Airi Mikkela: Finland's Ice Ice Baby headed for Reykjavik

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Despite all the experience I have from traveling, I still must admit that this lifestyle is sometimes a little bit hectic and intense. That's why I like to relax and keep myself away from blogging and other social medias when I'm at home. But now that I'm on the road again, it's a perfect time for writing!

Last week I played in Swedish Masters. That tournament went beyond my own expectations as I didn't think I would make it to the quarter finals in such a strong tournament. On the second round I had to beat Petya Nedelcheva from Bulgaria and she's a strong player who has been number 10 in the world before and still is one of the strongest players in Europe. But I won that match and exceeded my expectations. That's always a good feeling.

I wrote a while ago about the battle of the spot in Rio we have with Nanna, and Sweden was again a very interesting experience regarding to that battle. Just before my second round match Nanna made a surprise beating a strong Spanish girl and so made it to the quarter finals. That somehow gave me a huge boost and I thought like "wow, surprises are actually possible to make and that means I can also do that, actually it would be very good for me to do that!". As I'm writing this now, I'm still wondering how on earth did I manage to see it so positively because I was actually under a big pressure at that moment.

Although Sweden was a good tournament for me and it was not a long or wearing trip, it still took me surprisingly many days to recover mentally. If you look or listen to me it might seem that I can easily handle the pressure, but the truth is that I was monkeying around for a couple of days after the tournament with too much adrenaline running through my veins. Finally I found the peace after hugging a lot, talking with my friends, chilling on the couch doing nothing, calling home to my parents and talking for a longlong time, crying just a little bit and laughing a lot. Sometimes everything is just so crazy when I have so many tournaments, a whole new country and environment every week, all the excitement, life is so extremely wonderful and my head is spinning around like crazy.

Luckily I feel like I had just enough time to recover from Sweden. I had time for some good training sessions and I got to sleep a few nights in my own bed. My body feels good, my mind feels sharp and so everything should be as good as it can get. I am excited about Iceland because I really like the country and the tournament. I'm also so happy to see my Icelandic friend after a long time and staying at her place during the tournament.

After Iceland I will again have only a couple of days off before the Finnish championships. So next week I will be traveling once again and this time the destination is my homehome Helsinki, that's always a nice destination! After nationals it's soon time to head to Russia for the European team championships. So a lot of things happening now and this is just a beginning. I have also some plans for March and April already but those I will reveal a bit later... ;)

So tomorrow I'm playing in Iceland International, (unfortunately there is no livescore or livestream this time...)

Have a nice weekend everyone! :)

xxx
Airi