Wednesday, July 31th was a very busy day for me. I did more in one day than I had done during any other day. It started very early once again, as we had to leave at 7.15am to go river rafting. Almost everybody had their parents’ permission and everybody wanted to go (except for most of our leaders), so we drew lots of who would get to go.

My raft crew consisted of 9 other members of my unit, our safety guide and me. We had undoubtedly the best guide which was easy to spot, because he was wearing a neon-green tutu. We enjoyed the ride, laughed, swam and sang a lot and managed not to get stuck.

Were we the craziest group our guide has ever had? I sure hope so, or it’s at least what we were trying to prove to him.

There is a slight possibility that we didn’t manage to reach our goal, but everybody was happy. And I finally got around to cleaning my shoes while swimming. The hour-long bus ride back to the Summit Centre was bumpy to say the least, but nothing we could block out by some much needed sleep.

Immediately after coming back, I had to change and get ready to go to the Global Ambassador Closing Reception, which was where we all got our amazing neckers. It felt a little bit like I imagine graduation: all Global Ambassadors were sitting in the front and the leaders and friends we could bring were sitting in the back. After a couple of speeches, some by GAs, (they were all amazing!!!) everybody’s name and country was called. We shook hands, received our special neckers, walked across the stage, shook some more hands and took a group picture.

It was all over way too fast and we said good-bye. I was glad that I only had to temporarily say good-bye to Réitseal, one of my best friends of the Jamboree and one of the Irish GAs, since we were having dinner together.

But first I went back to my campsite, got ready for dinner and waited to get our unit picture taken. The photographer was going to be an hour late, so I missed the pictures. It was hard to give them up, but I didn’t want to give up dinner with Réitseal. Another girl from my unit is friends with someone else from Réitseals unit, so we went there together, skipping out on the pictures.

Dinner was delicious, pasta, cheese and tomato sauce with vegetables, just like the last couple of days… We spent the entire time chatting with her unit, having fun. We played some card games and pegged down their tents because it started storming.

The lightning advisory was issued and the bridge on our way home closed. Most of our unit had been at the Basecamp Bash, so they were all huddled together in the Food Market, as they cancelled it due to safety reasons.

Later that night, we finally made it home, safe and sound. The feeling was weird, as it was going to be the last official evening of the WSJ 2019.