Trip to Prague

Hey everyone!  First of all, Happy Advent!  I can't believe that Christmas is coming so soon.  We pray that everyone will take time in the upcoming weeks to prepare their hearts for the coming of the Savior.

In other news, it snowed today!  The ground is still a bit too warm for it to stick, but it was really coming down when we woke up this morning.  I'm pretty sure that cold weather is here to stay.  For a while, it had been tricking us, going back and forth between cold weeks and warm weeks, but it seems as though the cold weather won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

Sorry it has been a little while since our last blog update.  The month of November was packed with games! We are undefeated in our Central European league, and we have one loss in Romanian league.  We have some important games coming up in December before we go home for Christmas!

Last week, we traveled to Prague for a Central European league game.  Jen and I have had the opportunity to go to Prague several times, and it is one of our favorite European cities.  We knew that we probably wouldn't have a lot of time to explore the city, but we were sure gonna try.  We left Tuesday morning at about 8:00 am and arrived at about 8:00 pm.  It was a long day on the bus, but it didn't seem too bad.  Jen was in the middle of the second book of the Hunger Games series, and I had downloaded a few podcasts that I was really excited to listen to so we had activities to keep us busy.

On Wednesday morning, we woke up, ate breakfast, and then immediately left to head into the center of the city for a couple hours.  We had to be back at 1:30 for shootaround so we were trying to pack a lot into a little bit of time.  Jen, Kari, Kitsy, Cristina (our trainer), and I left our hotel to go to the train station.  A very sweet man at the hotel we were staying at loaned us 500 Czech crown to buy our train tickets since there were no exchange places near where we were staying.  The train ride into the center of Prague only took about fifteen minutes.  We met some very helpful people on the train who helped us figure out where we should get off.  The last time that Jen and I were in Prague was about 2 years ago, but it was neat to see that we still sort of knew our way around the city.  This turned out to be a good thing since we were working with such little time, we were able to really maximize it by having some sense of where the major landmarks were.

First, we stopped in Wenceslas Square.  It is part of the New Town of Prague, and it is filled with lots of restaurants and shops.  It is also the site of their annual Christmas Market.  The Christmas Market was being set up while we were there, but it wasn't quite finished.  Next, we headed to Old Town.  Old Town is beautiful and historical.  It's one of our favorite parts of Prague.  The last thing that we had time to see was the Charles Bridge.  It connects Old Town Prague with the Prague Castle and all of the other parts of the city across the Vltava River.  The bridge is gorgeous.  It is lined all the way across on both sides with statues depicting events of Jesus' life and death and various saints.  We would have loved to visit the castle and the gorgeous Catheral inside the castle walls, but we had a train to catch!

We headed back the way we came, passing through Old Town.  Kitsy decided to stop at Starbucks for a hot chocolate.  Little did we know that this "quick" stop would take about fifteen minutes!  We ended up having to run the rest of the way to the train station...not the best part of the trip, but the good part is that we made the train :-)  It was a whirlwind tour of the city, but we were very happy that we were able to see it again!

Jen and Kitsy burning off a little energy after lunch :-)

Jen reading the second book in the Hunger Games series

Roommates

Waiting for the train

This was a nice train...very smooth and quiet

Picture on the train

Nativity in New Town - this is where the Christmas Market will be set up

Wenceslas Square

On our way to Old Town

Old Town - with the famous clock and the beautiful church

Old Town

Jen made a quick stop at Starbucks to get a "blueberry muffin," or at least that's what she told me.  She surprised me later that night with a piece of cheesecake :-)  What a good friend :-)

Reminiscing about old times :-)

In honor of our friend, Hilary Lynch :-)  We met Hilary in Prague 2 years ago while on a free tour around the city.  We have kept in touch with each other's adventures through Facebook :-)

I don't actually know the real name of this church.  We just call it the Adam and Eve church.  We learned on our free tour a couple of years ago that the two towers represent Adam and Eve.  The tower on the left is slightly smaller (Eve), and the tower on the right is slightly bigger (Adam).  There was more to it than that, but that's what stuck with us :-)

Jen and Cristina

Kari with her hot wine

Jen and Kitsy

Getting ready to walk across the Charles Bridge

Kitsy on the bridge - you can see the Cathedral in the background

Taking pictures

View on the bridge

Group picture with St. Vitus Cathedral in the background - Jen and I went to Mass there a couple of years ago.  It was soooo beautiful!  The stained glass was awesome!

Exhausted after running to catch the train

My nice black/purple eye that I got from one of my teammates in practice :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Tina and I have prepared a Thanksgiving meal every year we have played overseas. It is something we both look forward to. This year we did not have an oven so we had to improvise and prepare by stove. Below is a picture of what we made!

Before we ate our food, we prayed, "Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen." Then we both talked about the things we are thankful for. For the past 8 years, Tina and I have been away from home and always celebrate Thanksgiving together. Even though we aren't with our family, we always remember our family and say a prayer for their protection. 

Today is a special reminder for us all to be thankful to our Creator. God should be remembered today and every day of the year. So while it's true that Thanksgiving only comes but once a year, we should actually celebrate our thankfulness each and every day. It's just a matter of learning to live with a spirit of gratitude.

Enjoy your meals and happy Thanksgiving to you all!

-Jen and Tina

Trip to Serbia

Hey everyone!  

As our last blog post mentioned, we had two days off this past weekend due to an unexpected game cancellation.  It was a nice surprise.  Although it was very last minute, Jen, Kari, and I got to work quickly researching nearby cities/countries, finding hostels, trying to rent a car, etc.

After lots of discussion, we decided to go to Belgrade, Serbia.  Saturday morning, we rented a car with the help of our team president and started our trip.  It was only about a 3 and a half hour drive which wasn't bad at all.  We didn't know there was a time change so we actually ended up gaining an hour.  We found our hostel without too much trouble, checked in, and then spent the rest of our first day wandering around the city.  It started getting dark very early there (like around 4:30) so once we could no longer see, we headed back to our hostel to get some advice on good restaurants.  We ended up going to the Bohemian Quarter which is an old cobblestone street with lots of restaurants and hangouts.  We found a place that served traditional Serbian food, and it turned out to be a winner.

Although it was still early after dinner, we decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel.  From what we have been told, Belgrade is famous for its nightlife, but that's not really our scene, and Kari likes to go to bed around 9:00 anyways :-)  

Jen and I got an early start the next morning so that we could go to Mass.  We had asked several people about Catholic churches and had some maps to help us with directions.  Since we didn't know what time Mass was, we figured we would just get there by 7 assuming that the church would probably have Mass at either 7, 8, or 9.  To make a long story short, we never found a Catholic church.  We walked for 4 hours (no joke) all around the city, and never found the church(es).  We stopped to ask for directions probably 10 times, and each time, people would point us in the right direction (or at least they thought it was the right direction), but we never found it.  On the brighter side, we saw almost all of the city during that little outing.  

We had planned to meet Kari back at the hostel around 10:00.  When we got back, all we wanted to do was sit down for a while!  After we rested for a bit, the three of us set out to see a few more of the sights.  We walked down the pedestrian street called Knez Mihailova, and then headed to the Kalemegdan Fortress, probably the most famous structure in Belgrade.  

After we were done there, we made a plan to get ready to head back to Arad.  Jen and I walked about thirty minutes to go get the car (which we had to park on the other side of the river) while Kari went to get a crepe that she had been craving.  We met at the hostel, checked out, and started the drive back.  

The first hour and a half of our drive was pretty uneventful.  At that point, our GPS just stopped working.  It was sitting up on the dashboard doing a fine job, and then it just decided to shut off for no reason.  I'm thankful that it worked long enough to at least get us out of Belgrade and onto the highway.  We had to ask for directions and make a few guesses, but we eventually made it to the Romanian border.  Once we got there, we knew we would be able to make it back without too many problems.  We did sit at the border for quite a while, however.  We don't know exactly what was going on except that there was a lot of yelling and people getting out of their cars :-)  Luckily, once we finally made it to the front of the line, they didn't give us much of a hassle, and we were back on our way.  

Although it went by very quickly, it was a good trip.  It was nice to get away and see a new country.  

Although it was our first time in Serbia, here are a couple of random things that we noticed:

-People were very friendly to us.  We had been told that Serbians don't really like Americans very much we weren't really sure what to expect, but we were very pleasantly surprised.  Every person that we asked for help tried to help us.  We had several people actually walk us to where we were trying to go when we asked them for directions!

-Most of the Serbians spoke very good English, and they spoke it confidently.  Sometimes when we ask people in other countries, "Do you speak English?", they respond, "A little", or "Not really."  We generally go on to find that their English, while maybe not perfect, is completely understandable and perfectly adequate to help us with whatever we need.  

-As a general rule, Serbians are tall!  Jen, Kari, and I are not exactly short women.  We are used to standing out in most crowds.  We were still taller than most of the people but not by much.

The month of November is pretty packed with games so we probably won't have another weekend like that for a while.  I'm glad we got to take advantage of this opportunity to travel.  

We hope you are all doing well.  God bless you!

"Do not fear what may happen tomorrow.  The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will care for you tomorrow and every day.  Either He will shield you from suffering or give you unfailing strength to bear it.  Be at peace then and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginings."  -St. Francis de Sales

We had to stop and take a picture crossing into Serbia.  We tried to stop at a sign before this one, but we got yelled at to get back in our car.  So we tried again at this sign :-)

The Serbian language uses an entirely different alphabet called the Cyrillic alphabet.  This presented some problems for us when we were trying to get around town since we couldn't read a single street name...but we managed :-)

Jen in our rental car in front of our hostel

Kari and Jen in front of the 'Palata Srbije' or 'Palace of Serbia'.  It wasn't much to look at.  Clearly, Kari was disappointed.

Walking across the bridge from New Belgrade to Old Belgrade.

On the bridge over the Sava River with Old Belgrade in the background.

On the bridge with New Belgrade in the background.

After visiting Saborna crkva (St. Michael's Cathedral)

As we were walking through a park, we saw this completely random exhibit of pictures of all 50 states so of course we had to take pictures with our states!

A bunch of old men playing chess :-)

Outdoor garden/BBQ area at our hostel

The kitchen at our hostel

Dining room and hangout area

Skadarlija, the Bohemian quarter

Enjoying a little Serbian wine :-)

Expensive dinner!  It's so strange traveling from country to country and trying to figure out the conversion.  This bill for 4,470 Serbian dinar is equivalent to about $50.

Kari feeling rich :-)

After dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant because we had seen cheesecake on the menu.  The cheesecake was not exactly what we were expecting, but we ate it anyways.  Then, Kari ordered chocolate cake which turned out to be more like a combination of mousse and fudge...it didn't last long :-)

Back to the hostel by about 8:30!  Man, we are getting old!!!

Like I said, Jen and I got up early on Sunday morning to go to Mass.  I set the alarm at 5:45 to get up, shower, eat, and then still have time to walk to the church by 7:00.  After walking for about an hour, we ended up at this place.  I was certain that it was pretty close to 8:00 and that we had missed any Masses that had started at 7:00.  Then I saw the time on that building, and said, "That can't possibly be the correct time, right?"  Jen sort of smiled and said, "Ya, that must be the right time.  I forgot to change the time on the alarm last night."  :-)  So in reality, we actually got up at 4:45 and left at 5:45 to try to find a church with 7 am Mass.  It's a good thing we went to bed at 9:00 :-)

Crkva Svetog Marka (St. Mark's Church)

Hram Svetog Save (St. Sava Temple)

St. Sava Temple is the largest Orthodox Church in the Balkans, and it is one of the ten largest church buildings in the world.

Still continuing our 4 hour walk

About to walk down the famous pedestrian street 'Knez Mihailova'

The Kalemegdan Fortress - they were having all kinds of different fights in front of the entrance to the fortress.  The fortress, which rests on the rocks at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers, has a 7,000 year history in which it has been conquered 77 times.

This sign was a bit dramatic...

Jen sitting on the fortress walls with the Danube river behind her

Kari posing for a picture in the park :-)