So what happened this weekend? Most of the UK will tell you the
highlight was the Royal Wedding, but we know better: Team Aruba had our 3rd
Briefing weekend in Cambridge and there was more GOLD than Meghan and Prince
Harry could manage! We worked hard – here are some of the things we learnt.
Lesson 1: Emma is a pig-throwing expert, Nicki is not…
No live animals were harmed as part of this discovery – we were
in fact playing “Pass the Pigs”, which, if you haven’t been lucky enough to
play it, consists of simply throwing two plastic pigs in a similar way to
throwing a dice – points are based on which way up they land. Emma won by a
mile, but Nicki, even after “shuffling” her pigs, failed spectacularly to score
anything at all! It was a good laugh, and the pigs have definitely made it onto
the team packing list for Aruba.
Lesson 2: Caroline’s smoke alarm is VERY loud…
Always nice to know that while staying in her flat we would
be completely unable to sleep through any smoky emergency, whether that was a
raging inferno of flames… or just a few sausages under the grill. Testing it
out felt a little unnecessary though! Maybe it was an alarm to remind us we
were late cooking breakfast?
Lesson 3: Emily is “Bottom” when it comes to Shakespeare…
…and Sophie and Nicki are over-creative when it comes to linking
words. Another travel game we tried was Codenames – a bit tricky to explain,
but it involves trying to link as many words as possible together with one
word. Sophie and Nicki went down the obscure route, while Emily couldn’t
understand why her suggestion of “bottom” was linked to Shakespeare (answer: Bottom
is a character in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by Shakespeare)
Lesson 4: Preparation is key…
Especially when it comes to air beds. Check yours thoroughly
before settling down for the night or you could find your sleeping self
becoming more closely acquainted with the floor than you had intended!
Lesson 5: Team clothing is a source of great confusion…
Who knew there were SO MANY different types of hat?? And why
does every single supplier have a different size guide for the same product?
And how can a Medium polo on one site be 16cm smaller than on another? And is
turquoise REALLY turquoise? Or blue? Or green? And what shade of grey is “Sport”
grey? Bet you can’t wait to see our kit when it arrives – who knows what will
turn up? Photos guaranteed!
Lesson 6: We are DEFINITELY the A Team!
But is that actually the Awkward team? We really enjoyed
going out for dinner, but the booking process was amusing. Date? Fine. Time?
Fine. Number of people? Fine. Comments? Not so fine! One wheelchair, one on
crutches, one nut allergy, two gluten free, one no onion… we ended up
apologising for our challenging reservation! They catered for us wonderfully,
table set up with a wheelchair space and 2 gluten free menus all set out for us,
but we couldn’t stop being difficult even once we were inside “can you turn the
air conditioning off please!” – looks like the Aruban climate will suit us well!
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| Team Awkward enjoying Dinner |
So, that’s a brief overview of what we found out over the
weekend – 14 weeks to go and we can’t wait!
#theAteam
