Been There, Slayed That: Lidya

By Lidya (she/her), who did a ‘Live It’ away from home experience in Bristol.

Five days. Four nights. Six little questions. This is a weekly series where people give the lowdown on their NCS away from home experience. Lidya’s shared her answers. #MyNCS23

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1. Why did you decide to go on an away from home experience?
I wanted to fill my summer to the brim with fun activities and my friends were talking about NCS so I decided to give it a go!

2. What did you most enjoy?
I really can’t decide… I loved coasteering, caving, learning to surf, rock climbing, team activities, long walks and, believe it or not, even the Loud Speaker event which was a high-energy workshop focused on public speaking and confidence building. My whole group were amazing and we all got on well almost instantly. I didn't want to come home thinking “I wish I had done this”, so I tried everything with no regrets. The thing I enjoyed the most was just taking part.
 

3. What did you find challenging?
The most challenging part was probably the aching muscles after doing so many activities, although definitely worth it and I just had to push through.

4. If you could do it all again, what's one thing you'd do differently?
Bring more trousers! I would say I needed one per day as it got pretty muddy.

5. What memory from NCS will stay with you for life?
We got given this balloon, which we named Erik (with the ‘k’), and we needed to keep him alive for the whole week, but sadly we lost him while at the beach. But before that, we had taken so many funky photos with him.

6. If you had to sum up your NCS experience in three words, what would they be?
Eventful, action-packed, joyful.

Any final words?
I never thought I'd be able to get up early in the morning and yet everyday me and my friend got up at 6am to go outside and play with football and Monopoly before everyone else woke up. The team leaders were great fun and they felt like they were one of us, so thank you to Kayshia, Sylvian and Aimee. Wish I could do NCS all over again.

Let us know how your #MyNCS23 experience went.