18 July 2009

First non soccer day on tour, at least non soccer in terms of playing games or training. And to top it off, it is raining the entire day.  Kids sleep in and have a late breakfast at 9:30, then clean their rooms, some of them are disastrous as you can imagine. Thank god for Frabreeze.  Gothia Cup finals today and I am planted in the stadium watching game after game, what a great youth cup this is.

Girls go shopping with the Swedish girls and have a ball, buy up half of Sweden as well.  Hope they got souvenirs for mom and dad.  Boys watch games and shop as well, but rain soaks them throughout the day, but some great fun.

We dress up tonight for dinner, one of my favorite times on tour, boys in ties and dress shirts-pants, girls in skirts-dresses, boy they look sharp, wait for the video.  After dinner, it is off to Liseberg, the oldest amusement park in Europe, and we have kids ride roller coasters for the first time, in the rain nonetheless, another great time.  At least 4 kids win over 4 pounds of chocolate, not sure how we will eat this, but I bet we find a way.  Now they are cleaning their rooms, packing, and getting ready for transfer to Denmark on Sunday. Charles and I washed all of the uniforms, like good coaches do, so at least we will smell better next week.

So far, a really great trip, one week to go and kids are already talking about plans for next year. 3 of our Swedish girls are sleeping over with our girls and what a great experience that has been for them. The girls are so close, lots of tears last night as they lost their last game and I expect even more at the train station tomorrow.  How we get so close in such a short time is truly amazing.

Transfer day tomorrow, so lots of patience is needed.

Wish me luck this time.

Ciao,
Ed