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Day 9, January 5, 2006
Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC
Castle and Competition
By Kerry Watt (OVA)
Today we went across the Charles Bridge to see the castle, and our tour guide told us stories of the architecture. The bridge was long and had statues about every 50 feet, some had myths, and some were for decoration. The castle was huge and we learned that its height is for the comparison of people to God. After that we went to play our three matches against the various Prague teams. All of the teams were very good and hit really hard. The first team we played was the team from the high school we went to, and they were their own club team as well. The second and third teams were the same club, the first was 14’s age division, and the third was 16’s.It was really good competition.
Split teams
By Nikki Chadwick (OVA)
Yesterday we scrimmaged against the Jacksonville 14’s Team. First we played their team against ours and won. The second time around we split up the girls. OVA took their older girls, the 15 and 16 year olds, and we traded our 13 year old girls, and scrimmaged again. The older team barely won. The “Mighty Mites” wanted to beat the older team so we were bummed when we lost such a close match. Even though we lost we played really well together and made a good team.
The best part was to get to meet new volleyball friends from Florida. We will be playing in a tournament in Orlando against Jacksonville in a couple of weeks, but now we can be friends and talk while we play against each other.
T.G.I. Fridays!
By Kacie Berini (Jax 16’s)
Today we went sightseeing in Prague and we visited the three churches there. We saw the Clock Tower in their Old Town Square and learned the history of it. After we looked at what we did not see in Prague yesterday, we went shopping in the small, unique stores and shops for others. The highlight of the day was that we got to finally eat American food at T.G.I Fridays! A lot of pictures, and important things were seen, and we got our wish of finally having really good food, coke, and ice!
Around 3:00 our team and Team West Coast traveled on a bus to the volleyball “hall”, where we played 2 matches. The first game was pretty close, but the competition was fierce. During the last game you could see everyone was getting tired. Both teams worked really hard, and were mostly neck and neck with the scores. It was an awesome experience to play against teams with such high level talent.
The Changing of the Guard
By Brianna Bates
Today the younger teams switched with the older teams and took a tour of Prague’s Castle. In reality, the castle is really a cathedral that dates back to the 17th century. The details were absolutely amazing and even though a sign said no photography, Lana and I snuck in our cameras and snapped a few. We took pictures with the guards standing outside and tried to get them to show some facial movement. Mariah put her arm around one of the guards not knowing that you weren’t supposed to touch them. The guard proceeded to bang his gun on the ground and push her away. Needless to say, we all left pretty quickly. We then walked through the city and grabbed some lunch.
At 2:00 we hopped on the bus and headed to a school to play volleyball. The competition was amazing. The first team was the 16’s Olymp Praha Team. Their jump serves were hard and their hitting was crazy good. The gym was so tiny and the ceiling was so short that it was hard to control our passing. We hung in there and just tried to have fun. We played two other matches after that to really good teams. We lost but continued to improve through each game. After playing 9 matches to teams that kept us moving, we were all falling asleep on our feet!
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