So, this weekend i went cliff diving... 3 times.
This weekend 10 of us trekked to Whales for an "adventure weekend" called "Preseli Venture." This husband and wife started this weekend trip about 6 years ago--we stayed in lodge-type things, showered downstairs, there was a lodge across the way where we ate, with a pool table, fire, games, couches, bar, etc.
We took the train to the smallest town known to man, and had about 3 hours to kill before the Preseli People picked us up, so we decided to walk around...in the rain...with all of our stuff. I believe i said "yeah, we're not american at all" about 2939402 times those 3 hours. So we walk into this pub...10 of us...wet...with luggage, and of course we get stares, which, at this point, im over...british people stare...A LOT! Anyway, after some ridiculously rude service and delicious curly fries we were on our way to explore more...or so we thought. We ended up at the coffee shop next door because there was NOTHING else. It turns out this was the biggest down in the area for like 30 miles...despite the fact that i'm not a city person, this i dont think this would work our for me so well either.
Soon enough it was time to head back to the train station and begin our journey. We got there just in time for dinner, chowed down on some delicious vegetable lasagna and had played jenga by the fire...i'm talking like, a 50 minute game of intense jenga.
...that i lost.
There were about 40 people here, usually it's mostly students but we ended up only meeting 3 kids from Marist studying in London for the semester, this weekend was mostly older people who do this every year (...this could be an option if the jetty ever closes? aunt maur--cliff diving?). Because of all of the people they split people up into groups of about 10 for each of the activities. our schedule was saturday morning: hike, saturday afternoon: coasteer, sunday morning: kayak.
Of course, it was raining Saturday. A 7 mile hike...in the rain. It actually started out fine, we got these HOT red raincoats, and were looking good. The hike was beautiful, right along the coast of whales, literally...RIGHT along the coast. There were times when one little slip and you were done, no big deal. We were literally walking through fields of sheep and cows, it was amazing... Then by about the 6th or 7th mile i wanted to die...rain, mud, me wiping out, shoes not meant for hiking, hills, bad combination. I tried to keep reminding myself where I was, but, nevertheless I was glad when it was over.
Because it was raining I didn't get many good pictures of the hike on my heavy duty camera, but i did get some video and regular pictures, which i'm in the middle of uploading to snapfish.
After the hike was time for lunch, then time to get ready for coasteering, so we got our bathing suits on and headed to the equipment garage to get suited up...literally!
We had to wear wet suits, rubber shorts to go over the wetsuits to prevent tearing on rocks, etc., a helmet, life jacket and rubber sock things...we were looking good.
We then headed on the bus to the "venue"...aka where we would risk our lives. We got out of the bus and soon made our way into the water, once again literally on the coast, it was beautiful...unfortunately i have no documentation of this because I am not talented enough to carry my camera and scale rocks at the same time, but, i googled coasteering and was able to find the exact rocks we jumped off of! So, you know, just pretend these strangers are me!
...these were the rocks we literally slid down on our backs
...and this is the type of climbing we did, for like 2 hours.
We were literally scaling these rocks and climing on top of things, and being tossed around in the current for like 2 hours, it was so much fun. We went to this one alcove they call the "Washing machine", because if you just stay there, the current comes and pushes you in, then pulls you out, it was really fun.
Afterwards we went back, showered, and had an AMAZING chicken curry dinner, the food at this place was AMAZING! and this is coming from the pickiest of eaters. it was nice to have hot meals made for us! After dinner all just hung out, played some cards then called it a night.
...then the pain set in. Before I even went to bed Saturday I felt SO sore from our adventurous day. I probably slept like 3 hours that night because I couldn't find a comfortable position, everything hurt! So I just comforted myself with the thought of "oh, i'm sure everyone's going to be sore tomorrow, we all did the same thing"...well i was wrong. When i woke up and said "did anyone else not sleep because they were so sore" everyone was like "oh actually i slept really well, i'm not sore at all"...this made me feel REALLY good about myself.
anyway, because i couldn't lift my elbows above my shoulders i decided to forego kayaking, for fear of getting out into the middle of the ocean and having to do the dead-mans-float back to shore. so instead i went with them to the venue, which turned out to be a fishermans village we hiked through yesterday, and walked around and took pictures, thank goodness the weather was nice.
and of course i bought a sweatshirt...
All in all it was a great weekend, despite a minor train delay on the way home, but we're all convinced it was because we were traveling with arielle, and she's proven to have a travel curse on her--i'm keeping my fingers crossed for paris and venice!
speaking of which, friday bright and early I leave for Paris! Then Venice Sunday-Tuesday, Barcelona, Wednesday-Friday, then Bri and I are flying from Barcelona to Madrid until I fly home Sunday...busy busy week!
One last note--this week begins my Entrepreneurship project i'm working on with one of my friends in my class...our professor gave us each 10 pounds and said "do something with it", and then we have to write a paper on it as a final...so we decided to make homemade tomato sauce and sell it in tupperware to hungry, poor college students longing for italian food, aka, me...
...so, keep your fingers crossed we make money!
Sorry this got so long--but i think it makes up for not updating in about a week? I'll try to update before Paris, but I'm really not doing much between now and then, so, au revoir!
p.s. king family/probably aunt maur--in case I can't make it to a phone booth in paris saturday, can you try to show this to nunu?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAMS!
xoxo
ok thats it, show's over
