Czech Out My Shirt

One time, while waiting in the train station for my train, I was sitting on the bench, tired and hot. I couldn't really get comfortable and I can remember this was only my second day in Prague. I was really tired and gross from walking around all day and really wanted nothing more than to just go home (have no hill to climb) and rest. As I was sitting on the bench, eyes closed, I felt a little tug on my shirt. It was the guy next to me. He pointed to my shirt, which kind of looks like it has paint spatter on it, and said something in Czech. I obviously didn't understand him, so I kind of mumbled something like "I don't speak Czech" and smiled. He continued on, using gestures and still speaking Czech to me. He was pointing to my shirt and using a painting motion his shirt. By this time, I think he was trying to ask me if I had painted the design on my t-shirt. I said no, and shook my head and moved my arms. He pointed to my shirt again and said something. OK, now I'm getting tired of this. I once again tried to convey that I didn't speak Czech. The older man, who was wearing a dirty t-shirt with grease stains on his rounded belly and gray hair with a stubbly beard, refused to not talk to me. He heard me say something about English, so he was mumbling something and I said "American" and he said "Arab?". I said no, "American" and he said "Muslim?". By this point, I was so confused and had decided that this conversation was going no where. I said no again, and then he said, "Gypsy". I said no no no no no and he responded by pointing to himself and saying again, "I Gypsy". OK. By now I figured he might be Hungarian or something but I didn't really know where he was going with this. I smiled and said OK and then turned away, hoping to end the conversation. He kind of mumbled a little bit more, but I think he got the idea that I was confused and can't really have a conversation with him when I don't speak his language. When my train arrived at the platform, I left, smiled and waved at the guy, who waved back and smiled. It was an oddly bizarre encounter, but after telling Jenny about it, she said it's very common for Czech people to try and communicate with foreigners in this way. She said she has had friends who have hosted English speaking foreigners and whose parents would talk to them in Czech. When the visitors would respond in English or not at all, they would continue to speak--either slower or louder or both. It's kind of like when someone can't hear you after you say something and you have to speak with emphasis on every word, like "Do--You--Under--Stand--What--I'm--Saying--To--You". I laughed about the whole situation and took the experience as a compliment. The old man liked my shirt. Great.

I'm Just a Tourist

Today was a long day. We all had to wake up early to begin working on the projects for camp. Each group had one project to work on and it took all day, but for the most part we all completed our project and were able to leave a lot earlier than we had planned on.

Of course, my commute home couldn't be easy, because let's face it: I always have to have some story at the end of the day. I was saving this funny story for a later date (like during the camp when I have no internet and I have pre-written blog posts), but I guess the time has come for me to spill the beans. So, for the past week or so, I've been riding the train home with no ticket. Well, that's an exaggeration, because we all have monthly unlimited tickets to get around Prague, but like I said before, Roztoky is one stop outside of Prague. Being lazy and actually sometimes having no time to buy a ticket, I usually just slide by without a problem going from the last station in Prague to Roztoky. There's been a few times where I narrowly escaped the conductor. The first was when Ekta really forgot to buy her ticket, and he let us slide without a fine because a Ukranian woman on the train spoke Russian with Olessya (from Kazakhstan but who is Russian) and helped us out. Then, there was this time where I narrowly escaped the conductor by moving all the way to the last cart and just as we were arriving to our station, the doors opened and I jumped out before the conductor asked for my ticket. These are just a few of the times, but most of the time, I get checked, and they don't care, or sometimes we don't get checked at all. It really isn't a big deal. But then there was today.

As we boarded the train, none of us had the ticket from Sedlec (the last station in Prague) to Roztoky. We looked for the conductor and found her near the front of the train. We ran to the middle of the train, hoping to be checked before our station so that it wouldn't matter when we got off. Well, the good news was that the conductor checked our tickets while we were still in Prague, the bad news was that we were a minute from the last stop in Prague. This means the conductor said, "Sedlec" when she checked our tickets, and watched us while she waited in between cars. When the train stopped, and we didn't move, she yelled at us to get off the train. This is when we played the, "I'm a stupid tourist card," and acted like we didn't know what was going on. She fell for it for about .000001 second. She came over and said, "Get off!" I could tell she was pissed. We were by this point, so embarrassed, but still had to stick to our guns and pretend we didn't know what was going on. We told her we were getting off at Roztoky and she said, "No--ticket expired, get off!" We were not about to get off the train and wait for the next one--been there, done that, don't need to do it again. A woman who spoke some English helped us out a little bit and told us our monthly passes only are good in Prague and, still playing stupid, we asked if we could buy our ticket on the train. By this time, the entire cabin is looking at us, and the train is being delayed because the conductor is busy dealing with us. We finally convinced her to let us buy our tickets on the train and the train moved on.

When we got to our station, we were relived to be off the train and away from the embarrassment, but as we walked home, we realized just how stupid we were. We realized that while we boarded the train, we were discussing what to do if the conductor checked our tickets. We made the action plan to play stupid, in English, not thinking that other passengers could probably speak English and listen to us. So, not only did the woman help us get out of a huge fine do so out of kindness, she probably did so knowing fully well that we were LYING to the conductor, pretending to be stupid. What an embarrassment. I guess next time the conductor asks for our ticket, we'll tell him Roztoky, but if they don't ask....haha, I'll just have to be a stupid American tourist again.

Tonight I made some hamburgers for everyone. They were actually pretty good. Tomorrow I have to make the burritos and get ready for Global Village. I'll have more stories to tell soon, hope everyone is doing well over there in the USA.

Go, Go, Go...Literally!

I'm going to start chronologically with this entry, beginning with Tuesday, and I will try and be concise, although a lot has happened the past few days. I promise, there is a great ending and you won't be disappointed. On Tuesday, we began the day by getting up early. The previous night we had sat around talking and drinking Turkish coffee and Jenny had to break the news to the girls that with one more leader arriving the next day (Tuesday), her apartment (although spacious) would be unable to accommodate all the people. So, Tuesday, Brasilian Ana and Chinese Lin had to pack their bags and move to a new apartment. The train and subway to their apartment was an unpleasant one, solely in the fact that it was depressing knowing that these people I had just met and got to know are now living on the opposite side of town from the rest of us. It was almost like burning a newly built bridge. Although it's clearly not the end of the world, I really enjoyed their company because Ana and I can make the best of any situation and Lin and I talk about China and speak in Chinese.

When we arrived at the apartment I felt even worse. It looked like a shabby, dingy place, with plaster crumbling from the sides and laundry hanging and fluttering like rags from the balconies of the upper level apartments. The apartment wasn't too terrible on the inside, but it was definitely not as plush as our country house. We left from there back to Prague to get Ayesgül her monthly bus pass and to exchange money. Since Jenny had previous engagements, I was once again leading the girls around the city. Running errands was pretty easy and we finished in the early afternoon and headed to Prague Castle.

Prague Castle was amazing. The ancient complex is huge. The main dining hall was used for multiple royal events. The inauguration of the king was celebrated by a huge feast where high officials and prominent city members were invite to pay homage to their new ruler. Afterwards they would move to the cathedral to finish the coronation. The huge main hall, called Vladislav Hall, was also used as a jousting arena, where horses were brought in and the performers jousted for royal entertainment. I thought that was awesome. It was also used as a marketplace where vendors from all over the world would sell luxury items like spices, jewels, fur, and gold.

The royal hapel inside holds bones of many saints and as our audio tour guide told us. You'd be surprised to find that one of the patron saints of Czech Republic is buried in the royal chapel, All Saints Chapel. After a fire in which most of its Romanesque details were destroyed in 1541, the church was rebuilt in Baroque style. Prague Castle has much history of law, politics and religion and is a fascinating place.  After touring the royal quarters, we made our way to Saint George's Basilica which was old and plain but held tombs of the royal family and the remains of St. Agnes, the Benedictine abess who started the first nunnery in Prague. She was actually a daughter of royalty and gave it up for a life of God. From St. George's we went to St. Vitus Cathedral, which was just as beautiful the second time around.The audio tour was an excellent choice while touring the many chapels within the cathedral. Come to find out they have a chapel for St. John Baptiste, the Virgin Mary, and the remains of St. Wenceslas are held here. The cathedral dates back to the 1300s.

By this time, we were all history and castle'd out so we made our way down to the Charles Bridge to cross and find something to eat. We were in a rush by now because we were supposed to meet Jenny and our newest trainee, Olessya from Kazakhstan, for the start of our official training as program leaders. We made it barely on time and continued to go over the agenda for the week and our upcoming plans. Rather then heading home after a long day of sightseeing and working, we decided to head to Old Town Square to watch the Brazil v North Korea soccer game.

Last time I was in Europe, it was FIFA World Cup 2006 in Munich, Germany. What an experience that was! I'm so glad to be back for another world cup where the people are so involved and so enthusiastic about the sport. We enjoyed a few beers and sat right next to a group of Brazilians (with Ana of course sporting her Brazilian shirt). Throughout the game, Portuguese cheers and curses were flowing from Ana and another Brazilian, Gil. During the commercial breaks, the other Brazilian group next to us got their drums out and played music to energize the crowd and get some dancing. I have a video to upload that is just fantastic. The Brazilian girls are dancing, their drums are shaking my legs with each beat, and the crowd is going wild. When Brazil scored (twice in fact), the uproar got even more uncontrollable. The best part was the fact that we were standing in one of the oldest and most historic parts of Prague.

The next day, Wednesday, we had a full day of education. We began with a Cultural Preparation session, which gave an overview of Czech culture and helped us understand cultural differences. We also prepared ourselves as ambassadors of our country and how to be conscience of the fact that some of the students have never met foreigners like ourselves and we must do our best to represent our countries. It is kind of funny to think that people that meet me will draw the conclusion that all Americans are just like me, but they will and they do.

For lunch, I actually met up with one of my really good friends from Fordham, Alexandra. Alexandra and I have been friends since freshman year, when she lived in the dorm building right across from mine. She is very good friends with Devon, one of the students I went to China with. She and her mother are doing a European tour, where they began in Budapest, Hungary, stopped in Prague from Tuesday night--Friday morning, and they'll continue on to Paris for a week or so before going back to the states (I think?). It was so nice to meet up with her and we enjoyed a relaxing lunch in Old Town Square, overlooking the Astronomical Clock and Tyn Church. Although I was a half-hour late for the next meeting, it was worth it to see my college friend (and fellow graduate)!

The second half of the day was spent on giving and receiving feedback and we ended the night early to arrive home at 10 PM. The rest of the night was spent working. We had to prepare for the next morning when we had to do a workshop with high school students on "How to give a presentation." Not to mention I had to stay up even later doing things for the camp agenda. We're still missing two group leaders who will both arrive on Sunday. This means that every session they miss, I need to update them on what they missed. Work work work...

Waking up this morning, I was completely unprepared for the Presentation Skills Workshop that we had to deliver. Luckily, there were only 5 students in each group, and Ana and I gave a great presentation. It was really a lot of fun and since this is a long post, I'll go into detail later on about Czech youth and culture. After the workshop, we had a meeting with our first university partner for My Better Myself. We met with the University of Northern Virginia and discussed what they expect from the student presentations and what the project will be like. They're thinking of making the students design a website called "iSanta.com", with restrictions on budgeting, planning, and design. It was informative, especially for me since I have to plan the projects and how they will be structured.

After that meeting, we moved to another session where we learned how to facilitate groups and debrief. The facilitating and debriefing session was really good. I got put in the hot seat without even knowing it and had to facilitate our group leaders through a task, but little did I know they had been told beforehand to act a certain way (i.e. one person asks tons of questions, one is very quiet, one is very talkative/enthusiastic, etc). I didn't even realize why everyone was acting so weird until after the exercise was over, but I learned a lot about how I reacted to the situation and it will definitely help me with the students during the camp.

After the session, it was already 9:20 PM and we were exhausted. We'd been thinking all day, with no time to relax, and only eating while we moved from one session to the next. The good news is that between sessions we had the chance to stop at a grocery store and pick up 30 eggs and some breakfast foods for the next few days. We've been scraping for food in the mornings and only had one bag of cornflakes left. After the last session, when it was finally time to go, we were all pretty excited that we were going to catch a 9:41 train home and have a few hours to relax before bed. When we had finished cleaning up, I locked the inner office door and we made our way into the hallway, where I locked the hallway door as well. We made our way down the stairs and out of the building. When the door closed behind me and the fresh evening air was finally refreshing my face, Aysegul (from Turkey) asked where was our Indian leader, Ekta...well, that was a good question. She didn't leave with us...and we just left the building...

It took me about half a second to realize that I had probably locked her in the office upstairs. When we left the inner office room, I locked the door. In the mini-lobby area of the AIESEC offices, there is a break room and restrooms. She must has snuck away to the bathroom without anyone noticing because we left the lobby, where I then locked the second office door. OK, so she's in the office. Bad, but not too bad.

It then took me about another half second to realize that we were outside the building. I only had keys to the offices, which are inside the building. Now, we were standing on the street, with no key card to enter the building. Etka is still in the office. Our train leaves in 10 minutes. Great. Luckily, we had Jaro (the person who led the facilitating and debriefing session), who speaks Czech. He tried buzzing security, but no one answered. He calls Jenny, she has the key card to the building. No answer...by now we're in shock because poor Etka is probably up in the office, wondering why the hell we left without her. She can't even get into the offices to yell out the window or sit on the couches. She's trapped in the mini-lobby, with the bathroom and break room. Poor Etka. By now we've pretty much decided we're going to miss our train home, but I figured we'd ring security one more time. He picked up, Jaro told him the situation, and he let us in. I immediately gave my backpack to Aysegul and sprinted up the 4 flights of stairs. I unlocked the door to Etka, patiently waiting on the other side. All I could say was--"LET'S GO! We're going to miss our train!" We sprinted down the stairs as fast as we could. She was wearing high heels because of our presentation this morning, so it wasn't exactly the easiest thing in the world.

When we got to the bottom, it was a whirlwind of bags flying and feet running. We said bye to Jaro as we sprinted to the train station, which is only one block away from the offices. Of course, I would be running to a train station in a foreign country because this is what I do best. I missed my train in Paris because we went to the wrong train station, I've sprinted to the airport terminal because the bus passed my stop, I've sprinted to Grand Central to catch the last train to Fordham...the list goes on, and now I have Prague.

The four of us sprinted to the train station and ran to the lobby, just to see the red lights of the train pulling away from us. Heaving, panting, and completely out of breath, we gave it our best, but it wasn't enough. And then we laughed. "How did you guys forget me!?"--Etka asked. We were cracking up. She's the one that went to the bathroom without telling anyone! Etka said when she got out of the restroom, her stuff was by the door where she had left it. She could hear us in the hallway and she banged and yelled at the door, just to hear our voices fade away as we descended. She called Ana, who was already on her way to the subway, and Ana assured her that we were on our way back to get her. What Ekta didn't know was that we were locked out of the building...so she was ready for the worst--a long night. When we finally got Ekta, running to the train station, we must have looked like the oddest bunch of people. An Indian, an American, a Turk and a Kazakh, all with bags and backpacks, and one of them carrying a package of 30 eggs. I joked that now we don't have to scramble our eggs tomorrow for breakfast because the sprint was just enough.

So now I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is another day full of stuff, but then we get to enjoy a weekend break. I have absolutely nothing to do on Saturday except for sleeping in and partying all night--yea! I'll be up to date as much as possible. I have tons more to tell everyone but no time to write it. Also, my pictures are still on my computer--ready to go, but I need to figure out a new way to upload them since my Picasa web albums are not working properly. Until next time...

Searching for Myself

Well, well, well, where do I even begin? Let's start with yesterday. I got to sleep in until 9, and Jenny and I began work on the schedule for the camp right away. She left to go look at the apartment that some of the other leaders are going to have to stay at while they are here in Prague. It's about 30 minutes from Prague by metro (subway) in the opposite direction from us, which makes it about an hour away. While she was gone I mostly completed the two week schedule, giving the students plenty of breaks and plenty of time to work on the projects for the universities that will be seeing their work. Now, I need to think of night activities and figure out what projects will be done on what day. I'll definitely have to use input from the other leaders when they arrive tomorrow.

When Jenny came back, I had to go to the city to meet with Jaro (pronounced Yaro) about the agenda I completed. He gave me a lot of feedback about what camp should look like: time should be organized in a way that is structured, but needs to be flexible enough to give the kids the feeling that they are at a summer camp and not school. Furthermore, he emphasized that the schedule is going to have balanced correctly to give them a lot of motivation, especially during long periods of work. It's a delicate balance between work and play, but I think I can do it right. I'm excited to see how the first camp goes and how much the agenda changes (or doesn't).

After my meeting with Jaro at the AIESEC offices, he invited me to grab a quick bite to eat, and actually bought me my food. After talking with him more, it turns out, he's working for Pricewaterhouse Coopers in their audit department. He was originally was on track for their advisory department (I'm working for KPMG Advisory), but the financial crisis hit and it was either audit or unemployment, so he chose audit. After dinner, we went to this awesome beer garden on the other side of the Vlatva River. It was a little bit of a hike to get to because after we crossed the bridge we had to walk up a really tall hill. At the top, the beer garden looked over the entire city of Prague. The sun was setting and the spires were lit in hues of orange and red. Great scenery, great beer, and lots of fun.

Although they invited me out to a disco afterwards, I was unable to attend because I had my laptop, backpack, poor clothing, and Jenny's house keys (otherwise I would’ve loved to join them). When I got home, Jenny offered me wine and we sat outside on the patio enjoying the summer night. I showed her how to find satellites in the night sky, which is my favorite thing to do while I stargaze. Jenny's friend and fellow AIESECer Michelle came over around 1-2 AM and we played cards and had more wine. I soon found out that the sun rises at 4 AM in Czech Republic and we made our way to bed shortly afterwards.

I woke up this morning at 10 AM with Michelle telling me to get up and get ready to go before we missed the train. I had forgotten I told her I would go with her and her friend to the Czech National Bank the night before and although we were both tired, I knew we had to go together. We got to the train station and both of us were in pretty poor shape. Tired, not showered, and wearing the same clothes as the day before, I was clearly a mess. When we got to Prague, we got a slice of pizza from the train station (it was OK, but nowhere near NYC standards), and walked to the Czech National Bank. When we arrived, the line was out the door and around the block. Since today is some kind of Czech national holiday (kind of) the bank was giving free tours and it looked like all of Prague wanted to take advantage of that. There was no way the three of us were going to wait in the long line in the sweltering heat, so we decided to go somewhere nice and enjoy an ice cream: so we went to McDonalds!

I had a McFlurry with Michelle and Martin (different than the one who picked me up from the airport). Martin leaves soon for London to begin his AIESEC internship and he recently spent some time in the US. He told me that the Prague Castle is having a similar special and that I should go there, so after the McFlurry we parted ways and I headed across the famous Charles Bridge toward the Prague Castle. After crossing the bridge, I bought an over-priced tourist water because it was about as hot as Hades and I began walking to the castle. Prague Castle is the largest castle in the world, with beautiful gardens and the St. Vitus Cathedral, but it sits on top of a hill that overlooks Prague. When I made it to the castle, I went in the walls and through the courtyards. Apparently you still had to buy tickets to get in the buildings, so I went to the only free thing, St. Vitus Cathedral. This church is huge, awesome, and beautiful. It is a Roman Catholic cathedral, which holds tombs of kings, and has towering pillars inside along with a beautiful stained glass rose window and other adornments. The church has roots back to 925 AD, and the current cathedral was built in 1344, so it’s quite old.

Here’s when things get good. After the cathedral, I walked around the grounds more and made my way back to Prague. I got to the train station by tram and missed the train by about 2 minutes, so I waited for an hour for the next one. I was so tired, so overheated, so miserable by this point, I couldn’t even deal with myself. Sitting on the bench, my exhaustion caught up with me and I was so uncomfortable I could only close my eyes and wait. When the train got to the station, I jumped on to have some refuge from the heat and closed my eyes. Closing my eyes turned into a nice little power nap, and when I woke up, I was pleased to see the train had taken off. At the next stop, I looked out the window and enjoyed the beautiful Czech scenery, with the Vlatva River winding calmly next to the train. And then I realized, I didn’t recognize this countryside. And when we stopped at the next stop, I looked down the isle at the flashing sign that shows the next stop. Sure enough, I had slept right through my stop and was on my way to who knows where. I got off to find myself in a nice little village town with no terminal, just tracks and boarding platforms. I walked under the tracks to the other side and sat down alone at the empty station. By now, I was fed up with the heat, but luckily the hills provided shade on my side of the tracks. But now I began to wonder how long it is going to take for the next train, what am I going to do about a ticket, and a flurry of other questions. Of course, I have no phone service or wireless and there really isn’t anyone around besides some townspeople working on their houses nearby. Most Czech people over 35 don’t speak any English, so I knew it was pointless to ask them.

Naturally, I pulled out my cell phone and began to play games, listened to music, and I even wrote the first half of this blog. The train had to come eventually. I ended up waiting another hour before the next train arrived, taking me back to my stop and thankfully with no conductor to ask me for my ticket. When I walked in the door, I had a splitting headache and I was about two shades tanner from being outside all day. All I could think of on the walk home from the station was, “Good job Regis, now you really have something to tell everyone” and here I am. I took a two hour nap, and after waking up I asked Jenny what where doing tonight. I get what I deserve, because I had asked Jenny earlier if we could go out Saturday night and here it is, Saturday night and she’s got the evening planned for us, and I’m getting lost on trains after staying up to ungodly hours the night before…and I am the future of America. Don’t worry, this doesn’t happen often... (or does it?)

Stay tuned for more stories!

Jiayuguan to Xi'an

Last time I posted, we were on our way to Jiayuguan (I think). I can't remember and internet here is by the hour. We had a five hour bus ride to Jiayuguan. It was a good time. We all got to catch up on some sleep and get to know eachother a little bit more. I haven't talked about any of the people I've met yet, but we're all starting to get to know eachother a lot more now that we're settling in. Me, Jim, and Devon all knew eachother before the trip, and most of our classmates had at least someone else they knew. It was easy for us to meet up with Matt and Brittany. They both were really good friends, having known eachother at Gonzaga. Matt actually knows some people from my highschool. All us of pretty much keep eachother laughing at stories from home and just some of our life experiences. Ryan and Jeff are roommates together too. Ryan is from Las Vegas, but he's lived all over the US including Laguna, St. Louis, Florida, Georgia and Nevada. He goes to St. Louis University and his roommate Jeff goes to Georgetown. Jeff is a laid back guy and has a great sense of humor. I can't place what kind it is but he's a good time.

When we got to Jiayuguan everyone checked in and ate before we left for the Jiayuguan Fort. This fort is the last fort on the Great Wall. Criminals and corrupt officials were banished here and thrown into the Gobi. Most of the people, after leaving through the last gate, simply sat down to die. Walking through the same gate, it was pretty cool to see the mountains and desert ahead of you for miles. Nothing else (Well there were people selling horseback rides for Y5, but when you live in a 99c store you can't buy everything all the time so we didn't do it.) It got pretty windy while we were at the fort and for a while a sandstorm blew through.

After the fort, we ate a group dinner, paid for by TBC and we all went out for a friend's birthday. We woke up early the next day to see some last things before we boarded our 20 hour train to Xi'an. We saw the Weijn tombs, which were awesome. They were underground tombs that had three original rooms. The last of the rooms was the actual coffin room where the owner and his wife were put to rest. They were really small, no more than 6ft high and 8x8 square. There was no cement, and all of the 1700+ yr old paintings on the bricks were original and visible. This is one of 1400 tombs in the Jiayuguan area. The rest remained unopened until China has the technology to prevent the oxidization of colored paintings. That is some pretty good planning and patience by the Chinese. Props.

From the tombs, we went to the Hanging Great Wall. I think it's called the Hanging Great Wall because it is practically vertical. The Wall is the wall, so I took a few pictures and moved on. We left for the train station and spent most of the train talking and sleeping. We played a few games but were able to pass time fairly quickly. We got to Xi'an today and pretty much are taking it easy. We took a bike ride along the oldest completed wall around a city. It was awesome and the weather was fantastic. It's nice to be back in a modern city. We're in a pretty high end part of town and our hotel is really nice. Great service. We're about a block away from a mall with all of the name brand stores. The real stores haha. Tonight we have another group dinner with the other half the TBC groups. Tomorrow is the terracotta warriors.

My First Chinese Adventure

Beach Volleyball was awesome today. Besides the fact that CCI makes us meet up two hours before the event starts, Devon and I had a great great time. I didn't know it at the time, but the events are really close to our apartment, so getting to them doesn't take two hours. Regardless, waking up at 4:45AM wasn't fun. When we got there, the gates hadn't even opened and we were stuck outside in the humid morning air. When we did get in, it was empty. I slept for a few hours before the games started and woke up just in time to see that the Chaoyang Beach Volleyball stadium had started to fill. We were pretty close to the court as well. The US men's team started the day off with a victory over Argentina, and that was only the beginning. We saw team Georgia beat Russia in the country's first Olympic Beach Volleyball Match ever. Georgia has never had an Olympic team for beach volleyball. After that game things really got good when China played against Norway. The China team won and the crowd was going wild. "Zhong guo jia you!" was all you could hear (Go China!). It was awesome. The next game we saw was Brazil and Australia. This was an intense game and Australia barely got a victory. Everyone moved on from these games as they were prelims. By the time the Australia/Brazil game finished the heat and humidity were making me irritable. We decided to leave early and enjoy the rest of the day. We headed back to the apartment where I took a nap and woke up just in time to get a few things done.

Beach Volleyball--August 13, 2008

I was sitting at my laptop and just hanging out when Jimmy came home from his daily activities. First thing in the door, he asks me what I was doing. Well, I was thoroughly enjoying doing nothing online (the afternoons are killer because it is the middle of the night in the US). But, I wanted to entertain the thought of doing something so I asked whats up. Jimmy had gone looking for scalped tickets earlier in the day and got football tickets. I was kinda tired but after the World Cup in Germany (2006) I knew how much fun it could be. I said I would like to go but I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Right away Jimmy tells me that the tickets are for a game in a nearby city Tianjin and we have to catch a bullet train there immediately. Well, you only live life once and the train isn't going to wait. We got a cab and headed over to the Beijing South Station.

Here, it was a mess. Tons of people everywhere. The Chinese don't queue

in lines and neither Jimmy nor I had any idea where to go or what to do. Luckily, there are tons of Chinese volunteers around the city that speak decent English. We asked one of them what to do and the girl was phenomenal. She told us that all of the trains are sold out until 6:00, and the game started at 5:00 PM. I figured it would be like this but she said don't worry I'll get you a ticket. She went up to the counter, squeezed to the front, spoke some Chinese, and there we go. Two standing tickets on the next train that leaves in 15 minutes. We'll get there are 5:00 PM which was in 30 minutes and by the time we get to the stadium we shouldn't have missed much. The fun part was getting on the train. They don't form lines, making it every man for himself to mob the train for a good spot. Jim and I got a place by the door and we sat down for the train ride. The bullet train is awesome. It's a wonder that they don't have it in America. 240 MPH Beijing to Tianjin in 30 minutes. While on the train we were talking...well trying to talk with the guy next to us. Turns out he is the Director of International Trade in China (or something like that). From what we could talk about, it sounds like he imports oil and "chemicals" from other countries. He said mostly from Africa and the Middle East but also from Canada, USA, and South America. I was awed while talking with him. What are the chances of meeting someone who does something along the lines of what I want my career to be. He gave us his card and invited us to visit him at his Beijing office. We got to Tianjin and thought we would kinda plan ahead and get return tickets before the insane crowds got out from the game. While waiting in line there was an Australian, Brian, who also was buying a return ticket to Beijing. We got to talking and found out we were both going to the soccer match. And we also found out that there were two games that night. Italy vs Camaroon and Ivory Coast vs Australia. We decided to adopt Australia as our home team for the night. On the cab ride over however, our little adventure received a fun little twist. We asked Brian the Aussie where he was seated. 1 seat away from us in fact. Small world or coincidence we all thought that was pretty hilarious. When Jim described the guy he purchased the tickets from they weren't even sure it was the same person. After getting to the stadium, we still had to walk around to get to our entrance gate. On the walk over we met fellow Australians and one of them claimed to be the father of #16 on the Australia National Team. I haven't had time to check who it is but we wished him the best of luck.

Alright, to wrap this one up, we had a great time watching the games. The Italy and Camaroon game ended up as a stalemate and the Ivory Coast beat Australia 1-0. We had a few beers, of course met tons of new people, including the little girl next to us, and wrapped ourselves in American flags that we had purchased earlier. We got back home around 12am and crashed. It was a great day.

What an adventure.

Tianjin Soccer Games