Hey guys. It's Thursday here in Sweden and we are just finishing practicing, but let me tell you about my Wednesday.
After a hard practice Tuesday and a team dinner afterward we were given Wednesday off to tour the city and spend some time away from the rink. I had planned to spend most of my day off walking around Gamla Stan, the city's Old Town district.
Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as planned.
After leaving my iPhone plugged in overnight I woke up to find that it was refusing to charge. After a quick bite to eat for breakfast I asked the concierge if there was an Apple store nearby in hopes that they might be able to fix my problem. Luckily, there was a store a five-minute walk away.
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I dare say that that was the only lucky thing that happened to me Wednesday.
Upon arriving at the store, one of the sales representatives assessed the problem and suggested I take a walk down the street while he worked on it. Perfect, I thought, I'll soon have a working phone and I can see a few sights as well.
As I meandered along the cobblestone streets I saw a quaint coffee shop that looked great. Because of the language barrier, I was having difficulty communicating with the waitress, which is especially troublesome for me because I have a severe nut allergy. I managed to order a sandwich after a fairly involved attempt to confirm that there were no nuts in it. Although she assured me there were not, I think she misinterpreted my question because the pesto sauce contained nuts.
As I felt the reaction coming on, I quickly found the manager and asked him if he thought there were nuts in my sandwich and he confirmed there were cashew nuts in the pesto sauce.
Fortunately, his English was pretty good and he was very helpful in tracking me down a cab and rushing me to the nearest medical facility. In a matter of minutes, I was at the hospital, having an allergic reaction to cashews, unable to speak the native language and without a phone.
Not ideal.
Luckily, the doctors and nurses took great care of me and I was fortunate that I had dealt with similar reactions in the past and knew what the progression felt like. I was confident that this one was not going to be super severe.
Since I didn't have my phone, I was unable to inform anyone on the team as to what was happening or where I was. Usually, in an instance like this, I would tell our head trainer that I was experiencing a reaction and he would take the lead in treating me, but since I didn't have my phone I thought it was safest to head straight to the hospital. Luckily it was an off day and I didn't miss a practice or team function.
After getting released from the hospital, I took a cab back to the Apple store, where they informed me that my phone still wasn't able to charge and that most likely something was wrong with the battery. They could get it serviced and replace the battery but that would take a few days, at which point I would probably be back in Colorado.
Great.
Who can go four days without phone?
I decided that it probably wasn't my day and it might be best to just buy a new phone.
So, I went back at the hotel with a brand new iPhone8, feeling completely fine. It wasn't the off day I had planned, but I certainly won't forget it anytime soon.
I promise at some point before we leave I will explore Stockholm and fill you in on what I saw but, for now, I'm going to try and rest up.
Maybe I will stick to room service tonight. Ha!
