Davincci Low Ropes Course

So today my group, the red group, had to do the Davincci Low Ropes Course. I honestly don't know why they call it a low ropes course...it involved no ropes. We began at 9 and ended around 4:15...with an hour for lunch. It was really cold this morning...not as cold as what some of you back home are dealing with but cold nonetheless. So we did our activities indoors in the gym across the street. You have to understand that when I say across the street, it is really cool. There is a tunnel that takes you from the campus side where the classrooms are to the sports center on the other side. Or Centro Sportivo. We had to share the gym for a good part of the day with the private Italian students. It was very loud. Our instructors were from Slovania. They were funny. Very intense but they had a good sense of humor. It was just a nice way to break the week up.

First we ran a couple laps and the stretched for a while. Our first exercise was called "willow in the wind." Basically we were in like groups of 12 and one person had to stand in the center. They had to be as stiff as board and trust the people that were around them to move them around the circle. We did it once when the people were in a close circle and then they moved outward some and you had to do it again. This was just the beginning though for our tasks that lied ahead...little did we know. Then we had to start this exercise where you sat down, toe to toe with someone, and you had to hold onto eachother and lift up and the same time. You had to do this successfully three times and then you had to add people. Eventually we made it up to 25 people. Our toes were in a circle and we were holding onto each other and there were people lifting from the outside. It was so hard...I got elbowed in the eye at one point. Won't be surprised if it is black in the morning because it hurts. Then we had the trust fall...you all know what that is. Was not excited about that at all but I did it.

Then we had three obstacles that every group had to complete. First one for my group was the climbing wall. Basically, a 12 ft. wooden wall...nothing to hold onto. We had to figure out how to get all 12 of us over. The rules were only once the first 3 people were up they could stay but only 3 people could be at the top at once. Once you had gone over the wall you couldn't help get the people up...you could only spot them...and only the last person could use the rope to get over the wall. It was hard. My group made it all up and over in 3 minutes 21 seconds. Then we had an exercise with 2 platforms that we all had to stand on one and we had to get to the other side without touching the "lava" (funny story, Cody had mentioned doing activities with "lava" and he hates them...when they told us to pretend it was lava, I just busted out laughing)...Anyways, we did this in 29 seconds. The last obstacle was like this spiderweb type thing. There were 12 spaces in the spider web. Once someone went through one space you could no longer use that space. I literally was lifted and carried through my space because it was at the top. You couldn't touch the ropes more than once or you had to start over. We did this exercise in 1 minute 15 seconds.

The day ended with what you could basically call crowd surfing. We stood in 2 lines across the gym and we would lift someone up at one end over everyone's heads and just like conveyer belt them down the line. Once you reached the opposite line you did a back flip down to the floor.

Needless to say, I'm extremely sore at the moment. I am super tired and will probably crash in the next little bit. We learned a lot though from all of this. We learned the importance of trust and communication which was the point of every exercise that they made us do today. All in all, it really was fun but 'm just exhausted. Ciao for now!