Finland's Airi Mikkela: Kendall Jenner hair, Turkish tournament and Christmas!

Jij het nieuws, wij een tikkie!

You can try to guess yourself what is true and what is not! However, this story is about my life last week. It includes strong feelings, drama and excitement, but the most important thing is that there is a happy ending to it. So let's get started...

Once upon a time there was a girl named Airi. Airi lived in Denmark, played badminton and liked Christmas a lot. One December morning she woke up, saw the Christmas presents for her family ready and waiting on the window sill and she felt so much like travelling home to Finland already. It was, indeed, time for her to travel but the destination was not Finland but Turkey and the last tournament of the year. Airi believed she was gonna play well since she had been training well and she felt good. On the other hand she could feel the tough year and all the tournaments she had played in her...

However, Airi was more than excited and not scared at all to travel to Turkey and to very close to the border or Syria. She was also looking forward to eat her favorite meal, kebab! The excitement grew even bigger as a photographer tried to take photos under her skirt in the practice hall. Additionally, the tournament hall was huge and windy which brought even more joy and surprises to Airi's life.

However, the tournament ended with a big disappointment for Airi as she played so bad that she couldn't do anything but cry after her match. Luckily she had her coach and friends around to cheer her up. Despite all the support, the disappointment was still weighing her down for the rest of the week. At the same time her desire to go home grew bigger and bigger...

Before heading to Finland Airi still had to overcome a couple of challenges. On the 21st of December she took a train to Ikast, a small city somewhere on the other side of Denmark. The train was fully packed and Airi ended up sitting jammed on the floor and being kissed by a random dog. Three hours went by very fast and soon it was time for the last team match of the year.

The team match was.....well, the team survived. Airi's team lost 11-2 and although Airi didn't do too well in the singles, she still managed to give everything she had for the doubles and take a point for her team. The match was so nice and happy that the umpire almost wanted to wave with his yellow cards but managed to control himself. So Airi didn't get to see any yellow cards but instead she was chosen as the best player of the team and she got a teddy bear.

And so it was time to finally travel to Finland! It was almost midnight already when Airi stepped on the train in Ikast. It took five hours and two different trains to get to the Copenhagen airport. One hour of sleep with her neck awkwardly twisted didn't help much and so there was this girl walking around the airport at 04.42 looking like she was drunk.

At that point the star of our story faced the biggest challenge yet: How to stay awake for three hours alone at the airport? The best ideas turned out to be walking around, counting the stripes on the t-shirt of the guy sitting next to her (there were 18 blue and 17 black ones, just so you know...) and drinking a crazy amount of water so that she was forced to get up and go to toilet time after time.

This story ends happily as Airi finally came home to hug her family. She spent the evening lying on the floor in the living room and chatting with her parents. "Your imagination has no limits, my child...", said her mum looking at her daughter. The main thing is, of course, that Airi finally made it home and is free to relax, eat well and spend time with her loved ones. The tough autumn made that girl extremely exhausted and rest is much needed now.

The adventures will be continued in the near future but for now MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYBODY! :)

xxx
Airi