The Travelling Goalie: Really ... I Have To Say Thank You !

Alright I'm home now nursing a sore knee , got some bad luck in my first game back on the first play of the game when i over extended my leg and went down hard ... i finished the game and we got smoked , badly :( Not a good start to 2016 at home ... feeling sick still from this nagging cold we picked up over seas also but today i have mustered up the gas to say thank you to a lot of people that helped me make this trip so friggin cool !!! First and foremost i want to thank Kathleen for enduring the painful task of hopping from country to country non stop , she's a trooper and I'm sure she had a good time too ???

First stop was good ol' jolly England where we met up with our Villa mates and got properly on the piss ... as usual the Kiddy Lions were the culprits of choice to get all liquored up with not only once but twice on this part of the trip ... oh yeah lets' get on a bus with 'um too and head off to Norwich for an away game ? Nothing out of the ordinary thanking Mr. Paul Harris for picking us up at our hotel at 7 am to go back to Kidderminster to get proper drunk LOL ... and as usual Mr. Ben Mitchell pulls the rabbit out of his hat this time the rabbit was apple pie moonshine . Yes thank you for the awesome hangover from that stuff Ben :) I really can't forget to thank my family in Chelmsley Wood for having me over for Christmas dinner ... that was a really nice day for both myself and Kathleen .

When we went over to Benalmadena,Spain Richard Pilkington met us at Malaga Airport as usual with a big smile and the inviting warmth of the south to back him up . As usual a big thank you goes out to our friend warmly known as Don Rickardo for putting us up in his awesome pad down near the beach , planned us a nice NYE and always has great ideas for things to do like going to see a C.F. Malaga game with a bunch of British expats called The Guiri Army ... i gotta thank those guys for being a fun group to travel to Malaga with and introduced us to fellow Villan Dave Wordley who gave me a fantastic Lerner Out! scarf LOL ! The big part of my travels is hockey though and i can't forget to thank Rickard Astrom for setting up the fantastic mini tournament that i played in ... really this tourney was more about play then anything and i really had some good bonding moments with everyone that went through the whole day with me , more then anything those of you that came out to paintball :) what a cool first experience ... definitely think i want to do that again . Hopefully that becomes an annual event for my friends in the Costa Del Sol Ice Hockey League . What a great way to start 2016 eh ? Spain , down south with a bunch of really awesome people to drink with , watch football with , play ice hockey and go paint balling with too !!! C'mon really thank you everyone but this is all because of Richard Pilkington so muchos gracias Don Rickardo :)

And then we ended up in Portugal ... Lisbon to be exact , and things were confusing as i did not know if i was playing ice hockey in Lisbon or in Elvas or wtf was going on ? Yeah really i had my hotel booked in Lisbon up until the weekend because we "might" be going to Elvas ... Anyways that all didn't matter in the end . What mattered was the crazy amount of rain we had while we were there which kinda hindered a lot of tourist stuff , it was crappy out but Portugal is a special place whether rain or shine and once i finally hooked up with the President of the Federacao Portuguesa de Desportos no Gelo ( https://www.facebook.com/FEDERA%C3%87%C3%83O-PORTUGUESA-DE-DESPORTOS-NO-GELO-322623083666/?fref=ts) which in laymans terms is the IIHF representative for Portugal and things got much clearer ... i have so many things to thank Mauricio for ! To begin with ... thanks for clarifying that we were to stay at your place for the weekend in Oeiras and thanks for getting me on the ice in one of the most amazing places I've skated :) right in the square in Praca do Comercio dead smack in the center of Lisbon in the heart of Portugal . Also a huge thank you for getting me on your NHL broadcast of the Devils/Habs game , that was a first for me and a very cool experience ... i look forward to meeting you again someday Mauricio , thank you so much ... obrigado !

Next up was Andorra which is another new country flag for my stick bag ... country #33 :) it was not easy getting here and there is only one rink that i know of in Canillo . Thanks to my good friend Adil El Farj from the Moroccan federation once again for putting me in touch with the Andorran IIHF representatives ... in particular the guy seen above having a beer with me for you Adil ! That is the coach of the national team and basically every team ( i think ) he is a big part of the federation there and his name is David Vallecillo Peiro' and the major unfortunate thing is i was sick when i was there so i never really got to give this guy a big hug ... yeah i get emotional sometimes for the smallest things ... we stayed in Andorra la Vella which is the main city in Andorra and Canillo is about a 15 minute drive away from where we were . The first time i went up i took a taxi which was 15 euros and i can live with that , and i was gonna live with it to get to where i got to get to play . That is just how i roll ! David lives in Canillo and offered me a ride back then picked me up for the next skate and dropped me off again and was so hospitable but as i said it was really unfortunate that i was not well at all . David wasn't the only one that treated me so well ... i really shouldn't forget to thank the Andorra Hoquei Gel ( https://www.facebook.com/andorrahoqueigel/?fref=ts ) and particularly the President Mr. Andreu Ferrer for allowing me to skate with him and all the really nice people of Andorra that honestly have a great facility to call him at the Palau de Gel d'Andorra ( https://www.facebook.com/palaudegel/?fref=ts ) the ice was really well taken care of and the facility is really really nice ! I won't forget the hospitality i received in Andorra and thanks to these 2 guys i would really suggest others go there to play and really honestly if you go try to leave some gear for the kids to use .

Then we end up having a night of debauchery in Barcelona with my buddy from Argentina who i warmly call boludo :) Pablo Diaz is living out there and he is always up for a cerveza or 2 or maybe around 10 ... that was just me wasn't it ? Ah well ! It's always nice when you or me or anyone travelling for a few weeks runs into or plans to meet up with a familiar face and Pablo is quite familiar enough to chill out with ! Somehow someway that night became better and better , i guess it was the cheap beer at Milans ( https://www.facebook.com/pages/Milans-Bar/367895219933409?fref=ts ) where we met super cool barman Ivan Cresimati who i am gonna thank again for being such an amazing bartender .... yeah i know it was your first night and i would hope you made as good an impression on your boss as you did on us . I would highly suggest anyone heads over there for a good beer or a mixed drink as they have a huge list of cocktails ( not that i drink cocktails ) but we all know women like them :) hehehehe ! If we didn't hook up with Pablo we wouldn't have had so much fun , and it's a shame that we were only there one night but we did make the most of it even somehow ending up at your place to meet your gf Camilia and your roommate Ugo (?) or Hugo ... not sure how to spell it , sorry in advance LOL ! I needed the practise drinking that night to tune up for my trip back to Birmingham where well ... i tend to get smashed ...

Getting smashed and on the piss usually includes an Irish person and my token Irish drinking buddy is top Villa fan from Dublin ... Aideen Quinn ! She somehow looks sober all the time but can drink the best of us under the table :) And .... and ... she totally almost made me burst into tears when she gave me a Villa mug with the words Travelling Goalie Villa Legend on it ... yeah in front of the Kiddy Lads at the Aston Tavern . I know its posh in there ... and there i was fighting back tears . Thank you Aideen . That last Villa match and last days of the trip were fantastic ... my new Villa mate Dave Wordley also gave me a cool scarf and to be honest i was kinda in shock all day at how awesome my Villa family treat me ... this whole blog is really a lot of thank you 's , when you travel and go home after the trip you usually think about the cool shit that happened to you and the first thing that pops in your head was oh i was with so and so and yeah that happened in this country and then you realize that if you weren't with that person at that time then that time probably would not have happened . So as much as you might not be wondering about these moments that i do cherish i wanted to let you all that i have thanked and those that i didn't forget to mention but just couldn't drag this on too long ( you know what i mean ) that i will always and forever be thankful for the time that we spent together ... now I'm getting all sappy and shit so I'm gonna stop and hope that we all get to have a few beers again together sooner then later