More Motion Sickness

Its been a while since I've had any time to write ... back home now , working like a dog saving up to head back to Europe for another adventure . This time I'm kinda nervous though after my last flight from New York . It was scary as shit ! I actually never wrote about the last day of my trip home from New York so here ya go .

That morning i left early , there was no one i knew in the lobby so i slipped away into my Uber and headed to JFK airport . My driver that morning was nice , we joked about all the drunk costumes he must've seen and time flew . When i arrived it was quiet !!! Walked right up to the counter , checked my bags with no problems at all then carried onto security which was really quick to ... (note to self = travel on Halloween more!) to this day i am still shocked that airport was so quiet , i mentioned its in New York City right ? When i got through security i grabbed a McDonald's steak bagel and yes i know i shouldn't but they don't sell them in Toronto so ... hahaha! it was yummy and made my tummy ache but who cares now . After gobbling that yummy breakfast i went duty free shopping , first things first ... i really need a portable charger for my dinosaur IPhone 4s which dies after 4 hours of use . Found a decent one for $50 USD that holds up to 4 charges which works for me , bought it then headed for the good stuff .... liquor . Kathleen loves the last bottle of Bombay Amber Gin i brought home , yes its rare :) and i found it at another NYC airport so i figured to look here :( unfortunately they didn't have it so i decided on bringing home a bottle of  Patron Gold Tequila . I'm sure she will like it when she gets back to Toronto in late January . 

So its time to board , my seat is way in the back in front of toilet ... i finished watching Jurassic World which i thoroughly enjoyed and as i finished i opened the blind to let the sun in and see my wonderful city from the air . We began to descend and as I'm looking out the window we hit an air pocket and i could feel the sweat just pour out of me !!! Here we go with the air sickness again , I'm never looking out the window again during landing as this happened to me before while flying home in a small plane . Next thing you know we were aborting the landing ??? We were going straight up into the sky again , like on a crazy angle and that's when i realized people were freaking out and puking and crying and shit ... wtf is going on ? in my head i started thinking of the 9/11 Memorial recordings i heard from the planes that were hijacked and i was getting scared , i started thinking if this was that moment where i should call Kathleen ? The stewardess was behind me so i looked down around the corner and she didn't look too excited either . Next thing you know we were sideways !!! Holy friggin crap !!!! Are we gonna die ? ... The pilot made an announcement saying we had to abort and to not be worried , we hit an air pocket and its very windy out ... thanks :) we steadied out by this time and began approaching again . The plane was being tossed around and i was pretty much shitting my pants and then we touched down ... safely , no fuss . Everyone on that plane looked ready to puke when getting off , and everyone looked each other in the eye's with that holy shit look . I found my hockey bag ripped in the oversize baggage , got an Uber and went home . 

Of course when i opened my stick bag i found a note from US customs ... nothing new . But now to real time , today i am amidst planning to head back onto a plane and these thoughts of my last flight kinda haunt me a bit as i plan to head to England to meet Kathleen who i miss so much :( she had to go be with her family there and i haven't seen her in 3 weeks ... i plan to meet her in Birmingham on Christmas Eve where we will watch Star Wars; The Force Awakens !!!! yeah i already have tickets hehehe . The plan right now is to meet there then head to Spain for New Years Eve and a hockey tournament then off to Portugal and Andorra to skate with local clubs . I am just hoping both of the federations will reply a bit sooner so i can continue to make plans . These trips don't just happen ,unfortunately there is a lot of planning when visiting 4 countries in a short time period . So things might change and i hope they don't as i would love to see those 2 flags on my bag :) 

Now I'm sure i won't be scared to fly and I'm sure i will have motion sickness again ... as far as i know there is no cure for it once it kicks in and it happens FAST . If a plane goes down while I'm on it then well ... it is what it is ! If you or i live in fear then we might as well stay home and hide , but that's not a good idea so for now i will continue working like a dog and saving money to get on that next flight ... after all i am The Travelling Goalie :P 

Halloween in NYC

Halloween in NYC... What does someone like me do to celebrate ? Well ... Of course with the New Jersey DEVILS playing on this fine day at home I guess the cosmic signs were telling me to go so when I woke up I decided I would go . No I didn't have a ticket yet but this is Dazza's team and he already has posh seats so I found out where he was sitting and tried finding the cheapest possible seats in his section which was section 6 and I found 3 seats which I could purchase 1 and they totalled $63 USD each which is great ! We all met up in lobby and headed out for breakfast and I didn't buy them yet ... We met up with a few other lads and Chris & Les Hogarth said they wanted to come too , so I booked all 3 on my card and off we went . Only minor problem was having to find somewhere to print tickets but we fixed that up soon enough . 

It was great sitting with these guys , we grabbed pizza and pops to start which were awesome then had ice cream for 3rd period and bought 50/50 draw tickets which quickly prompted making plans on how to spend our winnings ... Something about spending an extra night in Manhattan and partying with Cypress Hill lol ! Ok that was my idea hahaha :) oh yeah the game was good too , forget where I was man . Devils played the Islanders who we saw twice on this trip , unfortunately Tavares was hurt and not playing and the Devils pulled out a big home win over their rivals in a shootout which was great to see , definitely got our money's worth here ! 

After the game we headed back into NYC as we were now in a whole different state ...and no it's not that far hahaha ! About half hour train into Penn Station . Which is where we headed to meet everyone at the Flying Puck , unfortunately children are not permitted in bars so we left :( I had to do a quick shopping trip over to the Puma Store where I bought some new kicks . I was with Daz & Sarah , thanks for letting me tag along ... We had these city passes which we didn't feel like we got our money's worth so instead of going to the Halloween parade we went first to the 911 museum which had no lineups and we walked straight in ... 

This is where things got serious . It was quiet in there and the images were very powerful . I was in tears :( this place is full of sorrow and being in the same spot where so many people lost their lives is always an eerie feeling . I broke down hearing recorded messages from people that eventually died trying to contact their loved ones . It was hard man really hard . I tried to fight away the tears but I'm sure it was evident that I was feeling the pain , I'm actually welling up as I write this . This was powerful , the museum is amazing ... Just know that if you go there are tissues everywhere and it's not bad to feel how I felt . 

We were all hungry and were now heading for a night view from the top of the Empire State Building so we stopped at Heartland Brewery where I did not drink any beer ... Yeah wasn't really feeling it . Actually I was glad earlier on being with the Hogarths as they are not drinkers . Just can't drink like I used too , guess I'm finally growing up a bit ? Probably not lol ! Regardless I didn't drink on Halloween . But I did have a great steak sandwich and got Sarah and Daz to try deep fried pickles YUM ! 

There was no lineup to get into the Empire State Building either which really tells me that going site seeing on holidays like this is really amazing :) when we got to the top there was a guy playing some smooth jazz on his trumpet and it was really nice and relaxing unlike the last time we came up when it was rammed and insane . Got some great pics of the city with a nice clouded moon in the background which ended a Halloween where I got to see Devils play hockey , hung out with the ghosts of 911 , and got close to a clouded over moon ... No I didn't turn into a werewolf but I definitely had to get back to Westbury to pack my bags as my flight is early :( 

On the train we bumped into the Brown sisters that played on the Island Monkeys team , they went to the parade which most of the group went to . Sounded like it was ok so I was kinda happy I opted for the options we took . When I got to the hotel I said my good byes and packed my bags and crashed ... It was a great Halloween in NYC ! 

Tournament Champs

It was rough waking up at 6 am on very little sleep to go play hockey for 5 hours straight ... But we did it ! First game o the day was against the New York Blueliners and we all know that police hockey teams can be the dirtiest bastards :) these guys weren't that bad . They beat us on a bullshit goal the first day that should t have counted but the chips were stacked against us since we were not the locals and the 1 ref on the ice was not a real ref ... If he is then LOL ! Anyways we had to beat these guys and we started the game horribly making mistakes that just shouldn't happen ... We were down 2-0 in the first 30 seconds of the game but scratched our way back ... 4 pucks for by me this game but really I had no chance on any of them . The highlight for me was when this one total Dickhead skated through my crease and I realized he probably had some mental disorder or something ? He looked like some mongloid freak !!! Next time I saw him wind up to fly through my crease I decided to step to top of crease , now you expect guys to avoid the goalie right ? This fucking asshole ploughed right through me then had the nerve to say I was out of my crease and I deserved a penalty ???? Like I said must be some mental disorder , the ref(?) should have called him for running me but instead opted to not call anything ... Dirty , dirty , dirty son of a bitch ! Well you can guess what happened after right ? My team stepped up and popped a few goals to take the win !!! I whooped it up to show the bastard hahaha . One game down .... 

Next game was against the French team that we smoked on day 1 ... They were not much of a problem but gave it their all   and we just didn't seem to have that bounce in our step .... Then out of the blue I had a puck hit my mask with no stoppage ? It didn't hit me hard but next thing you know I had the spins and everyone was glowing with halos ... I think it was remnants from getting smashed by that donkey fucker . I played on a bit , let in a weak goal then I skated off ice ... I didn't finish the game but we won handily regardless , I think final was 8-2 or something like that , honestly my head was fuzzy . After the game I went to the room to shake it off , I found out that Sudden Death beat the Americans so it was between us and Sudden Death for the final ... Was hoping it wouldn't come to this , if Americans would have won then we would have pretty much clinched the title . 

My team mates were concerned , so they got another goalie but I'm stubborn and didn't want to give up so I said I would give it a go . That last game was probably the best game I played all tournament ! We went up 3-0 then coughed up 4 goals and were down 4-3 when I saw my replacement skate onto the ice ... This guy was definitely not a goalie , that scene encouraged me to play harder and I did .... We called a time out and from there on out we didn't look back as we pounded pucks by our opponent . My room mate Paul Lofthouse in my mind was tournament MVP coming up with a key goal for us once again and we went on to win the tournament :) 

A couple beers celebrating in the room made me feel better but I had not eaten anything and it was now about 1 pm ... Things were confusing at the rink so I jumped in an Uber and headed to my room ... Remember I was not feeling well but the beers helped lol ! I was a bit comfuaed and I almost slipped going to see Cypress Hill . When I came to my senses I headed off to catch up with the gang . We went to some BBQ joint near Times Square which was great but as u said , I wasn't well.... I got sick and barfed at the restaurant .... Nothing too crazy , I will go get checked when I'm home if symptoms continue ... 

3 of us headed to the PlayStation

 Theatre to watch HauntedHill2015 , it was Cypress Hill's 20th anniversary of Temples of Boom ... Man oh man did the rest of the gang miss out !!! What a sick show :) ended up hanging out with some Mexican gangstas that were cool ! They hooked me up ( if ya know what I mean ) and we all sang and danced around for like 2 or 3 hours . Honestly this show was the perfect way to celebrate a championship !!! I would do it all over again in a heartbeat :) 

Now I'm sure someone is reading this thinking I'm such a dick for writing about this mongloid that quite possibly concussed me but I want you to think of this when I ask why wouldn't he veer off ? Why did he have to run me over in my crease ? He is on the host team in a tournament with no contact ! If he thinks this is what a host team should be doing then maybe he should have his head checked ! I shook his hand after but I still think he's a mother fucker :) if you are reading this ... Go fuck yourself you cunt !  Sorry for my language .... An to the rest of the New York Blueliners , thanks for hosting us ! There were a couple really great guys on your team I had the pleasure of meeting . You guys should consider ditching that douchebag .... 

Time to head home now to play in Toronto ... The Travelljng Goalie doesn't rest !