A national holiday to remember
Early mornings seemed to be our thing during most of the Jamboree. So we got up nice and early to go around the Subcamps C1&2, waving our flag, singing the Swiss national anthem, to start celebrating our national holiday.
After a nice and long breakfast, we had time to start packing our bags, so that we could take down the tents that we were going to take home with us. We only managed to mostly pack the bags, before we had to leave.
To celebrate the day some more, most of the Swiss Contingent met up in a field to play a game of mass ‘English Bulldog’ (the Swiss Contingent consisted of around 1300 people). It’s a game where a couple of people start on one side and run towards all the others, who are standing on the opposing sides. Those 3 or 4 have to lift the people from the other side up. While they lift them up, they have to scream ‘English Bulldog, 1, 2, 3’ and then, the person that had been lifted has to lift others up, as long as they didn’t touch the ground while they were screaming it.
Surprisingly few people got injured and we all enjoyed playing one of our typical scouting games with so many people. The entire playing field was a gigantic chaos, but it was all based on the trust that no one was cheating and going back to the other line. The game seems brutal, but don’t worry, Swiss scouts grow up playing this game, so we know how far we can take it.
Last things were packed and ready to go in the afternoon, before we transferred the beds in a manner which left 3 people sleeping in each tent, as the other tents were all taken down. Our night was going to be cuddly and warm, but nothing we would mind.
Before the big Closing Ceremony, the entire Swiss Contingent met up yet again to take our official Contingent pictures. They were taken by a drone, everybody in their uniform: participants (14-18) in red, the leaders, ISTs and CMTs (18+) in green. That way, we spelled out WSJ 19 in green, surrounded by a red rectangle.
Most units decided to just wait at the main stage, but since some units had already gotten there before us, we decided to just make a red, Swiss belt through the entire width of the Stadium. This way, no camera could get around us, if they flew upwards. While waiting, we ate dinner, played some more card games, chatted and chilled out.
Around 8 o’clock, when the show was supposed to start, it was announced that the show was going to be delayed due to weather reasons. It had indeed been raining on and off during the last couple of days, but it was still an unnerving thing.
I got a visit from a Swedish friend of mine that decided to come look for me, while we waited until the show finally started. It was nice getting to see her one more time and to talk some Swedish over a longer span of time rather than exchanging only a couple of sentences.
As the show did start, we listened to some music, sat through a couple more good speeches and waited for the fun part of the evening to begin. (THANK YOU, MERCI, GRACIAS!)
The crowd didn’t seem too hyped about the performing band, but me and my friends easily made up for it. Who wouldn’t, I mean it was freaking Pentatonix!!!!?! I was even more hyped, when they performed their song ‘Sing’ as this is one of the songs that we sing in my school choir back at home.
Our night didn’t just end with their performance: we were all blown away by their successors, a group of dancers, that used their outlines with lights to create elaborate stick figures. Even this wasn’t the end: to round it all off, we were treated to an enormous 15-minute firework and a laser show.
Fireworks that were worthy of being celebrated as fireworks in honour of our national holiday.
All the Swiss scouts in the crowd secretly regarded them as just for us anyway.
We kind of just fell into a big hole of not knowing what to do after the Ceremony, being sad that this experience was coming to an end.
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