Thirst

Hello friends,

I just got back from a 3 day excursion in the south of England. It all began on a wednesday night, at the end of our nightly meeting, when one of the leaders said, "Ok, write this down- sleeping bag, towel, t-shirt and shorts, water bottle, extra pair of underwear. That's all you can bring. See you tomorrow morning at 10!" We're like, where are we going? Hahaha... it was a crazy trip, sort of like RA training (holly) but more intense. We spent the first day driving out and hiking to our campsite somewhere in the English woods, right next to a river. The guys and girls each got 2 tarps and some twine to set up shelters however we could, and when we were done, we had some dinner. Then, they told us that we had to use each other's shelters- the guys would use the one the girls built and the girls would use the one the guys built. Hahaha... They woke us up that night at about 2am-- you have 3 minutes to get out of bed and line up on the bank of the river-- and we did some team building initiatives. It was crazy. The next day we spent the whole time hiking 8-10 miles around the English countryside- unfortunately, it was so foggy we couldn't see where we were going, and we had to rely completely on the compass and whoever they designated from our group to lead us. And the terrain all looked exactly the same the whole time-- it was really tough. And we had little "scenarios" that would come up- like "this person just got hypothermia and can't go on, we need to carry her" and "the water we drank back there has made half of us blind and we have to lead them along". This morning we got up early and drove out to the beach-- yeah!! I've swum in both sides of the Atlantic!! The water was freezing cold-- we split into two teams, and we each had to take one of our members and tow them out into the sea around a buoy and come back-- that was so hard- i haven't swum competitively in a while- jeez... It was good though to get into the water. And the fog cleared up as well, so it was just beautiful. Ok, I haven't showered or brushed my teeth in 3 days, so i have to go. Laters, and I love you all...