I have no idea what day it is...October?
I got up in Maryland at 0330 on Wednesday AM to finish packing the stuff I couldn't do the night before (clothes in washer, toiletries, food, etc) and headed to the airport. I got there later than I had planned, and had some trouble finding my terminal to check in because my tickets said British Airways, but it turned out the flight was operated by American Airlines. After I got that sorted, I headed to security and of the 2 possible lines, I picked the wrong one. They were using a new type of baggage scanner, but instead of being faster, it was much slower as about 7/10 bags scanned needed to be opened and have the contents scanned again one piece at a time by hand, which was causing a major backup. Thankfully my bag was good to go the first time through so I was able to hustle down to my gate with about 10 min to spare before my flight started boarding (if my bag had needed a second scan I would have missed it). I flew to Chicago first and had a 9 hour layover there, but I had a good amount of work paperwork from my clinical to catch up on so I wasn't sitting around looking for things to do while I was waiting.
Finally I was able to get on my flight to Helsinki, Finland. I had a crappy seat for this leg of the trip and did a lot of soft tissue work to myself with my acumobility ball during the flight to help minimize how much I was tightening up due to being cramped in the airplane seat. I had also hit most of my back and legs with it while I was in Chicago as well and that thing is a life saver. It is much more useful than a lax ball in a number of ways, particularly when sitting on a soft, cushioned surface since it has a higher profile than a lax ball and doesn't just sink in the seat. I was only able to sleep a few hours on the flight because I was trying to stay awake for the dinner meal and then when I woke up in the morning, stay awake for breakfast cause I have slept through those before and if you snooze you lose. Since I was on weight by 4 lbs when I left, I figured as long as the food wasn't completely nasty, I would eat it. I had also brought several meals of oatmeal, dried blueberries, and protein powder with me that I had been eating in throughout my trip.
I was worried about getting through customs in time to catch my train from Helsinki to Joensuu where the contest hotel is, but I literally went through customs in about 5 minutes, fastest trip ever. I had a little trouble figuring out the train map and schedule from the airport since there was no one working that I could find to ask questions. I did finally figure it out though and headed from Helsinki to Tikkurila, which was a short commuter train. From Tikkurila I would board my train to Joensuu, which was a much longer trip, about 4 hours. The train schedule was very confusing to figure out and the website was somewhat less than helpful, but I did have some time and I found the office for the train company and went and checked with them to make sure I had everything straight. I thought I was good to go, but it turned out that the schedules were slightly off because of some sort of construction so I ended up having to take a later train than I had planned which delayed me from getting to the hotel by about 4 hours. Thankfully I made it there with about 10 minutes to spare for early weigh ins and made weight easily at about 227, right where I was when I had left Maryland a day and a half ago.
Since then I have checked in and been working on sleeping and eating and resting. The events for Day 2 have changed slightly, but Day 1 is still the same. We have the athlete introduction this evening and then the comp is tomorrow and Sunday and then I fly back Monday morning. The contest will be broadcast over here all over the place, but apparently there is no way to watch it in America. If I find out otherwise I'll post the info though. More to come in my writeup after all I get back home.
