Hello!
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to go on a retreat to County Wicklow with the Christian Union Society on campus. Needless to say, it was an experience that I will never forget! It was awesome!
On Friday afternoon, we all piled into three cars and headed up to County Wicklow. The car ride was quite the experience in itself for as you know (or now will know) they do drive on the left side of the road. I was in the passenger seat, and it took me a solid 15 minutes to get used to the fact that there was no wheel in front of me even though I was on the left! haha...it was crazy! Anyways, from UCC, there was a group of about 14 of us that went: 5 Americans, 8 Irish, and Kate who is from Zimbabwe but she has lived here for 6 years! I got to know Kate really well because she was the driver of the car I was in!!
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| UCC CU! |
Anyways, the ride on Friday ended up taking 4 and a half hours, and let me tell you, it was a crazy road down windy, dark roads. hahaha. It was fun though! By the time we got to our location, it was around 9 and we were ready to eat! The place we stayed at was called Avoca Manor, and was a type of retreat house that was really cool! There ended up being around 100 students from Christian Union Societies all over Ireland!
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| Good Morning!!! |
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| The Orange Block!! |
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| Some of the crew! |
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| Beam of light!! |
The weekend consisted of various sessions in which we learned about the Book of Titus in the Bible. Very interesting! And, these sessions were led by Pastor Ed who is originally from Australia but has lived in Ireland the past 5 years. He was a very good speaker and very pleasant to listen to because of his lovely accent! Alright mate!! We also had the opportunity to just have some reflection time and free time to get to know each other and all! I met so many awesome people from all over the world: One thing I will never forget is when we put up a little sticky note where we were from on the world map and basically the entire continents of North America, Europe, Africa, and parts of Asia were covered!! It was certainly a surreal feeling! Saturday night there was a talent show as well, and man o man...there were soo many good singers/guitar players in this group of people from all over Ireland! It was soo much fun. Later on Saturday night, I just sat down at the keyboard by the drums and guitar stuff...and jammed with this guy named Sam. We were just making up songs having fun and all. Then, later on that night everybody was just playing ridiculous games and loving life.!! Oh and I almost forgot, where we were was absolutely stunning! just check out the pictures! Fall has certainly arrived here finally...meaning the colors were so vibrant and still are around Cork! The stars on Friday night were exceptional as well which made me think of home!
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| hahahaha! |
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| Night times!! |
I could really go on forever about it but I'll stop there. The last two days have been super busy going to class and CU events and Chaplaincy events and movie nights, and getting classes set up for the next spring back home...oh and of course getting ready for WICKED and London this weekend! Wooohoo! I truly am very excited about it...but I am so busy it's hard to get excited sometimes! hahaha...it's just going to come and go so fast! ahhh! Anyways, I'm off to Bible study and then the pub for a few minutes of music before I hit the hay....only in Ireland right?
jake- word to the wise. if you keep putting your face into odd contortions like that, one of these times its gonna stick like that and you will look like a fool for the rest of your life. just sayin.
ReplyDelete-ben (the handsome brother)