Day 16

I woke up quite late and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of cereal and a jam roll. I've started to slowly pack so I don't have to panic as much tomorrow. It's hard to believe that the participants leave today, and we've been on site for 2 weeks. Its our last official day at work today and, despite our rocky start, we've all pulled together really well and I'm going to miss my shop family.
 
We didn't start until 12.30 so I had a shower and then went to sit in the canteen for a while and catch up on this. I also knew Daryl and the gang were leaving today so I met him to swap bags. First we played speed, his version was slightly different to mine so to be fair we played both ways. I won both times!
 
Had to practically run to work as I was slightly late, but I now had a lovely new bag and a hat and a necker! There was a real buzz around the shop as we close at 6pm. I spent the majority of the shift chatting with the others, had a stint on a till though too and swept the floor. I did have to go back to the tent to get my uniform for the Closing Ceremony, but no one really noticed I'd gone.
 
The last customer came through about 5.45pm and we grabbed them to have a picture taken of all the guys and gals. We then took over the back room and got ready for the Ceremony. Four of us Guides (Me, Rebecca, Fiona and Eve) walked down together, picking up Rhiannon on the way.
 
Once we'd made it to the arena everyone dispersed in different directions to find their groups. Me and Rebecca found Hannah and Dom so sat with them. The sunset was beautiful and was a great start to a great evening.
 
We had a flag performance to begin and then speeches from many different people. One guy, who if I remember correctly had something to do with the UN, gave a very inspiring speech that actually gave me goosebumps. The best act though were a Japanese girl band called C-ute. They had so much energy and we couldn't help but dance along, even though we had no idea what they were saying! We then got to do the Jamboree Song.. so so much fun! You could feel the buzz with 40,000 odd people doing the same dance. The act that followed was a weird heavy metal type guy. We walked out as soon as he started swearing.
 
Me and Hannah found our way back to the dome and dropped our bags off. There was an after party by the Food Houses for IST. When we got there, nothing was happening, maybe they were all late coming back from the ceremony. I then realised I hadn't eaten so we rushed to the canteen. It was not worth rushing for, rice and a weird fishy thing he'd piled all over it! I had a nice plate of lettuce. We met the others and I had an ice cream.
 
It was getting late and I knew Daryl was leaving at 12.30 so I went to see him off. I caused a lot of confusion at the Malaysian camp.. they all thought I was from HR. I considered pretending to be, they weren't exactly rushing to pack bits away. Instead I just said my farewells and went to my tent. It'll be like a ghost town tomorrow with all these empty spaces.

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