May 19, 2007
Women's Volleyball Travels to Europe

Day 11 - May 19 - Kristin Rinne's Blog
Day 10 - May 18 - Megan Pollard's Blog
Day 9 - May 17 - Devon West's Blog
Day 8 - May 16 - Rachel Bonertz's Blog
Day 7 - May 15 - Ashley Scheible's Blog
Day 6 - May 14 - Kristin Wolf's Blog
Day 5 - May 13 - Meagen Tracey's Blog
Day 4 - May 12 - Nakia Thompson's Blog
Day 3 - May 11 - Brett Starbuck's Blog
Day 2 - May 10 - Jill Nyhof's Blog
Day 1 - May 9 - Laura Obert's Blog

European Blog #9 - Brno/Prague, Czech Republic - May 17 - Devon West

So today was our last day in Brno. And it could very well have been our last all together. Why you ask? Well, let me tell you…we had to play the Azerbaijan National volleyball team. Now, don’t be fooled because you haven’t heard of this country because they are still MONSTERS! With our possible pulverization in mind, we enjoyed a glorious breakfast…we had fruits and brown breads!!! (Kia & I were glad since Nutrition class frowns against all the white bread we’ve been fed). We even all got to check our e-mails to send some last words to loved ones before the big game on the hotel internet, which has been trouble to find here in Europe.

At the game we geared up and we were all really focused and determined, which was great since we haven’t quite achieved this consistently, but I’m sure there’s more to come now! Sadly, we didn’t take a set off the National team, but we played great with many shining moments and we definitely gave them a good run. The team had a couple of huge girls that were even lefties (a bonus for a volleyball player). They also had this really good libero who we watched play as a hitter last night…the lil gaffer may have been a stellar player, but was definitely not a ball of sunshine when she tore into her teammates every play. A bit of an angry elf if you will! Overall, the girls on the team were nice and tried to talk to us in English, even if it wasn’t too successful.

After the game we hauled out to head to Prague (or Praha if you want to be culturized). The beautiful scenic ride was destroyed by having to listen to Jillian Nyhof recite the entire novel of Harry Potter in exact detail to Rachel. No joke…I guess Jill and Rinne reading it to each other in English accents wasn’t enough in Slovenia!

In Prague, we met our tour guide helpers Jirka & Katcja. Jirka was quite the jokester with us and challenged us with a bunch of riddles. He told us some historic stories about an architect who built a clock and was blinded so he couldn’t build a similar clock, and about angry princes who killed their brothers to rule the country. Pretty intense eh? On a lighter note, another power hungry situation we learned about involved a priest getting thrown off of St. Charles Bridge, which leads to the Prague castle, by a crazy ruler to get back at his cheating wife. The bright note is that there is a gold cross on the bridge now that is still around today and it’s a tradition to place your left hand on this cross and make a wish. So clearly, the whole team made wishes!

Well folks, other than that we had a delicious Italian dinner…yes in Prague, go figure! We saw a few more fun landmarks like the Disco Club we are going to tomorrow, a T-Mobile building, a KPMG building, the Prague castle (which is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest castle EVER!), and other lil tidbits.

Okaaayy, thanks for tuning in to our CCU Volleyball European expedition! The rest of the trip is here in Prague, so GET EXCITED for some more great stories!

xox Devon