Yesterday I saw I B girl cryin, I walked up and Asked whats wrong? She told me that the radio's been playin the same song all day long.

yes my hoodie game is strong son!

I think last you heard, I was heading to Europe. that was wicked. I went and saw Dodds in Berlin for a days first. I got to watch one of his matches which is always sweet. I like seeing volleyball in different leagues so I can gauge for myself the level in various countries. some countries make outrageous claims about how good their leagues are. Personally from what I've seen, I would say Italy still has the top league. after that Russia is second. and thats were it gets... arguable. I'd say there's alot of leagues tied for 3rd, and a lot of teams tied for 4th. but I digress.

Seeing Dodds play in the German league was a treat. I also spend a few days tooling around Berlin seeing all the sights. memorials(which are just littered around that place), churches, and museums(Greek, Egyptian, and wax), all of which had a different lasting impression on me.

After a whirl wind tour of Berlin, I was off to Switzerland to kick it with dudes named Pehar and Little. I flew into Milan Italy and was picked up by Pehar a mere 2 hours late (keep in mind I didn't have a phone, and neither did he). that was quite nerve racking, but after calming myself, I realized there's worse places in the world to be stranded than Milan. Turns out Pehar and Little live on the Swiss/Italian boarder. and I mean "on the boarder" in the literal sense. They live in an apartment building, out front is a canal, and on the other side is Italy. We actually did our best to start an international incident by hurling dinner plates out the kitchen window, discus style to see if we could attack the Italians. Our plan was to start a conflict, then jump into international waters (the canal) and live without laws and possibly start a floating casino. alas, we were much to weak and our discus hurling techniques were much to flawed to start nothin.

Now in the spirit of saving time I'm going to press the fast-forward selector past stuff that can be summarized. 

The following few weeks I'll package neatly for you.  I flew back to Russia, drove to Yaroslavl, signed some papers, packed all my jazz, drove back to Moscow, and boarded a plane for the new world.  Quite alot happened in durring those 4 or 5 days, but it was a while ago now and more stuff has gone down.

So I got back to Canada about two weeks ago now, expecting some mental down time to regroup and figure out if I wanted to keep smashing volleyballs, or take up some conventional work.  What I got was a ten day cross Canada whirl wind tour visiting all the relatives I had time enough to see, all the while having my agents quasi-bang out what they wanted to be my next contract.  All this while searching for one of my two massive bags full of half the material things I own in this life which somehow Air Canada lost in between Winnipeg and Toronto. (still an ongoing investigation).  oddly enough I was half relieved to be leaving again, even if it was such a quick stop at home.  who knew time with the people you love could be so intensely stressful.

So after spending just under a week in Canada, mostly in a car. I signed a new contract, and was off to Montpellier France to join my new squad, pending all the papers required by the FIVB and the French Volleyball Federation were filed in time, and play in the upcoming match 3 days later.  now I think this is a wise spot to recount my travel.  I flew from Russia to western Canada (8 hour difference) spent six days in Alberta/Saskatchewan (hour difference from Alberta), then flew back to Europe ((six hour difference from Alberta) in which I saw the actor that plays Lahey from trailer park boys in the airport).  So as soon as my internal clock was almost adjusted, I decided to punish my body some more.  And yes it had a large effect on my sleeping habits.  for example I slept one hour last night.  And yes I played the game a few days after I got here.  And yes I ripped it up.... for a bit, until my body shut down.  And yes I know this is probably annoying to read.  So yes I will stop now.

p.s. if anyone see's a large hockey sized black Mizuno bag wrapped in bright blue plastic wrap, please drop me a line, and will someone please click on one of the advertisement banners.  Dudes got to eat.  damn.

Yall is crazy, I am OUTTA here!

I guess now is a good a time as any to write up a blog. Wow a lot has happened in the last ten days or so. Lets se. last we spoke I was in Yaroslavl getting ready to take some time in Europe while I waited for my club to find some money to pay me with. And I guess that’s were it got interesting.

So last Friday I drove to Moscow to hit the airport and head to Berlin for a few days. I had made the drive to Moscow from Yaroslavl without anything going wrong, and that was a big deal in itself, so I shoulda known things were going all to well.

I checked in for my flight and headed to customs. Seeing my plane on the tarmac outside the windows gave me an overwhelming feeling that I was free and clear of Russia for at least a week, but in the next few minutes’ things started to suck… real bad.

Excuse me sir, where is your visa?
Why its right there, is it now?
Sir this is a photocopy of a visa.
I see…. Its what I’ve been using to travel around Russia with my team, I didn’t think there would be a problem?
Yes, is small problem.
K….so?
Come with me Mr. Soneeas

Of course I had a photocopy of my visa and not the real one?? Why would I have my real visa with me, that’s just crazy talk! Jeeez. Anyways, I was taken into some room and it was explained to me that I could not leave the country without my visa, so I was instructed to go to several different desks throughout the airport to cancel my flight, get my bags off the plane, and call the Russian embassy (who I might add could have solved the problem in a jiffy but chose to make things difficult as usual) to authorize or issue something or other. After running around the airport tired and frustrated for a few hours, I managed to delay my flight to Berlin for 3 days which would give my club a few hundred kilometers away the needed time to send me the original visa.
Ok fine, I guess I’ll stay in Moscow for the weekend. I guess there could be worse things. But I did miss my man Dodd’s game in Berlin, and he was waiting at the airport for me for quite some time from what I understand. As it turns out Moscow is the most expensive city on the globe. I found this out real quickly as I found the cheapest shadiest gypsy cab to drive me from the airport to the city…. For $60. Needless to say, I didn’t receive $60 worth of service. But at least I reached a hotel; which was quite nice really, and it was a reasonable $275 a night… Wait did I just say that? Ya, I guess I did. Remember Moscow is nutzo expensive.
So over the next two days I kept myself busy with eating and wondering around downtown Moscow (only a $140 cab ride away). I saw the Kremlin, red square, St. basils cathedral Lenin’s mausoleum. Which were all intense in their own right. Mostly I’d like to go into explaining my experience at Lenin’s mausoleum, but it wouldn’t do it justice, and I might end up a political prisoner. And the whole weekend I couldn’t stop thinking about what was going to happen when I reached that customs desk.
So that was my time in Moscow. Very very expensive, but interesting. Probably won’t go again so I’m glad I did. And then it was the day to leave the motherland.
600am up showered and fed by 630am
630am Taxi to some downtown train station to meet the team driver to get what I hope is the necessary papers to leave the country.
700am Randomly see the Team Bus parked on the side of a road nowhere near our original designated meeting point, so I jump out of the cab and flag down the driver. I get the papers, boom, done.
701am I have some time to burn, so this is when go to Red Square and tourist it up. Its weird to stand in red square and think of all the things that have happened there in the last thousand years; And its eerie in the main chapel of st. basil’s cathedral knowing Ivan the Terrible was kneeling were your standing hundreds of years ago smashing his head on the ground, begging forgiveness for all the straight messed up things he did on the daily.
1100am Take another cheap taxi right to the hotel to pack up and head to the airport for round two
1220pm leave for the airport. (slight delay due to the hotel shuttle driver deciding to pick up some random people on the side of the road to make an extra buck)
100pm get to the airport a bit rattled. Wondering if its going to work and their gonna let me leave. My flight is at 5 but I’m there crazy early so if something goes wrong I can argue and try find a solution.
207pm I’m in the line for customs. I can feel the tension tightening my whole body. I can feel my forehead start to sweat ever so slightly which in turn makes me sweat more. I try to keep my cool and be unsuspicious. I get to the front of the line and I hand the passport officer my papers. It’s a young woman so I try to flash her a smile and say something that will divert her attention from my documents like “….ciao” . She’s not having it. Not one bit. I feel like a kid again. And I’m in the principals office waiting for him to come in and tell me how long I’m suspended for. Basically helpless to help my situation, which is something I hate. And them BANG BANG. She stamps my passport and opens the gate. I’m stunned for half a second then scram. I walk at a pace fast enough to make me look awkward; I gotta get away before they call me back.
208pm I’m through. Ecstatic fireworks of joy are going off in my mind that I can’t display openly for fear of being found out. So I just smile…. Rather foolishly.
500pm I get on the flight and everything runs smoothly (I learn that in both Russian AND German newspapers, it is ok to have bare boosum'd women), and Dodds picks me up in Berlin at the airport. At this point my unplanned European holiday starts. And if you’ve made it this far, I think this is quite enough reading for one day.

So I had gotten some curve balls and my trip hadn’t even started really. Call it
Phase one. Phase one complete. And honestly, I’m in the clear, what else could go Wrong.