A city of outward beauty

Yesterday (7/15) we spent the day bonding with our Czech hosts and growing in our knowledge of the Czech culture and outlook on life. We woke up early, jumped on the train, and traveled back to Prague.

As beautiful as the city was, I must admit I cannot wait for the camp and the opportunity begin building relationships with more of the Czech youth.

Below I are a few pictures I took throughout the day along with some comments:

This is Filip and Josefina (Nina came, too, she's just not in the shot). Josefina was our main tour guide and Filip introduced me to levels of sarcasm that were awe inspiring. I have always felt the best way to experience a new culture/city is through the guidance of people who live there and this trip proved to be no exception, which is good because...

...none of us have any idea how to read Slavic languages. Occasionally, there are a few words that we can figure out but, for the most part, almost everything I've learned about phonetics is inapplicable here.

Alisha cheeses with Filip. Yes Filip is that tall (and yes Alisha is that short). The architecture in Prague is amazing, by the way. Interesting story: while walking through the city, I commented on how much I enjoyed the buildings and the history behind everything. Josefina and Nina acknowledged them very matter-of-factly and Filip said he finds it boring. However, I was asking Nina and Josefina about their desktop backgrounds on their laptop computers -- they were both pictures of beaches and I figured they were of some exotic place in Europe -- and I was very surprised at the answer. They were both pictures of Lake Michigan! Beauty truly is all around us, whether we realize it or not...

The castle in Prague. Tourism is huge in the city, which sometimes made it difficult to discern what was authentic and significant to the Czech people and what was popular because of its marketability. Again, our hosts were very helpful when it came to this and were always glad to answer our questions the best they could.

Americans.

I snapped a photo of what turned out to be "Christian graffiti." The man pictured is J.A. Komenský, a 17th century Czech religious icon and the words roughly translate to, "Czech people, come back to Christ." This is our prayer as we prepare to travel to the English camp. Please let it be your prayers, too.