Adventure Weekend

Do you remember my post about the Belfast trip? Well, that was one of the two excursions that IFSA Butler scheduled for people on the program. The second excursion was to the Killary Adventure Center in Connemara, Co. Galway (over a month ago). And it was faaaaaabulous. I think everywhere should have an Adventure Center like this.

I had actually been really reluctant to go for the weekend. I kept making excuses for myself so I could justify not going, ie, it was supposed to be really cold and rainy, I didn't have the right outdoorsy/waterproof clothing, I had a lot of reading to catch up on, I was just feeling really exhausted... I know, I'm lame. Luckily, Katie managed to convince me to suck it up and go, and I was so glad she did.

I didn't take many pictures, so this is from their website

We stayed in a lodge-type place that had a dining area for the whole top floor with huge windows that looked out on a big lake and mountains. Incredibly beautiful. We got there kind of late on Friday, so we just signed up for activities for Saturday and then ate dinner (I had a delicious cod with rice and vegetables, and then chocolate tartlets for dessert). After dinner, we played cards and board games that the IFSA people brought us. My friends and I started with Janga, which I realized my nerves absolutely cannot handle anymore, and then we found an Irish board game that taught us all about Irish geography and trivia.

The happy winners: Salamander Express

We stopped the games for a Table Quiz (group trivia contest!). My group called itself "Salamander Express" (Don't ask - I don't know). It was four rounds of ten questions each, and they threw curve balls at us by making us race to accomplish weird tasks before submitting each answer. The tasks involved a lot of cross-dressing... For example, the first one said that the first group to get a guy wearing women's shoes, a bra, a hat, and holding a toothbrush would win. They also had us switch a guy's and girl's outfits and put them on backwards. The task I won for my team was the first person to do a split in front of the Question Master. I was so excited to have a task I could do that I ran from our table and dropped into the split while running. I didn't even know I could do that. Salamander Express wound up winning the whole game (yay!), so each member on my team received a €15 iTunes gift card.

The real adventures started the next day. The Salamander Express members happened to all sign up for the same first two activities: rock climbing and the giant swing. They strapped us into harnesses and stuck giant bright red helmets on our heads (and we pretty much wore them until we left Sunday afternoon...I spent most of the weekend far off the ground). I scurried up the first 3/4 of the wall pretty quickly before I started losing all sensation in my fingers because it was so cold (Bhí sé an-fhuar)! I told the woman supervising us that I was ready to come down since I couldn't grip the little nubby rocks anymore, but she told me no (!). She said I had gone too far to quit, so I should let go of the wall and just hang on the ropes for a few minutes until I got the feeling back in my fingers, and then decide if I wanted to keep going or not. I saw that I was a lot further up the wall than I had thought, so I did what she told me to do and figured I'd try to just finish it. Well, I was the very first person of the day to make it to the top of the rock climbing wall (50 meters high), followed by Katie a minute or so later.

After we all conquered the wall, we went to tackle the giant swing. I can't explain it too well, but it was basically a big swing for two people that goes up 50 meters high and then you have to pull a little cord that drops the swing and lets it go flying in regular pendulum-like fashion. It felt a little bit like a roller coasterBasically, it was terrifying awesome. And the view of surrounding mountains and lake while swinging was great.

Katie and me - getting ready to be lifted all the way up

Just about to pull the cord and go flying

After lunch (during which I had a delicious vegetable soup and homemade oatmeal bars), we had more activities. I decided to go with the high ropes and outdoor laser tag. Again, more time in a harness, dangling from ropes, climbing up things, and jumping into the air. I was absolutely terrible at laser tag (no surprise there), but it was fun to camouflage and chase after each other in woods, trying -and failing- to avoid the bog water. I totally destroyed my shoes in the bog, but hey, whatever. They were old anyway.

Saturday night after dinner (I had salmon and a rice pilaf with strawberry cheesecake for dessert), they hosted a dance party in the dining hall. The DJ was this totally awesome man who must've been in his 70s, but he knew how to pick some good tunes. Katie, Pam, and I were the first people to get up and dance, so we pretty much got the party started. It was so weird (but fun) to dance with our program leaders and the people who had been supervising us all day. It felt like partying with your camp counselors who got really drunk. After a while, they all hopped on the bar and kept dancing up there.

Come Sunday, we were all totally exhausted and sore, but we had time for one more activity before heading back to Galway. Katie and I went with the zip lining (Pam and Ian had gone on Saturday and told us it was amazing). While we were waiting for the other girls to go before us, it looked like a pretty nice day - not too cold or too windy. You have to remember though that in the west of Ireland, the weather changes really rapidly and really drastically. It started raining as Katie and I walked up to the tower to get hooked to the line and when we were standing at the top of the tower getting ready to jump, it started sleeting. The wind was so fierce, my teeth were actually chattering and my legs were shaking, and the guy tying all my knots was amused that I was shaking from the cold and not from fear. (Really, I wasn't scared about jumping. I felt pretty comfortable with the harness and knots). Well we jumped and went zip lining through the sleeting rain, which I will say was less than ideal - but still a totally awesome experience. And definitely quite memorable.

Props to IFSA for organizing another great weekend for us. Like I said before - I was really glad I wound up going.