Caio Baby Caio

Day four started off bright and early with an incredibly longgggg hike up hill to the Karlestejn Castle! We rode a train for about thirty minutes that took us from the town that we're staying in to Karlestejn; little did we know that would be our last chance to sit down for the next half of the day. I seriously didn't think we'd ever make it to the top of the mountain. Up hill and cobblestone are not a good combination. When we finally made it to the top, we paired up with an English tour guide who took us all around the castle and explained to us the history of each room. We got a private performance from a Czech musician, saw King Charles's bed, learned about all four of his wives, and saw replicas of the crowns which belonged to Charles.
After surviving a morning filled with hills, rocks and stairs, we ventured back down the hill to find some food! We were starving! The majority of us stopped at one of Mr. Jay's favorite restaurants where we experienced traditional Czech food. I had spaghetti and salad, not so traditional, but delicious! Ashley and Tyndall had chicken topped with ham, cheese and a peach! It looked wonderful! And Kristen, the brave one, tried Gulosh. She says it was good, but by the looks of it I won't be ordering it!
Once lunch was over the shopping kick started! We moseyed our way into all the stores along the street leading back down the hill. Tyndall and I bought scarves, the boys bought gifts for their girlfriends, and almost everyone bought post cards to send to their friends!
When we got back to the hotel we were all ready for naps! We spend the next hour resting and getting ready to spend a night on the town, and it's a good thing we did. Mr. Ray's friend from Prague took us all around the city teaching us the history of each part of Prague and showing us all the stores we needed to go in. We climbed the tower near our hotel and saw the city from above; it was beautiful!
Mr. Ray's friend took us to an awesome restaurant that sent our drinks to our table on trains! It was one of the coolest things any of us had ever seen!! And he took us to a little cafe that served delicious sweets. It was like we died and went to heaven. Every one ordered something different and delicious!
We ended the evening walking through the city as the sun set. As we made our way back to the hotel some random man ran up to one of the girls in the group and screamed "Caio Baby Caio" then proceeded to make weird noises with his toung!! It was creepyyy, but hilarious! Needless to say we laughed the entire night and repeated "Caio Baby Caio" over and over again!

 Sunset in Prague

 Our view from the Karlestejn Castle

 A model of the castle

 Ashley eating lunch in front of the castle 

 Our view from the tower!

 Look how high up we were!

 Our delicious treats!

Drinks on a train!!

Castles, Cathedrals and Guards...Oh MY!

I don't think I can even put in to words how amazing today has been! It's completely an indescribable experience to come to another country and mingle with people who are so accepting of you and who want to learn just as much about you as we want to learn about them! Today has been by far the best day of the trip so far and one of the best days of my life!
After breakfast this morning we took off with the guys and ventured to the Prague Castle which is the largest castle in the world! It's equivalent to the size of seven football fields! We were all awestruck by the sight of the massive and beautiful structure. After taking group pictures outside the castle we made our way through the crowds and into the magnificent Cathedral. The architecture, stain glass windows, and sculptures inside we're simply amazing! We're hoping to go back later in the week and tour the inside of the castle and the rest of the Cathedral.
After we finished taking in all the beauty of the Cathedral, we walked out into the plaza where the Senate buildings are located and made our way down a hill where you could see the entire city from standing against the wall. It was breathtaking.  Needless to say I was in picture taking heaven! We probably spent thirty minutes posing for pictures and soaking in the city in all its beauty.
On our way to the other side of the plaza we stopped to take pictures with the castle guards who don't move or smile; but don't worry, we got them to move! One of the boys decided he was going to try and take a close up picture with the guard and he crossed the safety line which sent the guard into a rage! He slammed his gun on the ground, stomped his foot and yelled GET BACK! I was so scared, my heart pounded for the next ten minutes!
Once we recovered from the intense experience, we ventured back down to the tram, and made our way back to the hotel. It was time to get ready for our game against the Czech Republic, which ended up being the best part of the day!
After eating our meal outside the subway station, the Czech coaches drove from the fields to pick us up. When we arrived at the field we were shocked to see what appeared to be massive 16 year olds, but little did we know their ages ranged from 13-16. They we're really good for their age. We played a scrimmage which helped them prepare for the national tournament that they're leaving to play in, in Belgium. One of the Czech girls, Alice, played for our team since we only have eight girls with us! She was sooo nice, spoke really good english and really enjoyed being with us. She tried to teach me Czech but I think I'm hopeless. I've only figured out the basic words: Ahoj and Chow mean Hello, Diky means Thanks, and Dobrou Praci means Good Job (don't judge me on my pronunciation though).
Three of the girls, Alice, Bara and Eliska all speak english and are really impressive. Eliska's father is English and she explained to us that it's really hard because girls grow up talking more with their mother and her mother speaks Czech but her father converses with her in English and she attends an English school, so she knows what we're saying but she doesn't always know the correct way to answer. She was an extremely helpful translator though! Bara is learning English from Eliska and from spending her summers in England at an English school. She and her mother sat at our dinner table and we're so much fun to talk with. Her mother also speaks English! She's a pediatric general practitioner here; such a sweet lady!
We spent a lot of our evening conversing with the girls and learning about each other! They were completely shocked to find out that we don't drink in our country until we're 21! They're all legal in Prague since the drinking age is 16, but they can't get their license until they're 18. We asked Eliska what their opinions of Americans was and she immediately responded "a fat man eating a burger". We all busted out laughing!! I guess that goes to show, we have a reputation for being obese. We exchanged stories and laughed all through our dinner, which was delicious fried cheese! Kristen's day was made when she realized we were eating cheese for dinner! It was like a grilled cheese only a million times better!!
Today was by far one of the best experiences I've ever had in my life. I absolutely love being here and doing what we're doing! Its such an amazing experience and I can't wait to see what the rest of the week has in store! Bara wants to come to our hotel and take us to explore "the real Prague" with her. She also wants to come to America and hang out with us cause we're so awesome; I do believe those were almost her exact words!!
After our long and incredible day was over, we met at the hotel for our devotional. Mr. Charlie read us some verses of the Bible and explained that what we're doing is a unique and wonderful thing. We're here to be ourselves and enlighten others of Christ and his word. We prayed together and ended on my favorite verse "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me". <3

 Ashley and I at our game! 

 The Prague Castle 

 The Purpose Driven Baseball and Softball Teams at the castle!

 The beautiful Cathedral! 

 The breathtaking view from the ledge 

 The Girls! :)

 Kristen, Ashley and I in front of the city

 The girls again!

 The scary scary guard! 

 Our new best friends in Prague! Eliska is in the blue wind jacket and Bara is in the red!

 Our teams saying good game to each other! 

 Kristen loves her cheese!! 

The Czech team and our team! :)

 

Czech Us Out

Day two in the beautiful city of Prague has already come to an end, but what a wonderful day it's been. We woke up to the sounds of extreme snooring coming in from Mrs. DeDe's bunk. We quickly got ready and headed down stairs to eat breakfast in the hotel. After Kristen, Ashley and I finished eating we headed to the store on the corner to buy bottled water with no gas, which is hard to find and more expensive, but don't worry, we found the biggest and cheapest bottles in the city! I've never been so happy to see and drink water!
We started our day off heading towards Old Town Square and Kristen took a nice little trip down the sidewalk, falling down and scraping her knee. She's okay though, she quickly rolled over and busted out laughing. The best part about it though was the lady in front of us turned around, pointed and said "too much to drink last night". We probably laughed for a solid 15 minutes. After that little bump in the road, we continued on and visited the gorgeous St. Francis Church located in the middle of Old Town. It was so lavish and beautiful inside and out.
Our next journey took us over the St. Charles's Bridge, stopping at every statue for photo ops along the way, and into New Town where we experienced Gelato! I can't even think of words to accurately describe how delicious that was! I think we're planning on eating it every day, at least I hope we are! :)
Next stop, the John Hus statue in the center of the town. John Hus was a preacher against the Catholic Church who was persecuted for his belief that people should be able to read the bible in their own languages. His last words were "in 100 years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform cannot be suppressed" and 102 years later Marin Luther nailed his famous theses into the church door at Wittenberg. After listening to Mr. Ray's speech on the history of the statue we separated into groups and prayed for the people of Prauge and all of the tourists from other countries asking God to guide them to follow his word. Before we took off we watched the Astronomical Clock chime on the hour, it was definitely an impressive and memorable experience!
After that we ventured off on the longest round about route to Bohemian Bagel stopping at Brickhouse's favorite store Padagonia. We also took pictures with a golden man and ventured into a massive supermarket. We finally got some food in our stomachs and we're stoked to find out that the refills were FREE! We've also had to adjust to not drinking drinks on ice, but today the soda came straight from the fountain and it was already ice cold! I had a massive and delicious turkey club on a whole wheat bagel, yumm yumm.
We then took off for the Prague Gardens but managed to stop at and sight see along the way. We crossed back over Charles's Bridge and stopped in front of a gate where Mr. Charlie proceeded to tell us about a famous fountain that was suppose to increase fertility if you touched it, so he obviously told us to not even get too close!! When we walked into the gate we were shocked to see a fountain with statues of two men peeing! Our faces we're absolutely priceless.
Once we made it to the gardens we scattered about attempted to see all of the intriguing sites. We took pictures of a beautiful white peacock, sat on the fountain of Venus, and fed the pigeons.
On our journey back to the hotel we stumbled upon the John Lennon Wall which was by far one of the coolest things I've ever seen! It was a massive graffiti wall dedicated to the Beatles and everyone who passes by signs or draws on it. Of course we all added our names and took numerous pictures in front of the colorful display of art. Ashley, Mr. Charlie and Sarah are big Beatles fans so they we're lovin this stop!
After we turned the corner we say a gate completely covered in locks! It was so awesome! Each lock had a name or initials inscribed on it of the person who put it there's lover! Brickhouse told us its used to "lock in love". Ashley happened to have a lock in her suite case so if we go back we're going to add one with the initials JC representing Jesus Christ!
We finally made our way back to the Mossaic House where we briefly checked our facebooks, skyped some family and then headed back out to dinner. This time we were set on experiencing some real Czech food, and don't worry, we found some! We made our way to a little restaurant not far from the hotel. As soon as we sat down we were immediately offered beer and shots, but we politely turned them down. The legal drinking age in Prague is 16 which is unbelievable! The majority of us ordered roasted sausage, pork or chicken which were all served with potatoes, sauerkraut (gross!!), cabbage, bread or potato dumplings. Everything was delicious!
After that I spent the last couple of hours uploading 480 pictures and working on my blog! I hope you guys are enjoying the stories of our travels!! Sarah, Gurkins and Tyndall are going to get on here and write some too!! But for now, its off to bed we go! Night yall!

 Lock in Love!

 KP & I's massive water bottle!

 The girls on the bridge overlooking the city!

 St. Nicholas's Church

 Christ on the Cross on the St. Charles's Bridge

 Tyndall, Gurkins, Kristen, Sara, Ashley and Sarah! 

 The streets of Prague aligning the river!

 Czech us out!! 

 The most delicious ice cream I've ever experienced! 

 The Golden Man!! 

 My delicious lunch

 All you need is love <3

The John Lennon Wall!

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fat, happy and ready for bed.

After our longgg and very eventful journey we had a thirty minute van ride to the mossaic house and once we finally reached our destination Kristen was so happy she jumped out and kissed the ground! We were absolutely thrilled to be able to eat real food, take showers and go to sleep in a bed. Mr. Jay gave us our game room assignments, six people to a "suite", told us to drop our bags off, and meet back in the lobby to venture out to dinner at a local restaurant. We got up to our rooms, opened our door, and our jaws dropped. Our rooms are literally smaller than my Meredith dorm room. There are six bunk beds in a tiny little space, but don't worry, the bathrooms are pretty cool! The showers are open though, really strange, and the toilets don't have water in them. Still in complete shock, we dropped off our bags and went back downstairs to meet up with the rest of the group for dinner.
We made our way down some random street and stumbled upon a pizza place. We we're absolutely starving so anything edible with an english menu sounded delicious. We all ordered our own individual pizzas and like champions, every one of us devoured the entire thing. Drinks, however, were a little different. They were bottles of Pepsi and Pepsi Light (Diet Pepsi) and the refills are so not free. After dinner, our eyes immediately glazed over; we we're "fat happy and ready for bed"
When we got back to the Mossaic House it was time for showers and bed. Ashley, Kristen, Leah and I were all anxious to finally get on the internet so Erica took a shower first. Less than five minutes after she went in the bathroom were heard a loud thump, everyone got completely silent, and then all of a sudden we could hear Erica laughing from the bathroom. She fell  trying to get out of the shower, which let me tell you is not an easy task, it's about 2 feet deep.Oh what an experience it is to shower in a Chezk "Water Closet".
While we continued to laugh all night about poor Erica falling, the other group of girls had their own fiasco to laugh about. Sarah brought her mini fan with her to help her sleep at night, so naturally she got out Tyndalls converter and plugged it in to the wall. Suddenly the fan stopped working. Brickhouse played with the converter, detached it from the adapter, and plugged the fan back in. The fan started working again, but moments later Sarah started smelling smoke. All of a sudden the fan exploded and the power went out! Sarah and Brickhouse sprinted to the lobby in their pj's and begged for help. Luckily there was a really cool brittish guy that was able to help them fix it.
After all the excitement was over we we're long past ready for bed. We cut off the lights, laid down, and closed our eyes, but the silence of night time didn't last long. Mrs. DeDe's snooring kept us up an extra hour or so. She seriously sounded like a train rolling through our room. We couldn't help but laugh as Erica and Leah started throwing things at her to get her to stop. Oh what a first night we had. Thank goodness the time adjustment kicked our butts and put us out despite the loud noises coming from the bottom bunk.

 Our Pepsi, Sprite, Gingerale and Pepsi Light! 

 Some delicious margarita pizza! 

Kristen cleaned her plate like a champion! 

we thought we'd never get here...

This has seriously been the longest 24 hours of my life. There's probably a better way to accurately describe it but I'm too tired to even think about words. Let me just walk you through our adventure to Prague!

We arrived at RDU on July 22nd at 8:30am ready to roll. We started out perfect, weighing in and checking our bags in, printing our tickets and boarding passes, and organizing our passports, well with the exception of my bag being over 50 pounds, but thankfully United Airlines let it slide :) We prayed together, said our goodbyes, hugged our parents, and off we went. Our original departure from RDU was scheduled for 11:15am, but little did we know that we wouldn't make it out of there until almost 3:00pm. Our flight kept getting pushed back, thirty minutes at a time until we finally we're able to load at 1:00. That's when all the roller coaster of events began. Once we we're all on board the plane the captain came on the speaker and informed us that there was a malfunction in the plane and that we would have to deboard. So back off we went, sat around for another hour and a half, and then finally we were able to get back on. Don't get too excited though, we had to turn a quick hour and a half flight into a three hour flight to Chicago, and the worst part was we couldn't sleep on the plane or else we wouldn't be able to sleep on the next over night flight. We made the most of it though, laughing about the disgusting hot dog that Sarah ate, learning things about each other, and playing an intense game of go-fish! When we got close to Chicago we realized we were going to be pushing it to make it to our next flight. Anxiously awaiting our landing, we happened to glance out the window an watch our plane to Germany take off. We missed it by 12 minutes. 

Needless to say, we we're all upset, but as Mr. Ray says "just keep smiling" so we did. We spent the next four hours sitting at customer service in Chicago waiting for United and Lufthanza to work out getting us on a new flight. Thankfully they found us all seats on a 7:00pm flight so we sprinted across the airport to the gate and boarded the plane. Don't worry, the fun wasn't over just yet. We boarded the plane absolutely starving from not having a chance to eat all day, and incredibly exhausted from the challenges the day threw at us, and just our luck we're stuck on the plane with no air conditioning for two hours. We just couldn't catch a break. 

Finally we got some air flowing and the captain announced that we'd be able to take off shortly. Once we got cooled off, Gurkins and I fell asleep before the flight attendants could even bring us our meal. But never fear, the smell of food woke us right up. I don't think I'd ever been so happy to see a frozen dinner. We inhaled the food as fast as we could and as Gurkins says "we're fat happy and ready for bed". Both of us passed out and slept almost the entire nine hour flight to Germany. 

Around 5:30 the next morning we we're awakened to an announcement that we would be landing in approximately thirty minutes. Naturally that meant we we're not going to make our flight to Prague so once again we ventured back to customer service and waited to be put on a new flight. Thankfully this time things went a little smoother aside from half the team getting stuck on the wrong side of the airport, being padded down by security and almost not being let back in because they didn't have their passports. Oh what a site that was, and all they were trying to find was a McDonalds. After we were all reunited we got on our final flight! Luckily, the previous nine hour flight and three hour wait in Germany made the hour flight to Prague feel like five minutes. Before we knew it we we're finally landing in the beautiful city, Phara! Kristen was so happy to finally be on land that she kissed the ground! It literally was the longest 24 hours of our lives, but all in all we made it fun. Mr. Charlie kept us laughing with his silly jokes, the fact that we had no clue what any one was saying or what any of the words on the signs were always made us laugh, and just being together made it all worth while. 

Prague truly is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and I can't wait to get out and explore tomorrow! 

 The first Purpose Driven Softball Team ready to go at RDU!

 Tyndall, Gurkins and Sarah - not so happy about all of the layovers and missed flights

 Ashley, Kristen and I happy to finally be in Germany! 

 A snapshot of part of the city from our van! 

WE MADE IT! :)

Up Up and Away

Today's the day! Were getting ready to start our two week journey to Prague for the first ever Purpose Driven Softball trip! Words can't even describe how excited excited I am to be going on this trip! Its going to be an incredible experience for all of us. Its going to be a long day full of traveling but it will definitely be worth it when we land in the beautiful city of Prague.
Thank you to all of my family and friends for your kind words, prayers and well wishes. I truly appreciate your thoughts and prayers for the girls and I. We're all very excited to see what God has in store for us on this trip. Please continue to pray for us as we travel. I'll post as soon as I can once we've landed!
See yall in two weeks!