Koszalin, quite a travel but the game was worth it
About a weeks break since my last Blog entry - no Olympics this time, but travels and basketball!
This week starts with a quick 48 hour assignment to Koszalin, Poland for the EuroBasket2013 qualifying game between Poland and Finland - here is my story of the trip (so far). 
Strange to have just one flight directly to the airport where I am heading to - and just in case you thought that is Koszalin.. WRONG! - which is Berlin. Arrive there around 11pm - sat next to the passengers from the Paris flight who have been sitting there 80 minutes waiting for their luggage. Luckily we only had to wait around 30 minutes - grab the bag and run for the car rental place before they close at 11.30pm.. get the car and plot the route to Koszalin, Poland. Only a short 3 1/2 hour drive... which ends up taking around 4 1/2 due to me driving slow and taking few breaks to keep myself awake. 
Arrive to Koszalin at 4.40am.. drive straight to look at the Arena and sleep in the car at the empty parking lot in the Polish suburbs. Check-in to the Hotel early (big thanks to the Hotel for allocating a 9am check-in!), and get some sleep.. meet up with the journalist from Turun Sanomat (Finnish newspaper who is one my four clients here), have lunch and then head to the Arena for the game. As you can see, I have explored the city very much during my trip.. :-)
Arena is brand new and this is the first ever game to be held here, let's just hope that there won't be any thunderstorms during the game. As apparently during Monday's training sessions the lights went out from the venue WHILE Poland were training.. and Finland had to change their training to another venue. Credit to Polish Federation of having a back-up venue to get to on such short notice. 
Before the game, talking to the journalist and we have a funny feeling Finland might be in for a tough game and possibly a narrow loss. Perhaps some of the players heard this, as Finland charge to a 13-4 lead in the opening minutes. Sitting under the Finnish attack basket, I am also sitting right in-front of the Cheerleaders.. and comment from the press bench is that I have the 'best seat in the house and don't even realise it'. Although - if they were referring to me sitting right under the cheerleaders.. I beg to differ as isn't the point that you LOOK at the cheerleaders.. not have their 'pom poms' hitting you in the head while they dance behind you. But.. each to their own I suppose ;-) To the BIG disappointment of some of my readers.. i did NOT turn around to take pictures of the cheerleaders.. although everyone else sure did, and I think they might have missed the opening 3 minutes of the game due to snapping pictures of the the girls. 
Game itself - well, this is why I love basketball!! Finland lead by 11.. crowd go a little quiet.. Poland hit couple of big threes.. game is tied.. crowd goes mental.. Finland forget that defence is needed and a open three pointer gives Poland the lead.. Koivisto (Finn who has 0 points in first 36 minutes) hits a massive three.. Finland are back in front..then the end, missed free throws, loose balls, turn overs, slam dunks, missed throws.. and FINLAND WIN !!
Even the usually calm and collected mr Henrik Dettmann jumps up and punches the air with both hands, before remembering that this was just one game and calmly walks over to his Polish counterpart and shakes his hand. 
Everyone else is finishing their 'shift' - players heading for a four hour bus journey to the Hotel (yes, Koszalin isn't the easiest place to get to!), reporter heading for the after work beer - me?? Well, I got few hundred pictures to edit, video to upload .. and getting txt messages about the where a bouts of the Finnish team does not make my evening better ;-) Working late into the night and due to local thunderstorms only manage to upload the video in the morning, it's all just a part of my normal day on a foreign assignment!
Now - it is getting to 10am here and I am looking forward to another 4 hour drive as I head back to Berlin to catch an evening flight back home! A drive that will take me through the motorways of Poland and Germany .. where nice looking girls/women stand by the road and wave at you and smile.. Who knows what they want.. so I just wave and smile back at them.. never occured to me to stop and ask ;-) The joys of traveling abroad and seeing things that you do not see back home.. as a certain commercial says 'Priceless' 