First blog from Nicaragua!!

Well, day one is in the books! Traveling went great. Our first flight from charlotte to Atlanta was quick. Only about 30 minutes. Unfortunately there were five of us (myself included, of course!) that had to check our carry on bag because they ran out of room in the plane...this of course caused a scene because we didn't want to agree to check our bags without the permission of our coach and head honcho of our trip who happened to already be on the plane. While the stewardess was giving us false information about where we would get our bags back, we were being reminded of the fact that we were holding up the whole plane ride...thanks mrs stewardess, you're making our flight so friendly and comfortable! After the baggage situation was figured out, all other flights went perfectly! It was an extremely long day of traveling and I could not wait to land in Managua. I left my house in Greenville,NC at 9:00am and arrived in Nicaragua at 1:00am their time...which is 3:00am our time in the states. LONG DAY! When we arrived at our hotel I was too excited to sleep. We had a 7:45am wake up call and probably didn't even go to bed until 4:00am....and I was awake at 6:00am tossing and turning. A solid two hours of sleep. Great!

Day one: 7:45am wake up call. We ate breakfast, and packed all 23ish people into a van/bus and got on the road to our first match. We passed very humbling "houses" and "jobs" on the ride. This was our first look at the huge amount of poverty in this country. Our awesome tour guide and leader of "bring it sports" gave us a lot of background on the country's government and the big revolution they had in the 70s and the devastating earthquake that occurred in '79 that still has proof of it's effects. We stopped at a cathedral on our way to our match, it was very beautiful, but was partially ruined in the earthquake and has never been restored. While outside observing the building we had many natives trying to sell us things to make a few extra bucks. We found out quickly that our most used phrase for this trip will be "No gracious".

We finally arrived at our game and played 4 games verses the Nicaraguan national team. For our first time touching a volleyball in a very long time for some of us, we didn't play as bad as I was expecting! It was a good first game and it was a blast to finally be out on the court with all the girls again! we had a pretty good crowd of natives come watch our game and we eventually had a big following of boys calling us "Bonita"!! They were quite the charmers. I even had an admirer just for myself! Soprano, a teenage boy came up to my assistant coach brian after our match and asked if he could take a picture with me. Just me. I was honored! And he was quite cute to make it even better :) After I took the picture (sweaty and all) I introduced myself and he shook my hand and kissed me on the cheek. THE LOVE OF MY LIFE! Sorry mom and dad, I think I'll be moving to Nicaragua to be with my future husband. :) First I'll have to learn a little bit of Spanish!

After our match we drove a long way...or at least it seemed like a long way since there are no interstates and the top speed limit is about 45mph. At about 4pm we arrived in San Juan Del Sur. We will be staying here for the next five days. We spent the afternoon at the beach and had dinner as a group. We are all very exhausted and still getting used to the time difference, both timezone-wise and Nicaraguan culture-wise. We are all safe and having the times of our lives. I can't wait to see what the next 6 days has to offer! Please keep us all in your prayers!

Ps....pictures will come later. I can't figure out how to upload them onto my blog from my iPod. Sorry for the disappointment!

Location:San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua