Remembering, time together
Okay, now I´ve pushed this in front of me for too long. I just never seem to get to it, but now, Im going to spend the coming week writing about Northern Ireland. The only problem is; I don’t know where to start.
Tomorrow I start the spring term (MY LAST!) and I can´t believe I’m an entire autumn away from coming home. I miss traveling around, I miss never being still, I miss the people, and I miss the views. Mostly, I miss the other IFYEs. So I guess that it were I´ll start; The other IFYEs, and why they made the trip.
Hosts changed constantly, as did the sites we visited. But we remained constant. In the beginning we were just accidentally traveling together; we meet and saw the same thing. But as everything around us constantly changed, we still had each other and pretty soon that was all that mattered.
It might seem cruel, but after three weeks, Me, Jesa and Luzia spend our time complaining to each other. How our hosts were annoying, why people was so disturbed, how ignorantly dumb certain people seemed, how unbelievably prone everyone is to be drunk out of their wits and where Northern Irish people really hadn’t thought stuff through. Though it’s a bit horrible that we sat together and complained as much as we could, but that didn’t matter. We felt the same things, and as long as we didn’t openly insult someone – what’s wrong with bonding over peoples flaws? Plus, we had some great laughs out of it too. And we were together.
After all that stress, sitting down together was always the best. Just being together, doing nothing. Those are my favorite times. Walking in the mountains that beautiful day the last week was so great. It was so still, just walking, no requirements, just being together. We had the best conversation coming back down, about language and Jesa’s reaction to our alphabets – it was so simple and so much fun!
Things like that are important, it doesn’t matter how many sites you see, it’s who you see them with. One of my favorite views is that of a lonely lake, just in nowhere – only because me and Luzia has such great times sitting and doing nothing there. Or the view in Donegal – beautiful in itself but even more so because of our failed attempts to smile in the pictures, and just because we saw it together. And the beach in north, made so much cooler by the fact that we laughed so hard when we drown down it.
One of the best moments with all of us was in Kesh, at the Knockout Challenge. There was so many fun activities, one of my favorites was the wheelbarrow part. It started out pretty good, each of us pushing another in the wheelbarrow. Until it was Martins turn to be pushed – I tried and failed, so soon all four of us struggled to together push him up the lane. It was quite funny. And I remember one of the funniest things ever said by Jesa; after the challenge had left all of us wet part from her, she proudly announced that she was still dry – but by the time she said it realized her mistake. To late though, she was wet pretty soon too.
And who can forget the time we spend in the car terrified from John or Fred’s driving. They were insane! There was no stop! Though terrifying, we had a great time, especially when going four laps around a roundabout only to return half a minute later to take three more laps and realizing we were on the right track the first time.
I remember when in Fermanagh, when all us girl were changing out of our wetsuit and back to normal clothes. Me, Luzia and Michaela had tried banana boat while Martin and Jesa took a tour on a canoe. Apparently, the three of us had chosen wrong as Jesa had had the BEST TIME. Firstly, her description of how she was sitting pretty much in the air as Martin way heavier in the other end (and Jesa being the smallest girl ever) was quite amusing, but her emphasis didn’t lie on that. What we missed was the guide. An apparently super-hot blond guide named Paul. Apparently, his body was worth licking chocolate of. We laughed so hard. I miss all that.
Being with all the IFYEs has been so great, and I will really miss everyone. Our lives entwined for a bit, and it seems too great to let go. I´ve just scratched the surface of our adventures, just begun to remember all the thing we´ve done. And the more I think about it, the more I can remember and the more I want to write. But I´ll quite here, for today.
There is so many small things that matters, so many small precious memories. For example, how Jesa decided to use my hair as mustache when she could. That such small un-important detail, but still, it’s so strong. This December, I cut my hair, and my first thought when coming home was: Oh, No! I just cut of Jesa’s mustache!
