Killary or Killarney?!

The weekend right before St. Patrick's Day we had another IFSA trip and this time it was their "Adventure" Weekend in Killary. Except none of us had ever heard of Killary before and thought that it was just a typo and they meant Killarney, but no, they definitely meant Killary.

Now, IFSA isn't great at giving us details about what we're doing. They like to tell us where and when they are picking us up and when they will have us back. That leaves a lot of questions about what we're doing and where we're going. We got picked up on Friday and had to stop in Limerick to pick up their 4 students and then we were headed to Killary. We knew it was a long trip and I don't usually stay awake very long in vehicles because I get motion sickness. I was sitting in the back row with Colleen and Claire. Since their coach buses don't have bathrooms, the last row has 5 seats to it. I was trying to sleep but it wasn't really working out and there was this massive space between the last row and the one in front of it. What do I do? I threw my rain coat on the ground and curled up in a ball on the floor and slept. It was a lot easier than sleeping on the floor of a bus on a UCMB trip. After so long they usually stop and let us have about 20 minutes to go get food or use the bathroom or just stretch if we need to. I usually just stay on the bus and sleep, but we had to switch buses so they kicked us all off. It's already a little sketchy that IFSA doesn't really tell us what we're doing but we're literally in the middle of nowhere behind a random little building, switching buses. We were all so confused. If you looked around the building you realize it's a gas station and a little convenient store. I think there was even some kind of restaurant there too, but that was it. It didn't matter where you looked, that was just it. A random little building in the middle of nowhere and we're switching buses. You would think they were smuggling us all, it was just so bazaar. To make things even better, the rest of the road trip there was the worst bus ride I had ever been on. We were on winding, unpaved roads, because it's the middle of nowhere. Thankfully the rest of that weekend made up for the bus rides. Also the bus we switched to no longer had a giant space in front of the last row so I lost my sleeping spot. At that point all I could do was laugh because everything was just so ridiculous.

We got out to Killary and there's snow... Like real snow, in the middle of nowhere in Ireland, and there were mountains. I was so confused, it didn't look like we were still in Ireland. Geography really isn't my thing, so I had no clue that there were mountains in Ireland. Then again I'm also the person who thinks of it as a diamond, but still I wasn't the only surprised person about the mountains, so it was okay. We get to this building out in the mountains and it's the only one. It was the Killary Adventure Center. The view was stunning. They were located right on a lake in the valley between a few snow-capped mountains. They had acres and acres of land all to themselves to do all of their activities. It was a beautiful place to go for a fun weekend. As always we got there later on in the evening so we pretty much got our room keys and then had dinner. We were the first of the IFSA groups to get there so once we put out bags down we got to sign up for our activities for Saturday.

Our options were:

Ringo(tubing)/ Gorge Walking
Kayaking/ Gorge Walking
High Ropes/ Laser Combat
Zip Line/ Tower
High Swing/ Rock Wall
Clay Pigeon Shooting/ Archery
and maybe a couple others.

They also had one choice which they had to take down because IFSA realized that their insurance doesn't cover it. Of course it's the one thing I was super excited for: Bungee Jumping! I was so upset when they came back and told us we weren't allowed to do it. So I switched to the next best thing; guns and arrows. I went Clay Pigeon Shooting first thing in the morning and then we did archery. It's so funny because the instructor was asking us about who has ever held a gun, shot a gun, or who even owns one. I think only one or both of the guys said that they had and the instructor was surprised. He started telling us about how everyone in Ireland thinks that every American owns a gun and that we just go around killing each other with them. Pretty much that we're a bunch of cowboys. So he got out 12 and 20 gauge rifles for us to shoot with and he was teaching us how to hold them and use them safely. I learned that day that the bigger the gauge, the smaller the gun. Why on earth that makes sense, I have no clue.Normally I'm the kind of person who will go all out with trying new things and I'll go with the bigger challenge, but not with those guns. I took the 20 gauge and was plenty happy with it. The guys made bets over the who ever got the most points from shooting the clay pigeons and us girls just had our fun with it. Colleen put those boys to shame. It was a beautiful thing, really. So after this semester we all decided that she's dropping out of school and joining the Marines so that she can become a sniper. For her first time ever handling a gun she was amazing. It was really fun to learn how to shoot a gun and I can proudly say I at least hit a few of the clay pigeons.  Once we finished there we moved on to archery which was really cool. I had done it before so I kind of knew what  I was doing, but I was still bad at it. The great thing about it was that it was all in fun.

After lunch we had another round of activities and Colleen and I were together for high ropes and laser combat. Neither of us are really height loving people, but the laser combat made it worth it. We did the crate challenge. I'm not very good at describing this so I'm sorry if it makes no sense. We both had a tower that we had to build and we had to build them side by side because we were on top of them as we built them. We were using plastic beer crates that weren't very big. Every time one of us had to add on to our tower we had to stand together on the other person's tower. Make sense? I hope so. We got up to 21 crates between our two towers when I lost my balance moving for her to get on my tower and our towers both swung out then back in and crashed. It was a lot of fun though and after it was all done and over with we got to go to laser combat. Usually when you think of laser combat/tag you think of a dark room with black lights and people running everywhere. This was a bog where they built a military type base and we got camo jackets and hats to wear and the entire bog was a war zone. The first game was every man for himself, which I somehow managed to win. It came down to Colleen and I who were both sitting in these little wooden bases shooting at each other through the little windows in the wood. I won simply out of stupid luck. We talked about it afterward and honestly it didn't make sense to either of us how it worked out, but it did. The next two games we were split into teams and we did one game where they wanted to see what team would die first and then we played capture the flag. On our way back to return our guns we played VIP where one person has 3 body guards and one life. The rest of us are assassins trying to kill the VIP before they get back to the shed. It was a lot of fun.

OH! I just realized I left out what we did on Friday night. We had a pub quiz after dinner, which is pretty much like a game of trivial pursuit that they play at pubs. Haha just remembered that we did that. After laser combat was dinner and then a "disco". When we think disco we think Saturday Night Fever and disco dancing. Here it's just what they call a dance. they cleared out an area and had a dj there and it was pretty much like a typical Thursday night at a pub, except it was Saturday.

Before we left on Sunday we got to do one more set of activities and I had signed up to do the Zip Wire and Tower, but I wasn't really feeling it that morning. So I switched and did the high ropes and laser combat again. With the high ropes I did the challenge wall this time and normally I don't like climbing anything like a rock wall. I hit a point and all I want to do is get down, so to be doing the challenge wall wasn't exactly the smartest decision ever. I did it with Susan and we kept each other going and we both got up to the climbing net at the very top so it was an accomplishment for us both.

It really was a great weekend and I got to learn how to do a couple new things. It's trips like those that really let all of us hang out together and just have a great time doing something besides class work. I love hanging out with the girls. Unfortunately a few of them aren't IFSA people, but for those of us who are we really enjoy it.

With Love Always