This past weekend, IFSA-Butler gathered all the study abroad students from across Ireland and dumped them onto a campsite in the middle of nowhere in western Ireland. This was known as the Killary Adventure Weekend.
Really, though, it was fantastically fun. The Killary Adventure Company is located on the second longest fjord in Europe, right on the western coast of Ireland near Galway. The scenery was beautiful. The journey there, however, was slightly short of miserable. It was a 5-hour bus ride. Normal people can sleep on bus rides; all I can do is gaze around in boredom and get carsick. And that was exactly what I did, with one exception. You see, our bus had a special form of air conditioning--the escape hatch in the roof. Usually, escape hatches only open in case of emergency; ours flapped open about every thirty seconds. I don't know if this was God's commentary on the skill of our driver, but any time we hit over 60 km/hr, one side of the escape hatch popped open, letting in all the rain and the freezing cold air right into the back of the bus.
Being some form of a competent engineer, I of course could not stand for this. Though my practical experience is somewhat lacking, I figured my knowledge of membrane transport processes and fluid mechanics perfectly qualified me to fix any form of mechanical failure. While this is undoubtedly false, I got lucky this time and (with the help of two other travelers) managed to secure the rebellious escape hatch using a bus curtain and a hair tie.
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| Demonstrating my real-life engineering skills. |
Once I survived the long, winding, nausea-inducing bus ride, I went off to my room with my enormous suitcase. We were only supposed to be there for three days, but I had enough clothes to last three weeks. Daddy, I can see you laughing, but in this case it was justified! We had all received countless emails reminding us to bring old, gross clothes, and lots of them, because we would be getting so dirty in all the activities. I did not happen to bring old gross clothes to Ireland, so instead I went shopping for new, cheap clothes I didn't care about and could get dirty. While all the clothes I bought were very cheap, they were also very cute, so I mourned their future fate as the sales clerk rang them up.
That night, Friday night, was Trivia Night after dinner. The Trinity team named ourselves Nixon's Vixens and proceeded to kick butt at trivia, none of it thanks to me. With questions from pop culture like, "Who assassinated John Lennon?", "What were the names of Donald Duck's three nephews?", and "Who (male and female) has won the most Oscars?", I was at a complete loss and mostly just agreed with the majority.
The next morning we woke up bright and early and left for our chosen activities. The adventure center was a 10-minute walk from the headquarters where our rooms were located, so we trotted down to the center and met our instructors. I chose zip-lining and the high ropes course for my first activity, along with a few other Trinity people. The zip lining was great fun.
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| Zip-lining down the hill! That's me on the left. |
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| Me being a crazy person while zip-lining. |
The high ropes course, however, was a different story. It turns out that you actually need some kind of arm strength to climb things, a fact that I conveniently ignored when envisioning myself scaling huge walls and scampering up difficult ropes courses with the greatest ease. I did not get very far on this ropes course.
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| Looking like a pro on the ropes course. I only made it to the first long horizontal bar.... |
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| I looked pretty cute in the helmet, though! |
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| The harnesses were so flattering. |
After that embarrassing experience, I partially redeemed myself by climbing up a very tall pole, standing on a platform about one square foot with another girl, and jumping off said pole with the girl onto a trapeze. I was pretty proud of myself.
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| The very tall pole in all its glory. |
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| Climbing up to the top with Breanna. |
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| Jumping onto the trapeze--I almost missed! |
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| Hanging safe and sound. |
After proving my adventurousness to myself, we headed back inside for some food before the second activity of the day....laser tagging and the Killary Challenge. Laser tagging was very fun, although the combination of extreme competitiveness and extreme lack of ability is not the best, as I discovered. My klutziness was highlighted after I accidentally stepped into a two-foot-deep mud bog. While my jeans were destroyed, my spirit was not, and I continued playing until I was killed. (The guns make a very disturbing death noise when you lose your last life.)
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| I took my role seriously. |
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| Meanwhile, Breanna cradled her gun like a baby.... |
The Killary Challenge consisted of team bonding exercises where you solve problems with your team. It was interesting, but my mud-soaked jeans kept me a few degrees above freezing, so I was eager to get home.
After a dinner of suspicious-looking soup and bread, I went to (what else?) study a bit before the disco that night. I wasn't expecting much, but the disco was actually loads of fun. The DJ played music and we all danced for a very long time. I didn't have the courage to display my awkward dance style to the world, but the more experienced dancers hopped up onto the countertop to show off their skills. I had so much fun.
The windows (as we discovered) opened up onto a very accessible rooftop covered in grass, which we definitely took advantage of. Although it was below freezing, the view was lovely. The fireplace inside proved too tempting, however, and I headed inside for Jenga and fireside chats. The Jenga game proved to be a serious matter, and the resulting tower was about twice its original height. (I won, despite my total lack of hand-eye coordination. I attribute this to pure luck.) We sat in front of the fire until 4:30 in the morning, talking about everything from hot dogs and fraternities to Nepali politics. It was quite a night.
The next day, I woke up bright and early to crawl through the mud, in what is known as the Turf Challenge...
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| The hills of Connemara. |
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