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Day 1, January 8, 2006
By BIP Tour Vet Lindsey Noll
 After a great deal of hassle we all finally made it to the Hotel Prokopka in Prague. I did not have too many problems with my flight but when I arrived in Frankfurt there were 4 girls and a coach who had missed their flight out to Prague. They had been sitting at the gate they thought they were supposed to be at, but the gate changed and no one told them until it was too late and their plane had left. They had been there since early in the morning and my flight was not until around 1pm so I cannot even imagine how tired and frustrated they had to be. On top of that their luggage also did not make it to Prague and they did not get it until around 8pm that night. They were not the only ones because I heard all the girls who flew through Paris also lost their luggage, which is pretty typical when flying through Paris CDG. (Editor’s Note: Cory especially hates Air France and most things French these days.) Everyone was pretty irritated and also tired, so it was such a relief when they all got their bags.
My flight got into Prague around 2:00 so by the time we got to the hotel we pretty much just changed quickly and went straight to practice. I had been on tour with Bring It two years ago on the Spring Cup tour so I figured it would be pretty similar to that experience. For the most part it was the same except there are about three times as many girls on this tour! When I was here we only had about 12 girls so it was really easy to get to know everyone’s names and become accustomed to playing with them. I remember after the first two days things were running pretty smoothly. This time it was a lot more difficult. I was trying to learn over 35 girls’ names at the first practice! They also had two separate groups going at once - the group of girls who want to stay in Europe and play now, and the group that is looking at signing contracts to play in August - so I did not even meet some of the girls.
Old town square, Prague
I am one of the girls looking to come a play next fall, so the coaches were working on trying to get two separate teams put together with players for every position, which was a little crazy. The first practice we did a lot of serving, passing, and scrimaging so we could get used to the girls we would be playing with for the next 10 days. It was a little hectic at times, but overall it was a good practice. We got to get moving, get our hands on the ball again, and get to know the other girls. I personally felt a little rusty because I have not played in 2 months but I know I will work the kinks out. I am just really excited to start playing some games with my team and get to know the girls better!
Editor’s Note: Many thanks to our coaches for doing such a great job running
30+ girls on two courts. It’s a tough job to arrive in a foreign country
30+ and
immediately be in charge of a circus like this, but Ray, Chris, Ashley, and Kristen (and Erikka for the 10 minutes that she squeaked into the gym for) did a great job. We’re looking forward to a fun week getting these girls going.
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