The adaptation from Ontario, Canada, to Tottenham, North of the UK's capital London, has been somewhat challenging.
The apartment the club found for me felt quite small and foreign to me in the beginning: indeed, a 25m2 in a noisy building in the suburbs inhabited by drug dealers and delinquents young people wasn't my idea, but then again I couldn't complain. Leaving Orlando and the amazing collective apartment I was sharing with some of my good friends was pretty hard and set the bar very high. But, as the first few challenging days were now behind me, I found myself trying to find things to love here, succeeding sometimes. Plus, Alanna and Alex didn't live far from me, so we could meet at any time, since they understand what it is to be far away from family, loved ones and friends.
I broke up with my ex only days before moving to England, and the scar was still wide open: we've had our moments, but things didn't seem right, and now all I wanted was a fresh start away from love stories, because they always seem to be complicated more than they should be. Now, it was only I, Shelina Zadorsky, and my professional soccer career. And there was plenty of very nice people in the team so that I wouldn't feel alone too often.
After yesterday's team welcoming party, I just felt a little more in my place: I chatted with very nice people like Aurora Mikalsen (truly a good feeling, which is pretty rare), Josie Green, Gemma Davidson, Chloe Peplow, Rianna Dean, Jessica Naz or Lucy Quinn, although everybody was very nice and came to make my acquaintance, overall pretty happy to have me, Alanna and Alex in their team - obviously there always needed to be exceptions, and I didn't really take it personally.
Rosella Ayane, on the other hand, was at a whole other level: something in her bitchy and nonchalant attitude was pissing me off more than anyone else, and somehow I wasn't able to keep my hatred for myself, since she made it so easy to confront her. But, since I decided to be the bigger woman here, I just ignored her most of the time after our interaction, that seemed to have been seen by the whole team.
This morning, on my way to the brand new Tottenham Stadium downtown, I picked Alanna and Lucy Quinn, who were living nearby, as Servando was driving his wife to training himself. Today's program involved official team photoshoot and reunions with the coaching staff ahead of preseason training that officially starts tomorrow. (picture below: Lucy Quinn)
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As soon as the Australian gets on the back seat, she exchanges a look with Lucy, before frontally asking:
"So, you and Rosella are ennemies now, after only three days?"
That makes Lucy laugh, but I ain't laughing for a bit:
"She started it with her bad attitude, so I won't make any efforts toward her until we start training - then I'll be civil."
"How noble" Alanna comments, amused.
"Well" Lucy says, staring at me directly, "Rosella sure is quite unique, but she'll come around, as she always does. She's not stupid: once her little crisis is over, she'll be as thrilled as everybody else to have you girls here."
