The Great Canadian Roadtrip...to Sweden: December 2006

DEC. 28: DAY OFF

HAPPY 19th BIRTHDAY TO EMILY MACDONALD (Garreth’s little sister)

Johnny still doesn’t have his luggage. AIR CANADA… WHERE’S MY LUGGAGE?!?!? It was supposed to be dropped to our cabin today, but that was a no-go. The reception on the campsite does close at 2pm so it is quite possible that they came after and just turned back around… which is dumb… but hey, it’s Air Canada… it’s pretty much synonymous.
Today was spent recovering from everything that happened after about December 23RD. Everyone woke up feeling like crap. But not hangover-type crap, more sore-throat-and-stuffy-nose crap. It feels like a quasi-cold—hopefully not.
Michael couldn’t sleep again and was up at around 6am (then crashed hard at around 3pm). Everyone spent part of the day exploring downtown.
Not too much happening today. We sat around the fireplace after dinner and listened to the new Stuart MacLean album. The boys played poker after that—Jenn watched because Poker confuses her—with Swedish Kroners, which is like playing with dimes, nickels and pennies. The winner has to buy everyone a round at the game tomorrow night.
We play Germany next, which shouldn’t be underestimated since they did drop Team USA, but then again… who hasn’t?
We have found out that the Library has internet (and coincidentally… where the library is located) so tomorrow we’ll post a couple days worth of stuff. Sorry it’s been so long—you’ve got some reading to do.

Love,

The Cheesecake Dumpling Gang.

DEC. 27: CANADA 6 — USA 3

Jenn has finally caught up on her sleep—Michael has not. There was not much recovery time between games, last night was a late one and today we had to take a 40-minute bus ride over to the town of Mora so we had to leave the cabin earlier than usual.
Today was also the first day that we got towels… so now we can shower. So that’s pretty good.
Mike, Dan and Johnny spent the day in the downtown of Leksand picking up groceries and Kung Beer (a local Swedish beer, only $1.50 CAD!). Garreth and Jenn went for a walk at sunset (which occurs at about 3pm) around the woods/lake, which is quite nice.
We all got back to the cabin and ate pizzas that we made from flatbread and took off to walk to the arena at around 4:45pm. The bus to Mora was an interesting endevour. Both Garreth and Michael had a little too much Kung beer so they spent the last 20-minutes of the trip trying not to pee themselves. As soon as we pulled into the Arena parking lot the two sprinted of the bus to the nearest dark alley—as the rest of us laughed at them.
The game was awesome. The arena was quite small and we were seated about six rows behind the penalty boxes with some more Canadians.
As soon as the game started the five of us all started jeering American defenseman Jack Johnson. Soon the entire group of Canadians in the arena were on him. (We don’t forget blind-sided bows at the end of the game). We seemed to be getting under his skin, and rumour has it, he flipped us the bird on the way to the penalty box. And during the first intermission some Swedes asked us why we hated #3 so much.
Anyway, word from home is that TSN commented on our Johnson jeering and that you could hear “Johnson sucks” and booing every time he touched the puck.
On a completely unrelated note the arena sold the longest, skinniest hot dogs I’ve ever seen—in the smallest bun ever made.
During the walk home we crossed paths with a bus… which turned out to be the Team Canada bus, Luc Bourdon gave us a ‘rock on’. We decided to follow the bus over to where it had stopped and congratulated them. We realized this was their hotel and that they are staying about a five-minute walk from where we are.
The rest of the evening was spent watching Anchorman. After the movie, Jenn went to take a shower. After the shower she learned that her hairdryer needed a voltage converter because European plugs emit more voltage than North American ones. Needless to say she learned this by having her hairdryer burst into flames. She now has no hairdryer for the rest of the trip.

BOXING DAY — CANADA 2 SWEDEN 0

Hells. Yes.

We got on the train from Borlange to Leksand at around 12:20 on Boxing Day. It was quite an easy transition thanks in large part to our friend from the Borlange train that had put us in the first-class private car.

When we got off in Leksand, we phoned a cab company that sent a helpful driver in a van to the station. It was a short ride to the cabin and Mike was able to sort things out with the reception pretty quickly. When we got to the cabin, the driver gave us directions to the arena. The rink is only about a 15 minute walk along a path through the woods.

Figuring out how to use the can opener was an afternoon activity. We butchered a couple of cans of Alphagetti.

I went along with Dan, Mike and Johnny to the arena that afternoon to pick up our tickets. Jenn slept.

Luckily, the tickets were there and we had a lot less difficulty picking them up than a Rangers scout. Then we got some directions from some Swedish broads to the nearest grocery stores. Mix was purchased.

We slammed back Scotch, rum, vodka and Bailey’s (Dan) before the game. Mike downed a good pint of rum beforehand. That garnered him respect from the Halifax clan.

When we got to the arena (half-snapped), we immediately made some Canadian friends. Everyone seemed really drunk.

We made a few Swedish friends in the stands. They gave me chewing tobacco. That was a bad call.

The game seemed to go by really quick, maybe because we were so excited to be there, but it also may have had something to do with us being totally sauced. Either way the game was awesome, a huge first win in the home team’s rink.

The post-game celebrations were awesome, we met up with the other Canadians in front of the rink and put on quite the show.

We walked home after the game, we all wish we had some cough drops. Koval passed out immediately—something he would regret later—and the rest of us sat around and chatted. Garreth drank a lot of Scotch. Man he loves Scotch. Scotch. Scotch. Scotch.

To our surprise, someone knocked on our door at around 11pm. It was two Swedish fans who were staying a few cabins down! Mats and Niklas. They stuck around for about an hour as we exchanged stories and they told us about Sweden. Garreth gave them Scotch. And drank some himself.

Michael was already passed out on the couch at this point at which point we draped him with our new friends’ Swedish hockey sweater. He finally “came to” a little later, but “coming to” really consisted of him making random hand puppets and swinging his legs around for about 20 minutes — none of which he remembers.

BOXING DAY

Greetings from the train to Borlange. It’s your old friends.

Last night, despite Johnny’s misfortunes, was alright. The gang, minus Johnny, enjoyed Christmas dinner at McDonald’s, which was decked out in Ikea furniture. The Big Tasty was mediocre at best but the French fries were on par.

We strolled around for a bit and then retired to the living chamber for an evening of Scotch and hockey trivia. Jenn slept.

Because there were only three of us registered to the room, only three could enjoy a delicious Swedish breakfast this morning. Koval, Wong and MacDonald were drafted for this assignment. The fried tomatoes were simply exquisite and the bacon was quite salty. It was delicious and it beckoned seconds. Dan ate at 7/11 and croissants and pastries were brought back for Jenn from breakfast. They were Swedish danishes. Isn’t that funny? Swedish danishes.

As stated earlier, we’re on the train to Borlange. Getting tickets was a bitch. The machines wouldn’t accept Johnny’s Canadian credit card and the bastard at the ticket office was very misleading. We left him at the office to get tickets. While he was doing this, the rest of us went to wait by the train on track 5. Our train was due to leave at 9:45. At 9:41, we found out from a train attendant that there would be no waiting around for Johnny.

Naturally, I ran back for him. We yelled something at the ticket attendant and she yelled back something about our tickets already being booked. So we sprinted back just in time for the train door to shut on Johnny Wong. He was able to karate chop it open and he calmly walked in. “That was for my father,” he muttered aloud. What an Asian!

Anyway, we’re on board and warm. Also, we’ve been bumped up to a first class private car and the Black Label is flowing. Well… trickling. It’s early. And we’re just getting warmed up.

We’ll get off soon in Borlange. Then we’ll hopefully board a train to Leksand. Talk to you then.

Love,

The Danish Dumpling Gang
10:47 am

Since leaving Halifax, I have peed six times. I think that’s pretty good. I drank water and tomato juice on the plane and I just finished off two pints of Guinness at a cozy little pub in Heathrow appropriately called “O’Neill’s.” O is Irish for fun.
When we arrived in London, we met up with Michael in the long line to get to Terminal 3. He’s a pretty good guy thus far. During our early engagements, he spoke kindly of his friend Johnny Wong. Initially, we suspected that Johnny Wong was a Chinese Mafioso but so far, he seems legit. Plus, he and Michael just went in together on two litres of Johnny Walker Black Label. So they’re okay in my book.
To recap, memories to date include urine, the plethora of minorities working at Heathrow (remarkably, any airport security-related skirmish that we’ve witnessed so far has occurred between individuals of the same race. We’ll all sleep well tonight knowing that it’s not just white people that use racial profiling anymore – sometimes, it can be your brother. Or mom. Think about that.) and Guinness.
We’re all very tired. Jenn is perhaps the most tired but her tiredness is followed closely by that of Johnny. Dan, Michael and myself appear to have gotten over the tired hump so we should be game for some Christmas Day fun in Stockholm.
Canada takes to the ice tomorrow against host Sweden. That should be pretty good. If you’re watching for us on TV, we’ll be the ones that aren’t blonde.
Anyway, it’s 12:55 and those bastard Scandinavians still haven’t told us what gate our 1:20 flight is leaving from. So I think we’re going to go figure that out.
See you in Sweden.

Love,
The Apple Dumpling Gang