Amazing (g)Race

This may be one of the most fun posts I write. I am so excited to tell you all about my time on the Amazing Race!! It's long, I apologize, but I decided instead of making this a multi-post topic, you can read as much as you want... if you are bored... no worries. I won't feel bad if you don't finish it. ;) First of all, I should explain what it is for those of you who are thinking, "wow... I thought she was going on a mission trip, and now she is talking about the Amazing Race... hm?" No friends, I was not on TV and you will not see me make any guest appearances... but I did get to race across a couple countries in Eastern Europe with my wonderful intern team!

The Amazing Race is the first large team building activity we do as interns with JV. It is designed to strengthen your team and bring out personaility traits before the summer begins. This helps show the team how to handle conflict from the get-go. It is designed to be frustrating at times and trust me, it was. We started in Krakow, Poland and raced to Malanovice, Czech Republic. It started Tuesday afternoon and we were done around Thursday afternoon... so 1/2 day, full day, 1/2 day. Most teams fly in from the US and race straight away. Our team had been in SK for a little over a week doing our first Host City visit beforehand... so we kind of had an advantage. I won't tell you all of our "roadblocks" but I'll go into detail about a few. Basically, we are given a set amount of money, one clue, and our backpacks that we packed... one, two, three, GO!

Roadblock: WWII Airforce Museum
Our first clue was in Polish so we needed to get it translated. It led us to an airforce museum. There, we were given a code that we needed to crack. The clue said that we could ask for help - but it would "cost" us. Well, we didn't want to use our set amount of money, so we attempted to solve it without asking for help. Unfortunately, we needed to ask for help after 20 minutes because we had NO idea what to do. It turned out that we didn't have to pay in money, but in energy - we had to run around outside the museum and look for airplanes and report back their names in order to get a clue. So, it took us a little over an hour to finish this ... ultimately setting us pretty far back.


Roadblock: Puppet Show
This was the second day. We had previously needed to get someone to read us a story book (in Polish) while we sat in a circle and listened. Well, later, we needed to create a puppet show about the story we had heard, which was also a Polish legend. One of the interns was smart and had asked the nice man who read us the story to tell us what it meant. So, we went off of what he said - did the puppet show - "Incomplete." Ohhh cheesy pita!!! (<< this is one of our fun sayings and what I am now trying to say instead of "oh, crap!" because I think it sounds so much more pleasant!) We tweaked the story a bit and tried again - "Incomplete." Gr. Bekah and I ran to a souviner shop and found the exact book in Polish with an English translation. We read it, came back, did the puppet show - "Incomplete." So, we ran back, took pictures of each page and basically read the book verbatum - "Incomplete." We had been asking locals this whole time, but apparently the fifth time was the charm... we got all of our details in order and added a wedding to the end of the story... "Complete." Finally. It took five tries - and this may sound like it wasn't too bad, but it was. We had to wait in line after every time we screwed up and we watched teams get it right the first time... it was hot and we were tired... and frustrated. This was collectively our least favorite challenge. Which... is what the race is kind of about!

Roadblock: Food Challenge
Each year, the race has a food challenge. This year, it was at H2O, the Polish headquarters. We had to walk around 5 kilometers to get there... in the dark. We finally got to H2O and were looking forward to some dinner... lo and behold - food challenge. We each had to eat a blood sausage and a side of sauerkraut. Let me try to explain this to you... it wasn't the taste - the way Ryan put it, it kind of tasted like black bean burgers. No, it was definitely the texture. It was like mushy rice encased in chewy shrinkwrap... aka the intestines. Not going to lie - I cried. I ate it, but I cried. Being off of my vegetarain lifestyle for a total of like 12 days and having to eat this blood sausage after running the race all day pushed me over an edge I didn't know I had. However, our team definitely stepped up to the plate (punny) and did a great job finishing off our food. We unfortunately had moved from 5th place the first night, to 9th place after this challenge. So... those were the worst (in my opinion) challenges we faced... here are a few of the best - they are all from the last day. There were some fun ones the other days, these were just my favorite.

Roadblock: Olympics
This was a four-part challenge. We had to kayak out to these bouys and collect legos for one task, throw "shotputs" (aka bean filled balloons) up a ledge for the next task, do a relay race with funny relays - crab walk while saying the ABCs backward, cartwheel with a balloon in your mouth, etc.- for the next task, and dive into the pool and find a euro coin amongst lots of other currency in the bottom of the pool for our last task. Our team did so well and really worked together to make a comeback!

Roadblock: Traditional Dance
We walked across the Polish/Czech border and raced to a hostel. There, we learned a traditional Czech dance from professional folk dancers. It was a three-person dance - one boy, two girls - and had a few technical points that we were "graded" on. We got a practice time with the professionals and then performed it without them. They decided if we performed well enough to move on. We actually raced two other teams to the hostel and ended up signing in last - which was a bummer. However, it worked to our advantage because we had more time to practice. So, we ended up getting it on our FIRST try! It was such an exciting moment. It really brought our team joy. :)

Roadblock: Race to Malenovice
Our last challenge was to race from the train station to Hotel Malenovice (where training was held). We had enough money left to get a taxi. However, the taxi could only fit 4 people and we had 8. We called a company and asked for two taxis, and they only sent one. So, we sent half the team... I was in this half. We pleaded with the taxi driver to call his company and send another taxi... he obliged. Unfortunately, his company couldn't send any more because they were all in use. We were devestated. We reached the top of the hill that the hotel sits on and anxiously awaited the rest of our team. It was so strange... we could see the finish line, but we couldn't finish the race. It was a crazy feeling. It was then that I realized how important this team was to me. Not only could I not finish the race without them, I did not WANT to finish the race without them. We had bonded and struggled together. A taxi pulled up and I was holding my breath - anyone could walk out of the taxi ... it could have been another team... but it wasn't! It was the rest of ours!! I was ECSTATIC! I honestly do not think I have ever been so happy to see a group of people in my life. We stepped on the finish mat and took fourth place! Quite a comeback from nineth. :)

All-in-all it was a truly amazing race. I have so much more to say about it, but this post is long enough. I did just want to mention that the title of the post is Amazing (g)Race because if it was not for God's amazing grace, we would not have bonded as a team as well as we did, we would not have learned as much as we did, and we would not have grown as much as we did. I learned so much about the gifts that God will give us, if we just ask. Because, believe me, we were all asking for His grace on this race. We were frustrated, exhausted, starving, thirsty, sore (I had trouble walking for a week after the race!), and kind of just crabby. God's grace is the one thing that spurred me to keep going. If you have questions, or want more details... shoot me a comment or an e-mail! I would LOVE to talk more about it. I hope this gave you a glimpse into what the race is like and how important it is to building our intern teams here in Eastern Europe!

Until next time,
xx