up with a marker and pierced them, pretty simple procedure, until he rattles me by asking (with a straight face and in all seriousness) if I wanted my nipples pierced. "Um.." I replied, "Maybe next time?". Are you kidding me???? Who do you take me for???
I was lookin good sportin my new "bling" as we youngsters call it, smooth sailing from here! Or so I thought....
As most of you may know, if you have your ears pierced and you play sports most of the time you need to tape them up (especially if you play a sport with a helmet). Well, James did not really think about that or consider that "hey, maybe I play a sport that uses helmets which are constantly coming on and off and mostly used as ramming devices to hurt other people...." my 2nd practice with them on, one of them came out and me, Taylor and my coach went on panic mode. Coach started with "that's not good" Taylor said "James! come here let me fix it" and I replied with "Am I going to die?". Neeedless to say when I took off my helmet the back of my left earing came off and out into the turf with it, never to be seen again. Taylor and my coach worked intently to tape the backside and the other ear for the rest of practice. The aftermath of this incident could not be more humiliating, I spent the last 2 DAYS with a large piece of black athletic tape covering most of my left ear and the entire team, city (and every girl in it) staring at me like I had just faught Mike Tyson and was about to win until he bit my ear off...thanks alot Mike....
Stay tuned for next weeks blog where I will dicuss more additions to my life along with the experience that comes with them....
Finballer 1
I was lookin good sportin my new "bling" as we youngsters call it, smooth sailing from here! Or so I thought....
As most of you may know, if you have your ears pierced and you play sports most of the time you need to tape them up (especially if you play a sport with a helmet). Well, James did not really think about that or consider that "hey, maybe I play a sport that uses helmets which are constantly coming on and off and mostly used as ramming devices to hurt other people...." my 2nd practice with them on, one of them came out and me, Taylor and my coach went on panic mode. Coach started with "that's not good" Taylor said "James! come here let me fix it" and I replied with "Am I going to die?". Neeedless to say when I took off my helmet the back of my left earing came off and out into the turf with it, never to be seen again. Taylor and my coach worked intently to tape the backside and the other ear for the rest of practice. The aftermath of this incident could not be more humiliating, I spent the last 2 DAYS with a large piece of black athletic tape covering most of my left ear and the entire team, city (and every girl in it) staring at me like I had just faught Mike Tyson and was about to win until he bit my ear off...thanks alot Mike....
Stay tuned for next weeks blog where I will dicuss more additions to my life along with the experience that comes with them....
Finballer 1
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
The Language Barrier
Obviously, learning the basics of Finnish communication are key in surviving in the great city of Jyvaskyla..."Moi," means hello and goodbye (kind of like aloha), "Kiitos" means thank you, "Si sincu sinun puhelinnumeron?" is just how you ask an extremely attractive bank teller for her phone number...we're ballin' at this point. We become a little rattled, however, when this extremely attractive bank teller asks "why?". "wait," I replied, "you're not even impressed with the fact that I asked you in your native language??? You're not even flattered??" I began to think this was a huge mistake, until she handed me my bank statement with her name and phone number and told me that I can call her anytime...the scoreboard reads: Team James 1, Finnish Guys 0.
If you're anything like me, you know the importance of "smack" talking or "slang", and if you ask me, these are both necessary on and off the field. Needless to say I learned some stuff...so I started using it in our 2nd game against the Butchers. One of the Butcher's players (a Finnish tackle that played 4 years at Nebraska and stands at a petite 6'7 330lbs)who I had know idea was Finnish, and figured he did not know what I was saying actually did. He then proceeded to take it upon himself (during one of my interception returns)to bench press me about 10 yards out of bounds...lesson learned. Now the scoreboard reads Team James: 1 Finnish Monster: 1
Until next time...
-FinBaller1
If you're anything like me, you know the importance of "smack" talking or "slang", and if you ask me, these are both necessary on and off the field. Needless to say I learned some stuff...so I started using it in our 2nd game against the Butchers. One of the Butcher's players (a Finnish tackle that played 4 years at Nebraska and stands at a petite 6'7 330lbs)who I had know idea was Finnish, and figured he did not know what I was saying actually did. He then proceeded to take it upon himself (during one of my interception returns)to bench press me about 10 yards out of bounds...lesson learned. Now the scoreboard reads Team James: 1 Finnish Monster: 1
Until next time...
-FinBaller1
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