This past weekend, all the European AIM fields got together to have a little retreat to see each other and to catch up. I got to talk to people that I havn't seen in about 6 months. People from the Scotland team, the Italy team ,some from the Zambia team, some of our assistants, and the directors met up in Scotland for the retreat. The retreat went really well and it was great to see classmates again.I'll tell you a bit about the retreat.
In order to make our flight to Scotland on time, we had to leave the house at 6am on thursday morning and head to the international airport in Belfast. I'm not the biggest fan of mornings, but I was doing okay considering that I was going to Scotland and I was going to see some of my classmates in a few hours. Our coordinators took us to the airport and dropped us off and we headed straight to check-in.
When it was my turn to check-in the lady behind the counter, made me pay £18 to check-in a bag that I kept telling her, was my carry on bag. All I had was my handbag and my very small, carry on bag. No matter what I said to try and convince her that both are under 20kg and the website said it was okay, she obviously didn't care. As I turn to leave the lady at the counter, I see my team-mate with her handbag and her carry on bag, both in hand. I look to the other side of her, and there is my other team-mate with his duffel bag that was possibly bigger than me, and clearly breaking the size limits. Did they have to pay £18 to check-in their bags? That's a big negative. Just me. Great, I'm the only one that seemed to get ripped off.
As I try to shake off my anger, I get in queue behind my team-mates for the security check. I always feel nervous when I go through the security checkpoint. I know that I don't have any drugs or illegal items with me, but every time I have to go through, I get really anxious. As I come to the checkpoint, I take off my shoes, coat and jewellery and place them a long side my bag in the wee trays. As my stuff goes through the little machine, I walk through the metal detector. Of course, with my luck, I set it off and had to get a full body search. I now know why, I get so anxious when it comes to the security checkpoint. I'm not a fan of “random” full body searches. I guess I just don't like feeling violated so early in the morning.
When we finally made it onto the plane, I felt like I had already been woken up, ripped off and violated enough for one day. By the time all the safety instructions and take-off procedures were explained, I was already tired. After the plane took off, I got to listen to 2 songs on my ipod before we were ready to land. It was the shortest flight ever. All that hassle for 30 minutes of air time? Ick.
We were met at the airport by the Scotland team's coordinator and he took us to the hotel where we were staying. The hotel itself, was unimpressive, but the staff were all just so lovely and nice. I feel like it really made up for it. Haley and I were room-mates in the hotel, which I found fitting because we are room-mates in our actual house. Our hotel room was cold and it smelled like smoke. Later we found out that our heating didn’t work properly and it was really inconvenient,especially considering the fact that it was really cold.
That day we just met up with the AIM'ers from Italy, Scotland, Zambia and my team in Northern Ireland. We hung out around the mall and then the community centre, where the Church met. For dinner, the church in East Kilbride made us, Americans, a big thanksgiving dinner, which was fantastic, and we ended the night with a devotional and some singing.
The next day, We had to wake up super early to walk to the community centre. To be honest, I feel like we could have slept in a bit longer and it wouldn’t have hurt anything, but that’s just me, complaining. As always. We had a morning devotional and breakfast then we split into groups and took the train down to Edinburgh. We spent pretty much the whole day there. In my group, was Amanda, Kelly, Haley and Jackson. We pretty much just walked around the whole time. We went to the castle , and visited a few little shops, went to The Elephant House, which was the “birthplace of Harry Potter”, and got some really good food. I really enjoyed how relaxed the day was. I liked just roaming around Edinburgh, instead of having a set tour schedule. I feel like it was a better experience when we went in smaller groups.
The next day we once again, woke up ridiculously early, had breakfast and a morning devotional, then took the train headed for Glasgow. our group got slightly bigger this time as we added two more people to it., Ryan and Sam. We spent the entire day there. We started off the afternoon with lunch at a Spanish restaurant, then we walked to necropolis, which is a huge cemetery, that was just absolutely beautiful under the sparkling snow. We then saw the oldest house in Glasgow, and got to see the seventh Harry Potter film, which was surprisingly really good, in a massive cinema.
On Sunday, the snow was falling so hardcore that the taxis were running very late. we had to stand outside waiting on a taxi to drive us the the community centre for about 30 minutes. When we finally got there, the fellowship and worship was really great. After worship, we had a pot luck meal and then everyone started heading to the airport.
It was such a encouraging weekend. I really enjoyed getting to see some people who I don’t usually get to see. It was harder than I thought to see everyone leaving and heading back for their fields. Everyone had changed so much, it was, in some ways, interesting to see how different everyone was. I must have changed too. I hope it was for the better. I loved being in Scotland and I loved hanging out with everyone but honestly, I missed my home in Northern Ireland. I'm so glad to be back home, but I did have fun in Scotland. 
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