Today, July 25th, my day started at 6am when I joined the Austrian group with whom we share our subcamp with. The evening before they had invited us to the shooting range at outskirts of the camp area. And so off we went. We had to walk for about 15 minutes and then drove for another 10 minutes on a bus. I did all that whilst wearing a blanket around me and saying ‘’I’m cold’’ every few minutes- it was still early outside so it was quite breezy (13 degrees Celsius or 55.4 degrees Fahrenheit), which was unexpected because the days here are so hot.

 When we finally arrived they told us that it was smart of us to come so early because during the day you can wait in the lines for about 2h or more. We started our course by watching a training video. Then as a safety precaution we had to put on protective glasses and put earplugs into our ears. In The Barrels (the name of the shooting range) you can shoot three different categories of guns- rifles, shotguns and pistols. I really wanted to try out the rifles so I headed to those. I thought that the video I saw earlier was it and that i got to know all I needed to. Boy was I wrong. I had to sit through a short briefing about how to hold a rifle correctly, how to shoot it correctly and how to keep yourself and your fellow mates safe. It was very educating and definitely necessary! The woman who did the briefing then gave us Novus points (yet another plus) for completing it and showed us the way to the rifle shooting range. Little did I know the road was uphill and very steep. It truly felt like a workout.

  At the top we got to shoot a 22 inch, 223 inch and a 308 inch rifle starting from the smallest and then moving up in size. The first one was easy because the target wasn’t too far away and the rifle was easy to handle. The next one was a little trickier. The target was quite far and since the gun and the bullets were bigger it had more push-back. The last riffle was the biggest, and when I fired it really pushed my shoulder, that was holding it stable, back. The guys instructing us there also told us that those last two are the guns that are being used in the US military and secret service which was really cool to imagine.
Trying that kind of activity at a jamboree was a first for me and I think that you should always make the best of your time and try out new stuff. I promise that it will make your life more interesting. And if not then you are just one step closer to finding out what you really want to do by eliminating the things you don’t like. After the shooting I was tired and hadn’t eaten for several hours, but that didn’t bother me because the satisfaction on getting to draw one more thing off my bucket list was totally worth it.

What is Novus? – When we arrived on at the jamboree we received a high-tech wristband that helps us connect with each other and explore the different activities, experiences and exhibits here at camp. That wristband is the key to taking part in Novus, the jamboree wide game where we can collect points for participating in activities or clicking our wristbands together with other participants. And the cool thing about Novus is that we got to make ourselves accounts before arriving at camp and so that way if we click with somebody they get our contacts on their Novus and can contact with us even after the camp.