The Abbey itself was really boring. Most of it had been destroyed for one reason or another over the past thousand+ or so years. But it was great because they turned it into a place where you can do all these different medieval games. So our whole group of 40 or so broke up into groups of 5 for a little healthy competition. Each team came up with their own team name, their own team cheer, their coat of arms, etc. My team was obviously the best (we had three highly athletic men and two un-athletic but competitive girls. It was the perfect combo). We called ourselves the Mighty Mammoths.
The various competitions included archery (where as you can see in the picture, I did extremely well, making the best shot of all forty people of the whole day); medieval weightlifting (I obviously crushed it); javelin throwing; this thing where you have to throw little bricks of wood to knock other bricks of wood off a stump (when describing this event the lady said that the team with the best hand-eye coordination would probably win this event. I laughed when she said this, knowing my team would obviously annihilate everyone else); sword fighting against this pro sword fighter (notice the pictures...and I'm trying to put up a video, but he said I did the best of anyone all day. Basically you win if you hit him in the head five times. I did it with him having only hit me once. He said the next best was three hits); catapult launching; and a few others. Essentially my close friend and I (he lives next door to me in my apartment in Copenhagen, one of my best friends here, and we made sure we were on the same team) were so intense that we crushed every single event. The people were very impressed. And we also had the loudest, most intense battle cry of all the teams, and we received extra points for that. At the end of the day, we had accumulated over 350 points for the 10 events which was in the top five point totals for any group of people ever in the history of the Abbey's little game exhibition. It was probably the happiest I'd been since coming to Copenhagen. That taste--that satisfaction--of absolute annihilation and victory was wonderful. The second place team's point total was in the 260's. But what did they expect? Our team ran from station to station. The rest of the teams walked and talked. We brought the mental intensity. The brought chatty mouths and stories from the previous evening.
As a result of the win, we each received some special Abbey-made honey (delicious!) and spices. Of course, we also won the pride of knowing that we're the best. And now the certificate for our victory is hanging in my apartment kitchen. The day was exceptional and will certainly be one of my fondest memories when I look back on this abroad experience. Here are some pictures:
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