The title this time is a bit deceiving as this blog post is a long time coming. I will divide this into two parts, the end of my time in the US and my travels back to the UK and then the Isle of Man trip. Part of the delay in posting is due to pictures, of which all have not yet been posted, so expect a picture update, so I hope the wait was worth it!
When I last wrote, I was still at Jewell, enjoying a little space from home. It was good to see all of my friends and I felt like the few days were a very productive use of my time. The way home, however, was torturous for many reasons. I decided to try and get home as early as possible, so that I could be with my parents before they left for vacation. So, I decided to split up my drive to Thursday night and Friday morning and spending the night at my cousin's house in St. Louis. The added bonus being seeing my cute little cousin Jackson, who I hadn't seen since he was a couple months old. The drive back to Indy was horrendous. There was a storm that came down fast and heavy and in near darkness, this lead to extremely hazardous conditions. I was only a half an hour from my first destination when I hydroplaned harsh and jerky circles on the interstate. Fortunately, I didn't end up in a ditch and there were no cars around through the entire event. My heart racing out of my chest, I kept driving and took a slightly slower pace (not that it mattered as it was not my speed but trying to switch lanes that led to the event). I was a bit shaken when I got to my cousin's but went to bed hoping the next day would be without rain. The morning was clear and I set off for a second time stopping only briefly for breakfast. It was this stop for breakfast that would turn into problem number two on this trip home. Before I had left Kansas City, my car had exhibited a strange symptom of struggling to turn the engine over when I turned the key. I chalked it up to something that needed to wait until I returned to Indy to deal with. Well, when I returned to my car after breakfast and tried to start the engine, it once again struggled to turn the engine on. Only this time, instead of slowly speeding up, it very quickly grumbled to a stop. I was stranded. I called my dad and we arranged for a jump, diagnosing the problem to a bad battery. Fortunately that was all that was needed and only resulted in an hour delay, but I was more than frazzled wanting nothing more than to go home. The remainder of the drive was thankfully uneventful and I made sure to get the battery fixed as soon as I returned to Indy.
The last couple of days at home in the US were actually quite peaceful. My parents had left for vacation and it was just me and my sister. Given that my sister had school and was old enough to entertain herself, I was left mostly to my own devices and for the first time in a while I actually did get to relax. I played videogames, watched the remainders of shows and began packing for my trip home. I was amazed by the speed at which the two and a half weeks had passed and the anxiety of being on the road again started to well in my stomach. After a fair well to my siblings and a Skype call to my parents while they sat on a beach side resort in Jamaica, I began another long trip to the UK.
My flight to the UK which spanned 12 hours of airtime and layovers was perhaps the most peaceful and easy flying experience I had over the Atlantic. The plane resembled the one I had taken on my first trip, but I had an empty seat next to me and no annoying children kicking my seat. The food was decent (as I was starving) and I did manage to snatch 1 hour of sleep before breakfast with relative comfort. I arrived at Heathrow and immediately made my way to London, which is when I encountered the first of two major problems so far.
It was about 8am London time and, as a result, rush hour. I took the tube into London with my big bag and back pack, with only the room to stand for the 45 minute train to central London from Heathrow. The train quickly filled up and about 20 minutes into the ride, we were packed in like sardines. To prevent myself from falling onto other people or my luggage over the course of the trip, I did the stupid thing and locked my knees. I felt myself growing hot and dizzy and resolved to get off at the next stop. Unfortunately I would faint before that next stop arrived. After things got a little dark, I felt a fellow passenger grab my arm. My instincts were that I was being assaulted, but then I remembered that I was planning to get off the train. The stop had just arrived and the kind man who had noticed me faint, helped me off with all of my things. The security/emergency staff came over to me, got me some water, and waited with me until I felt better. The chilled spring air quickly cleared my head and after some light conversation, the staff got me a seat on the next train and gave me directions to where my friend's flat was.
The rest of the short journey was uneventful and I made sure to have a quick breakfast with my friend, before leaving my excess luggage with her and moving on to meet up with Sara and Sarah. With a UK phone and therefore, easy communication, I found my way to Sarah's house fairly easily and we would enjoy a relaxed evening of food and catching up before our trip to the Isle of Man the next morning.
So one of the benefits to going home was that I got to visit William Jewell and have my advising meeting. Not so fortunate was that registration for classes was at 10pm Central which translated to 4 am UK time. Luckily, we, Sara and I, already needed to get up early to make a bus to Oxford to meet up with everyone to get to the Isle of Man. So getting up a little earlier was not too much of a hardship, Sara and I successfully registered for classes, had a light breakfast and made our way, with Sarah, to Oxford to meet up with the team and the minibus.
Getting to the Isle of Man is a bit of an ordeal. From Oxford, the port was about a 3 and 1/2 hour drive, but we stopped along the way twice to pick up additional archers. The minibus was eventually full of luggage, bows and people alike. Having had no more than 6 hours of sleep in the last 72 hour period, I snatched a few hours of sleep on the bus with the faint sounds of music and chatter in the background. The ferry across to the Isle of Man was a little nicer than the Ferry I had taken to the mainland of Europe twice now and we all huddled at the bar on the ship, playing card games like Egyptian Rat Skrew or Uno and enjoying the salty sea air on the top deck. We were also presented with our Isle of man shirts which were blue polo shirts with individualized nicknames on the back. I received the nickname "flapjack?", because of my regular role as flapjack supplier for competition and 6 am practice, also I make damn good flapjacks. The other names echoed similar humorous truths such as 100% terrorist, Squad Groupie, Government Agent, J-Dizzle, Sub-Zero among others, each with their own inside jokes and stories.
We arrived on the Island and were quickly driven to the hotel where we would be staying for the next 3 nights. Sara, Sarah, and I were put in a three person room, which was quite spacious. The hotel was also beach front property and the island as we could see it was quite beautiful. Everyone met up in the lobby and those who had signed up to go to a commemorative dinner left while the remainder of us, Jack, the Sara(h)s and I went to find other options. After grabbing some Manx money (as Isle of Man is a common wealth and not a member of the UK), we grabbed a nutritious dinner of pizza and chips along with some vodka and mixers. The night was full of joyful shenanigans playing the Game of Thrones drinking game and bonding us closer together. This night would be only one of many which made this trip some of the most fun I have had in awhile.
We went to bed fairly early as we had to get up early the next morning for our first day of shooting. So at 7am, the four of us bright and bushy eyed and not hung over despite what the rest of the those who had come to check on us the night before may have expected went to breakfast, piled onto a bus with our bows and went to the competition hall. The first round of shooting was a Fita 25, which is shot at 25 meters from a 60 cm face. There were two rounds of practice and then 20 ends of 3 arrows alternating between two groups of two archers on each boss. This was the first time I had shot this type of archery round and it was also the farthest distance I had ever shot. The hall had 17/18 bosses and archers from Loughborough, an alumni group called Prism, and Liverpool were in attendance besides Oxford reaching a total of about 60-65 archers of either Recurve, Compound, Longbow or Bare-bow style. The atmosphere in the hall was quite jovial and friendly and it quickly became clear that the point of the tournament was more socialization than serious shooting. The relaxed atmosphere served me well and I shot decently getting a score of 444/600 for my first time at that distance. We went out for lunch and began shooting again for the afternoon. The afternoon round was a Fita 18 which is 18 meters with a 40 cm face. The same number of arrows shot in the same intervals as the morning session. 120 arrows doesn't seem like much, but by the end of the afternoon I was quite sore. I did a little worse with a score of 430/600. My one goal for the tournament was to beat Jack (he often shoots better than me), a fellow team mate and male novice, on one round. After day one, I hadn't accomplished my goal, but I was optimistic.
(There are none of me shooting but, here is what the range looked like!)
The toll of the shoot was a little worse on Sara than most others. Having a chronic problem of popping ribs out of place, the shooting and her current out rib interacted horribly and left her in pain and struggling to breath properly. They took her to the A and E (essentially the ER) and a doctor kindly popped her rib back in.
Everyone gathered at the hall for some post shooting shenanigans and then we went to dinner at a "Tex Mex" place on the island for dinner. The "Tex Mex" place was a tragic misrepresentation of what a Tex Mex restaurant actually is in the States. I mean there was lasagne on the menu and it really represented a hodge podge of American foods and some Mexican dishes. Sara and I shared the Nachos which was good and some mozzarella sticks. Deciding that cheap drinks from a grocery store in the 3 person room was a better choice than a seedy pub, we retired to the Sara(h)s' and my room for a night of chatting and drinking.
Taking a slightly later start to the next morning, the team left once again for the archery hall for another full day of shooting. Sara was still a little shaky and doped on a very strong pain killer that they had prescribed for her the night before and so she opted to take a nap through the day. The round for the morning was a Worcester which is 20 yards with a 40 cm face that is divided into 5 sections instead of ten with only the centre white and the rest black or dark grey. This time it was 12 ends of 5 arrows each alternating between two groups of archers. I think I prefer Worcester faces to the other faces. Colours are distracting. I shot really well and it quickly became clear that I could easily overtake the experienced archery shooting with me from club. By the last 10 arrows, I was 10 points down (having a had a few bad ends) and resolved to shoot as many fives as possible. I must have unlocked beast mode, because despite sore muscles, I shot 8/10 arrows in the 5 spot. Despite that, I fell 1 point short of defeating the experienced archer. I was feeling fairly giddy by the end of it though, super charged by the good shooting. My score was a 245/300 which is quite good for a novice. I also defeated Jack by a good 9 points. I was feeling pretty successful. After a short lunch, we started the head to heads.
So tournament style, we were all given a seed based on our combined total for the 3 previous shoots. I seeded 31 and my first match was with the 34 seed. Head to heads are shot in ends of 3 on the Fita 18 set up. Each round the scores are counted up and you get 2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. There are 5 ends and first to 6 points wins. If you are tied at the end, then you do a one arrow shoot off with the winner being the one who's arrow is closest to the centre. I had never done a head to head but I was surprised just how nervous I was. I had never been this nervous on the line. My first end was not very good and I conceded two points. Then I calmed down and over the next to ends took it home to get four points. This was the point that I let my head get to me. I introduced over thinking into my form and my scores plummeted. Unfortunately, I lost overall. I shook the hand of my opponent with no hard feelings as we both knew that no matter what, either of us would lose the next round to the number 2 seed. I was still struck with an overwhelming sadness though. With this loss, I was done shooting for the whole tournament. This tournament had been some of the most fun I had had shooting since I began. I still wanted to shoot despite the aching limbs and mental fatigue, all I wanted to was to loose more arrows at a target. This feeling only expanded as I realized that I would never be in a tournament with these people in this setting for this long again. I watched the remainder of the tournament, one of our team's archer's taking the compound and recurve firsts, but I sat in sadness. After everyone was done shooting, we took plenty of group photos and returned to the hotel.
We wandered the town for a bit and had dinner before going to the results at the pub that was part of the hotel. To my surprise, they did have a novice women's recurve category and given that oxford was the only team that brought novice women (of which there were three of us) we each placed and I took home the gold! The rest of the team had good showings and after sad speeches were given about the end of the tournament in general (this was the last year), we retired to a different pub for drinking and socializing. Much fun was had, that included boat races, drinking games, and good conversation and laughter. Unfortunately, the pain in Sara's back only grew worse. The muscles in her back and shoulder began spasming wildly and a group took her back to the A and E to take a look. She got back to the hotel late, still in pain with little help from the medical staff. We all made an attempt to sleep in the next morning though the animals outside our windows which we think included angry seagulls and a dying fox kept us up. We grabbed breakfast before checking out for a day trip to Peel castle.
The trip to Peel was uneventful taking about a 45 minutes drive, except for the minibus having to manoeuvre around an extremely tight corner on the tiny streets. We walked around the castle and I was stunned by the beauty of it all. After a short escapade around the castle, we went to the nearby beach and grabbed some ice cream. The ice cream was delicious and relatively cheap. We then proceeded to make a giant sand castle on the beach with a magnificent moat and a nice stone wall. Unfortunately the tide was going out rather than in and our moat was suffering a bit of a drought, but it was still impressive. Of course, once you make a sandcastle the next step is to destroy it. Taking our remaining rocks we pelted the walls and then charged as a brief game of king of the hill ensued. By the time we were done a mound of sand remained. The weather wasn't super warm but it was the nicest we had had all weekend and the sun was out. We went to lunch and then returned to the beach for frisbee and games. I did have ice cream a second time later that afternoon.
Sara was still in pain and one final attempt was made to get her help. She took it easy but it was clear that she would need to be near medical attention over the next couple days. There was no way we were going to be able to travel to a remote (relatively speaking) park and do vigorous hiking. Just no way that we would enjoy it either. So, I talked to Sara and suggested that we not go and instead hang out in Oxford until our flight to Dublin at the end of the week. She didn't want to agree but she knew that I was right.
As the afternoon came to a close, we needed to return for the evening ferry back to the UK and the 3 and 1/2 hour drive to Oxford. All of us were exhausted having had so much fun throughout the entire trip. Much sleep was had on the bus and when we weren't sleeping we were doing the stereotypical Oxford thing of doing crossword puzzles. We arrived in Oxford at half past three in the morning and two of our fellow archers, Annie and Jack, kindly allowed Sara and I to crash until we could figure out our next plan of action.
The whole Isle of man trip was a blast and so much fun. The team got much closer and I was once again reminded that it was the people that have made my time at Oxford so great. I also learned that, as I suspected, I enjoy travelling in a large group. There is more security and more joy to be had. I also loved the shooting side of it all and it only reaffirmed my love for archery. I love Oxford University Company of Archers. They are wonderful people and they have made my time in Oxford so amazing. I will shed many tears to say good bye to the team.
The next day, I put out a call to arms to find a place for Sara and I to crash for the next couple of days. Within the first 10 minutes of the post going live on the role playing society page, I got 3 offers. I was filled with another love for the other group that I have become so close to. The role playing society was so generous and I was reassured that the friendships I had made among them were true ones. I was relieved to have a place to stay and overwhelmed by the kindness I have been shown here in Oxford. As this last term approaches quickly I mourn what little time I have left, but I pray that despite distance all of these friendships will last and that this year will not be our last moments together.
More on Oxford later. Until then,
Adventures Await!
~KH
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