Juliacentralicious

Fresher's Weekend with New Scotland, aka a weekend retreat with the Scottish dancers

Friday:
The bus leaves at 6 in the evening. I sit with Janni (cute Swedish girl, sister of Sanne, a girl I already knew from previous classes), and we chat a bunch. The middle of the bus starts singing folk songs. We stopped at Dunkirk for dinner (fish and chips, how traditional), or, for the back of the bus, drinks. Then the back of the bus starts singing. Much hilarity ensues, and after getting slightly lost, we pull into the resort place. Immediately everyone piles off the bus in an attempt to race to the best room to claim it. This fails because it's pitch black outside, and no one knows how to get to the different cabins, let alone which are ours. Also, we have to take care to avoid the pond in the center of the place. Finally, beds are claimed (about ten people in our room alone-- forty-ish total on the trip), and within ten minutes, a pillow fight has broken out in our room. Much giggling occurs, and only minor injuries.
Then, right off the bat, we have a ceilidh. We have hours of folk dancing and skipping around the room and in general getting sweaty and tired and having loads of fun. There was the usual amount of people running into each other, etc. Then they ended the ceilidh and started the disco bit-- let me just say that there was a whole room full of people doing the macarena. EVERYONE. It was fabulous. This was all punctuated by "getting to know you" games-- nothing like sitting on a person's lap to get to know them better.
The night petered out, with about six of us-- mostly people I had known before the retreat-- lying on the floor hanging out and talking. Finally we get to bed around 4.30.

Saturday:
I woke up around 7, as the first people began to stir. Thanks to my ability to just get the heck up (that and I was too cold in bed), I was spared the early-morning wakeup from Yoshimi bursting into the room playing the bagpipes. Breakfast was uneventful, and then we had a ceilidh class/dance. Much fun (and a great was to wake up!) Then we had tea, round 1. After this was, I believe, more ceilidh dancing. Then tea, round 2 (during which they played some tango. Amber said something along the lines of, "somebody tango!" and since Toby was fortunately nearby, we had the floor to ourselves. It was rather awesome). Then there was a Step Dancing class (think Scottish tap), which was fun (yay for noisy dancing!), and lunch. After lunch we broke into our pre-decided teams to a "mystery challenge"-- making a kite! Fun with garbage bags and tape ensued, and then everyone trooped off to go fly them at the loch. We hadn't realized that it was actually two miles there-- but we had the most gorgeous march there, which included vistas of the mountains and blueberries growing alone the road.
There was, of course, no wind at the loch. So we bummed around awhile-- some of us waded a little bit (holy mackerel, was that cold!), splashed around. Then the wind picked up and we ran around like idiots for awhile-- one kite got stuck in a tree, one spiraled madly out of control, ours stayed aloft but merely hovered close to the ground, occasionally attacking people. Finally we headed back.
For the afternoon, we had signed up for either Greek dancing or Improv, though a lot of people just took naps. Since Greek dancing was so full, I magnanimously went to the improv workshop. Let's just say that there was silliness-- some weird obsession with monkeys and people rolling around on the floor, sometimes combined. It was a blast. But we had to cut it short to go get all costumed-up for dinner. ::insert usual montage of readiness:: My costume-- "Dead Heiress" (the theme was "Mystery and Magic)-- didn't require much anyway. Dress, tiara, cake gel icing applied to fake bullet wound on forehead (which caused a disturbing number of people to attempt to lick my face). Dinner was exceedingly amusing, thanks to incredible lasagna (one of the girls cooked ALL of our meals, and was in general amazing), and attempts to discuss etiquette with spoons on our noses. Also there was massive amounts of berry crumble, and my ongoing struggle to finish it, which became a matter of utmost importance for my entire table.
After dinner was cleared, we (big surprise) had a ceilidh! Folk dancing in silly costumes is the best thing ever. Also more silly bonding games (balloons, dancing, and apple-bobbing, which I managed to avoid). Then-- chocolate fountains! (One dark, one milk. Amazing.) Finally, at midnight, the dancing was called to an end, for the bonfire. The bonfire was had in a stone structure with a fireplace, so we all crammed onto the benches, and sang a raucous mix of childhood and folk songs. By 2am, the weak were again weeded out, and the remainder had a nice mellow sing along with guitar and quiet folk songs as the fire died. I was in bed by 4.30 again, though this time not the last.

Sunday:
Up to the sounds of bagpipes and pots and pans! Took a cold shower and hung out waiting for breakfast. We enjoyed leftover berry crumble with cream (so good!), and more random singing, of the perky morning type. Finished waking up to the Highland dancing class (quite the workout!), and then packed our things together. Wandered off to the woods with Anna and Ru-Huey, where we frolicked among the pine trees and moss, explored a strange little lean-to cut into the stream bank, looking for four leaf clovers, and jumped up and down in what could have possibly been a fairy ring.
The bus ride home was uneventful, with one stop again in Dunkirk for more tea (caffeine!), and then home.

It was a really incredible trip, I can't say that enough. There was just so much that we did, so many people that I got to know, it's surreal. No sense of time about it, that's for sure. I am exceedingly happy I did that.

Back to Friday:
I had haggis! It is tasty and doesn't taste at all like stomach. That is all. :)

posted by Julia @ 10:11 AM