May 30, 2010

Hi everyone, sorry I haven't written anything but I have been quite busy. I have posted some pictures so check them out. This is going to be a long entry because I will be telling about the amazing race, so bare with me.
The flight was long, but it was fun Daniel, Tim and I played cards the on the plane (they are part of my team). When we got to DC we had to seat separately because a woman was traveling with her grandchildren. I had to sit next to the girl. She is nine and it was fun because I got to show her some card games, like go fish, war, and crazy eights. She helped me with my bracelets and she taught me some Bosnian because that was were she was headed with her grandmother. During the flight I met another Josiah Venture person who was on team Latvia. During the layover in Zurich all four of us hung out.
When we finally got to Vienna we had to wait for our other team members before we could start our race. We met the other interns, everyone is so nice. When everyone was finally there we started the race. The first task was a scavenger hunt in the airport. I had to find a straw and on the way back from getting a straw I almost made a lady fall. So after we got all of our stuff we got our next clue which was another scavenger hunt, but in Vienna. We had to search for buildings and do tasks at those locations and get a piece of a puzzle. The first location was a riddle. Our first answer was the correct answer, which was good because we would of had to wait 15 minutes before we could guess again. Our second location was more difficult to find, but when we found it we had to get our team through a rope web. Only one person could go through a whole and we couldn't touch the rope or we had to star over. We tried to find our third location but we went to the wrong castle, but at least I got pictures. For the record we were mostly walking everywhere and I have been up for at least 36 hours. When we finally reached the correct castle our challenge was a puzzle that my mind couldn't make sense of so I just tried not to sleep and took some pictures :)
After we got our third piece we tried to find the fourth location which is a statue of a man on a horse. There is one of those on almost every block in the center of Vienna. So we skipped that location and went to the next location which we had to fish ho-ho's into peoples mouths blindfolded. Once that was completed we had two more locations and we decided to go back to the horse statue and we finally found the people, and our task was to be street performers. Daniel suggested singing Amazing Grace and we got paid within 30 seconds. We were told we were the fastest team. Since it was getting late we had to move to what the picture was. At that location we up against other teams and we had to pop the other teams balloons that were tied around our ankles. The clue was to head to our hostel. We thought our task was done so we decided to eat some brats. When we got to the area our hostel was in we asked people where our hostel was and they led us to a hotel that was a 40 minute walk away from the hostel. By the time we got there it was almost one in the morning. The leaders were waiting up for us and that was when we found out that the race ends when we got to the hostel, so we were now in last place.
The next day we had to head to Slovakia for our next task. Our challenge was to go land bobsledding then run up the hill. Once we did that we had to answer questions and how many we got wrong we had to send somebody down and answer again. It took us awhile, but we ended up catching up with some people. When we got our next clue we got off at the wrong stop and had to figure out how to get to the UFO restaurant. We figured the bus was the best way and when we got our tickets we tried to get on the bus but Daniel and Kelly, one of team leaders, got left behind. When we got off at our stop we waited for about 5 minutes for the next bus which they were on. When we got to the restaurant we had to wait for other teams to go first and we were last. The challenge was to send two people up to the top to do two challenges. When it was our team Tim and I went up and had to put all the JV missionaries on their country. I found out I'm really bad at geography, because they removed the names. We had to wait 46 minutes because we missed a lot of missionaries. When our time was almost up another team just completed the second task and were headed down and they wished us luck. When Tim and I finally got to the observation deck of this 95 meter tower we had to find the location of our next clue. I figured since a team just left then we should just find them. When I found them I looked at where they were headed and found where we needed to go. We were only looking for about 5 minutes. After going there we found out our challenge was in the mall. We had to find JV missionaries and they had a task for us to do. We didn't get a chance to finish because we would have missed the last train to Brno, Czech Republic which was were we stayed for the night. But before we were able to go to sleep we had one more challenge. We had to a bowl of cow stomach soup. I could only eat a few bites because I couldn't stand the broth, the meat wasn't that bad. When we got to our hostel I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow.
The next morning we had to all meet together and that was were we found out we made up a lot of ground. When we got our clue it lead us to a college where we had to take a grammar test. I have no idea how I got the highest score on our team, but I answered 8 out of 10 correctly. Because some of us did poorly we had to wait to move on to our next challenge. We had to find our way to the square and separate gummy bears with our mouths. When that was done we were told to go to the hotel were we would be staying. Once we finally to the hotel we had to score 10 goals against a goalkeeper. We ended in 7th out of 13 teams.
Today is the first day I haven't been sore since I have been in Europe. The training has been fun and the food is great. The first night we worshiped and learned the story of JV. The next day we learned the best way to teach English classes. I have also been awarded the lovely position of the English leader. I have to talk to the Polish church leaders as well as the North American leaders to make sure they have everything. I have to make sure the leaders have completed there lesson plans. And I have to test the students and put them in beginner, intermediate, or advanced classes. Last night we had to introduce our teams in a creative way. Team Polska did a chant, it was pretty cool. Today we learned about small group discussions and tonight we learn the camp song with motions. That is pretty much all that has happened so far. Also my team members are Chris, Kelly, Tim, Kelsey, Daniel, and Kornel (he is a polish native). I'll try and write sooner.