At Home, in Austria

     Well, I finally made it to my new home. The travel was long, and not all that fun. Although I was lucky enough to get a window seat in the exit row on my 7 hour flight to London. As I sat down, there was a girl sitting next to me who kept giving me strange looks as I sat down to start the flight. She finally pipes up and says "Excuse me, did you go to Illinois College?" (I think her first three clues may have been the IC hat, t-shirt, and jacket that I was wearing.) I told her yes, and it turned out that she was from Springfield, IL and had graduated from MacMurray in the late 90's and was now living in London. Small world!
     After a short layover in London and a short flight to Zurich, Switzerland, I navigated myself to the train station and hopped on a train to St. Gallen, Switzerland where the president of my new team was waiting for me. He gave me a ride back to Hohenems and showed me to my new residence. I will be living in his basement for about a month until the condo that we will be staying in is ready for us to move into. Out of respect to his privacy, I will not post any pictures of his home, but it is very nice, and I feel very lucky that he is letting me stay here until the condo is ready.
     Last night our left tackle, Tobias (Toby) drove me all around Hohenems and Dornbirn and showed me all the places I'm going to need to know. Our stadium has a tremendous view, the gym I'll be working out in is much better than I expected, and I know now how to take the bus from my house here in Hohenems to the downtown area of Dornbirn.
     I also attended a players only practice last night at the stadium. It started at 8 pm, and was held outside, in the snow, on a small patch of grass in Hohenems. About 20-22 guys showed up for a totally volunteer practice, and I was very excited by their enthusiasm in the poor weather. They meet every Wednesday and Saturday on a volunteer basis until the season begins. I didn't participate last night due to the jet lag I was feeling, but I'm excited to hit the ground running on Saturday.
     I apologize for not having any pictures to show right now, I was too worried about making sure that I made all my flights and trains to take any photos yesterday, but I will have some on my next post. I hope all is well back in the States, and I'll be back soon with more updates.

Go Blue Devils/Boys!
Mitch Niekamp