broken neck in one more second

so, every day is full of adventure here at the mission, and yesterday in everyway lived true to that.. another monday.. or so one would think. since sunday morning we havent had water in the whole mission, something is wrong with the tanks.. meaning, no showers, no laundry.. no boiling water, drinking water, having tea.. cooking.. brushing teeth.. etc... something you just deal with, i guess, when you live in a building that is hundreds of years old.. a wierd start to the weekend, but we manage..

to get ourselves in better moods, anni, leisel and i had a lovely, amazing breakfast on our roof, in the 70 degree weather.. looking over all of dublin.. a great start so far. after that, we realised that there was a huge outdoor market and festival happening in town, so we headed out on the town.. and it was fabulous... bagpipe players, men walking around in kilts, homemade food from all over the world, pirate ships on the liffey. it was a beautiful morning, out with friends, enjoying some of dublins finest culture, music and outdoors shops.. was great.. reminded me of home, and that was really cool.

after our long, hot day of being out, we arrived home, each go to our own apartments.. i start watching some tv, open all the windows and am enjoying the relaxing.. until i hear a noise.. a strange noise i couldnt quite put my finger on, so i went to investigate.. i walk thru the kitchen, into the hallway, that is covered in water that is pouring down our staircase, and so i open the bathroom door to a flood. now, you have to understand that i live on the second story of a building that has a huge metal door with numerous, necessary locks to get in.. but to get down to, you must go down two flights of stairs.. all the windows have very necessary bars on them that are unremovable.. so our only fire escape/exit in case of an emergency, is a ladder that is bolted into our shower that leads us onto the roof, in which case we would need to archaically jump to the apartments next to our building about 4 feet away.. not a great system..

so, as i open the bathroom door.. the water tank situated above our shower is completly overflowing and pouring thru every crack in the wall, and there is, at this point, about 3 inches of water on the floor, filling the tub, sink, toilet.. and running into every room of our house.. i immediately call leisel from upstairs.. she comes to help me turn the mains off.. and has to climb the ladder in our shower to get up to it and finally reaches it and turns the water off.. she gets scared of heights, cuz she is about 15 feet up on our wee, unstable ladder.. so i volunteer to go up, cuz we needed to open the rooftop exit, and im not afraid of heights.. so i begin to climb, were both soaking wet at this point, she goes into the kitchen to get me the scissors.. i secure the ladder and begin my journey up.. well, at that point, the two parts of the ladder my legs and feet were on give out, and start to unravel, as such, and you just hear, clank, clank, clank, bang, bang.. me screaming.. cuz im dangling about 14 feet over a soaking, ceramic tub, and as im screaming, leisels carefully runs in, but cant get there too fast, cuz of the wet tiles and slippery floors, and within about 20 seconds, the ladder gave out, and im dangling and flailing on the top rungs, for dear life with a grip that was the only thing falling to break all my bones and a concussion.

she comes on, grabs my legs, im banging against everything and finally we get me down, the ladder comes crashing to the ground, were on the soaking floor, unable to believe what just happened.. what a day!!!! by the grace of God, somehow i didnt plunge to a very bad outcome, and we just laughed and laughed and laughed, from the adrenaline of it all and then we freaked out when reality hit..

it was insane! my ankles a bit bruised, i have a touch of whiplash, but all and all, with some muscle relaxers and rest, im ok.. thank God!.. so we continued to mop up the apartment.. get everything dry, and walked downstairs, only to realise that the water has flooded the downstairs and gone into our circuit breakers and everything electric that runs our building and it was all soaked. at this point, we had to unplug everything, i had to stay the night up at her flat, in case something shorted.. and ya.. its just been a crazy weekend..

at this point, you can be praying, cuz we have no water on all 4 stories of our building.. 5 people will be staying in our building this week, and none of us can shower, or do laundry.. and to cook or drink it, we have to buy it.. which isnt so handy when you walk everywhere.. you can also just pray and thank God for having His protection over me.. it was so close to a very bad thing.. so thank you for your prayers.. your continued ones even for safety and protection.. God bless you guys, im off to london in two days for a week.. more adventureous stories to come.

oh, and after the whole ordeal, we went to the biggest park in europe.. right in the middle of dublin.. we climbed trees, saw deer, and had amazing time being in such an amazing place. what a day.. phew!