It was a normal July afternoon binge watching supernatural on prime, little did I know, by pressing the "Nächste Folge"button, my summer would be completely different after watching that one episode titled "The French Mistake" The episode basically set in the real world where the actors are playing themselves on the set of supernatural. During the episode Misha Collins tweets constantly, usually really stupid but funny things. This prompted me to follow Misha on Twitter, where he was posting constantly about some strange thing called GISHWHES (Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen) , for a few days I simply ignored it. Then I got curious, then I got really curious and started watching video after video about GISHWHES, but I still didn't understand what it was. I thought it was some kind of fancy dress geocashing. I had some credit left in my uk paypal account so I thought, screw it just sign up and if all else fails you'll just have paid for a signed holiday card from Misha Collins.
Only after I paid my $45 did I decide that maybe I should look up what happened last year which might give me a better idea as to what I am actually supposed to be doing. That is when I found the list, reading through this list gave me cold sweats and brought me close to tears. What the hell had I let myself in for? This list contained things such as:
"VIDEO: Go order food at your favorite fast-food restaurant. Greet the attendant, explain how hungry you are, what you want to eat, and how good it will make you feel. One thing, you must speak as the Bard wrote. Place your order in Shakespearian verse.42 POINTS"
"IMAGE: You know the expression, “Beefcake?” As in, “He’s such a beefcake!” Have you ever really stopped to think about it? What exactly is a beefcake? It sounds good, right? I think we should have beefcake for dinner. Serve frosted beefcake at a family dinner where at least 3 generations are represented. 39 POINTS"
"IMAGE: You, dressed as The Flash in the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) tunnel. If this is too difficult, you will get full credit for dressing as The Flash in any actual, operational particle accelerator. 216 POINTS"
1) I am in a country where I can barely speak the language, how am I supposed to order something in translated Shakesperian verse?
2) I am vegetarian and I don't live with my family, and the only family I do have here do not like photographs of them to be online.
3)?!?!?!
That's when the realisation kicked in, we need to create the items we are looking for. What the hell have I signed up for? Over the next several days I was contemplating calling it quits, just ignoring the whole thing pretending I never spent that money and just be happy with a card. After all the teams were made up of 15 people where the hell was I going to find 15 people to help me?! Luckily this was also around the time the pre hunt emails came rolling in.
Now I am not an idiot, I know the e-mails from Misha personally addressed to me, were computer generated. However these combined with the other e-mails written in such a kind and humorous way made me realise this was something I want to be part of. A whole organisation with its core being supporting a charity called Random acts of kindness and putting a smile on people's faces, who wouldn't want to be a part of that? I started spamming madly on facebook trying to get people to sign up. Registration soon closed, and my little team of 5 (two strangers I found on twitter, my friend from England, another au-pair from my town and I) were merged with two other teams bringing members from England, USA and Venezuela. We as a team will not win GISHWHES, as we were mostly a team of first timers, and a few members of the team had last minute commitments which came into play forcing them to not dedicate as much time to the hunt as they wanted. However I grew to love the team, we had so much fun and as cliché as it sounds, I still feel like we won something. I still can't believe what we achieved in that week. I grew closer to the Au-Pair friend I was doing it with as we had to spend so much time together, it reawakened my creativity, my mind was constantly active and I had the most amazing dreams!
I loved it so much that when it was all over I was suffering from serious withdrawal symptoms and had this big gaping hole in my life, with no idea how to now spend my days without GISHWHES. Which is why I was so happy when a team mate of mine referred me to the facebook group The GISHWHES Network . Here everyone was sharing their submissions and talking about the hunt, it was incredible to see the variation between submissions especially when one of the rules of the hunt was you could not interpret an item. If the item says stand on top of the Eiffel Tower singing eye of the tiger, you need to be doing exactly that, it can't be photoshopped or a model Eiffel Tower.
In addition to joining the facebook group I have signed up to "FEGVEP program (First Ever Gishwhes Volunteer Extraordinaire Program) – even though it’s technically the “second”? It offers you the chance to review items that might make it into the Gishwhes Coffee Table Book or the Gishwhes Hall of Fame and earn Gishpoints!" The quality of submissions is beyond amazing and have inspired me greatly! Its amazing to still be actively part of GISHWHES and being involved in helping people get recognition for their hard work.
All in all I cannot sing GISHWHES praises enough, I didn't realise just how much it would take over my life and change it for the better. I thought it would cost me lots of money and I would be terrified the whole way through. However the items I am most proud of, I didn't spend a single penny on, and I was exhilarated not terrified of the tasks done in public. I cannot wait for next year!
Only after I paid my $45 did I decide that maybe I should look up what happened last year which might give me a better idea as to what I am actually supposed to be doing. That is when I found the list, reading through this list gave me cold sweats and brought me close to tears. What the hell had I let myself in for? This list contained things such as:
"VIDEO: Go order food at your favorite fast-food restaurant. Greet the attendant, explain how hungry you are, what you want to eat, and how good it will make you feel. One thing, you must speak as the Bard wrote. Place your order in Shakespearian verse.42 POINTS"
"IMAGE: You know the expression, “Beefcake?” As in, “He’s such a beefcake!” Have you ever really stopped to think about it? What exactly is a beefcake? It sounds good, right? I think we should have beefcake for dinner. Serve frosted beefcake at a family dinner where at least 3 generations are represented. 39 POINTS"
"IMAGE: You, dressed as The Flash in the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) tunnel. If this is too difficult, you will get full credit for dressing as The Flash in any actual, operational particle accelerator. 216 POINTS"
1) I am in a country where I can barely speak the language, how am I supposed to order something in translated Shakesperian verse?
2) I am vegetarian and I don't live with my family, and the only family I do have here do not like photographs of them to be online.
3)?!?!?!
That's when the realisation kicked in, we need to create the items we are looking for. What the hell have I signed up for? Over the next several days I was contemplating calling it quits, just ignoring the whole thing pretending I never spent that money and just be happy with a card. After all the teams were made up of 15 people where the hell was I going to find 15 people to help me?! Luckily this was also around the time the pre hunt emails came rolling in.
I loved it so much that when it was all over I was suffering from serious withdrawal symptoms and had this big gaping hole in my life, with no idea how to now spend my days without GISHWHES. Which is why I was so happy when a team mate of mine referred me to the facebook group The GISHWHES Network . Here everyone was sharing their submissions and talking about the hunt, it was incredible to see the variation between submissions especially when one of the rules of the hunt was you could not interpret an item. If the item says stand on top of the Eiffel Tower singing eye of the tiger, you need to be doing exactly that, it can't be photoshopped or a model Eiffel Tower.
In addition to joining the facebook group I have signed up to "FEGVEP program (First Ever Gishwhes Volunteer Extraordinaire Program) – even though it’s technically the “second”? It offers you the chance to review items that might make it into the Gishwhes Coffee Table Book or the Gishwhes Hall of Fame and earn Gishpoints!" The quality of submissions is beyond amazing and have inspired me greatly! Its amazing to still be actively part of GISHWHES and being involved in helping people get recognition for their hard work.
All in all I cannot sing GISHWHES praises enough, I didn't realise just how much it would take over my life and change it for the better. I thought it would cost me lots of money and I would be terrified the whole way through. However the items I am most proud of, I didn't spend a single penny on, and I was exhilarated not terrified of the tasks done in public. I cannot wait for next year!
