Long week of rehab, filming practice, and a night out in Zurich

After pulling my hamstring in our game against the Bern Grizzlies on April 7th, I have been getting treatment and physical therapy on it at least once or twice a day. It has gradually been getting better, but at this point I am not sure if I will be able to play in our upcoming game against the Helsinki Wolverines. Hopefully it will continue to heal up, and I hope that I will be able to sprint without any pain by saturday. It hasn't helped my hamstring that ever since easter sunday, the weather in Switzerland has been pretty cold and cloudy.

My drive to treatment in Maienfeld each day.

Drive back to Chur 

View from the gym we go to everyday

On friday we found out that our game against the Winterthur Warriors was cancelled due to the rain on the field. Apparently if there are more than 2 drops of rain on the field in Wintherthur they cancel games......only in American Football in Switzerland. So since our game was cancelled, our practices on friday, saturday, and sunday were all to prepare for our first Eurobowl game this week against the Helsinki Wolverines. Because my hamstring is still injured I didn't participate in any of the practices, but I did get to film them--lucky me ;-)

On thursday night, most of the imports and I had a fun night out together in Chur. We started off at a place called Tom's Beer Box. It's a small bar near my apartment in Old Town Chur. It has over 130 beers to choose from, I had a Belgian beer called "Duvel" which was amazing, one of my coaches told me it was voted the best beer in Belgium in some beer magazine. Then I had a German beer from Munich called "Augistiner" which was really good as well. After Tom's we went to a local club and danced the night away....our defensive line coach and I ended up at a friends apartment and jammed out to some tunes and our friend's had some Swiss Cheese from the Italian area of Switzerland for us to eat.

Augistiner Edelstoff--very good beer from Munich

My teammate Iiro from Finland. He asked the bartender to surprise him with a different beer, and I told her to get him a Coors Light...he wasn't too thrilled with it :-)

Conti and Sasha at a club in Chur

Our defensive line coach--Dave Banks, playing some late night tunes

After practice on saturday, 5 of us decided to drive to Zurich for a night of partying. I went with Tissi (from Germany), Yoan (from France), Greg (from Pittsburgh), and our new import Flo (from Berlin, Germany). We all squeezed into a VW Golf, and since I was the smallest one of the group, I was fortunate enough to sit in the middle seat on an hour long car ride. Besides the car ride we had a great time. Tissi has a friend who lives in Zurich who helped us get into a couple clubs. The first club we went to was called Jil, we got a table and bottle service right when we walked in. It was nice to be in a big club in a big city--reminded me of some of the clubs in the States. After Jil we went to a different club called Flamingo which was another great time. We ended up leaving the club at 5am, went to a kebab restaurant, ordered a Dürum and hung out with some friends we just met that night. We didn't leave Zurich until about 6:15am and we got back in Chur around 7:30am. I took a quick nap, and woke up at 9am to leave for 10am practice....luckily I only had to film :-)

Me, Flo, Yoan, Greg, and Tissi @Club Jil in Zurich

Swissies trying to dance 

Lambo outside of the club

Dancing @Flamingo

Conti was not happy about driving back at 6am and about practice at 10am 

Tips sneakily putting the seat warmer on Yoan's seat haha!

To top off the weekend, after getting 1 and a half hours of sleep after the night in Zurich and after a 2 hour practice, our owner had a Sheissfest at his favorite bar in town at 2pm! After practice I went to the gym to ride the bike, stretch, and get in the sauna and hot tub to loosen up my hamstring. Then we all went to Freistoss for the Sheissfest. It started off slow, like usual, with just a beer. Then our owner Walter asks all of us what we want, a jäger bomb or a car bomb. I always get the car bomb, because I actually like them. Once the bartender brings out a jäger bomb or car bomb for each one of us, he also brings us a shot of Braulio to go with it. Someone says a toast and we all go in a circle and take the car bomb or jäger bomb and then immediately have a Braulio shot....this goes on for about 8 rounds. And in the middle of all of this we order more beers and ordered a ton of chicken wings, onion rings, french fries and jalepeño poppers (only the healthiest food for football players in Switzerland). Most of the imports were there and we all had a great time hanging out and joking around.

Import players from left to right: James Canetti, Steve Valentino, Marko Glavic, Mark de Swart, Greg Conti, Tissi Robinson, and Me!

Big week ahead of us! We have our first real challenge of the season. Eurobowl game #1 against the Helsinki Wolverines on Saturday, April 21st at 6pm in Chur. Hopefully my hamstring will be healthy so I can play!!