Last time I left you, we had just finished with Parent's Weekend and we had had our well earned break... Nothing like getting straight back into it. I'm not going to lie, I think the second 3 weeks were slightly harder - in that we were so tired, it was hard to feel energetic and be in a good mood all the time... I think everyone noticed this, so all the counsellors helped each other out where we could. We also continued to have some pretty hardcore weather. It became really steamy/humid some days which zapped even more energy out of us, but being the troopers we are, we just got on with it!! Some mornings started out really foggy too, like the picture below:
During the next weekend we did A LOT of driving! Saturday morning was spent driving to a lake. The instructions we received were to follow the directions to the lake, and find a space to swim... Easy enough - so we thought!! The lake was surrounded by roads and lots of private property and after driving around for longer than we should have and having one of the campers crack it, climb over a seat and 3 people and try to get out of a moving car, we found a park to eat lunch in, but still, we weren't any closer to getting in the water! Asking for some more directions from someone and another half an hour of driving we managed to find an entrance to the lake. Leticia and I went for a swim with some of the kids in the lake and about an hour later we were back on the road.
We drove some more to a Mountain Resort called Jiminy Peak. During the Summer some of the mountain resorts also open summer attractions as was the case here. There was the Alpine Slide (which was a luge type thing) which was pretty fun. There was also a giant swing which you get strapped into and pulled all the way into the air, and then they let you go, and you swing back and forth. There is also an Alpine Rollercoaster. On the rollercoaster, you are strapped into your own little car, and you get to control how fast or slow you go. Needless to say I let it rip, and went full speed the whole way down - pretty exhilarating!!
For dinner we stopped at KFC, where the senior boys could show me exactly what a biscuit was. In the States, they call biscuits, cookies. And a biscuit in the States is similar to a scone, although the ones at KFC were quite salty and dry. This is the meal I bought at KFC, you pick the main part (burger or crispy strips or whatever you want) and then with the combo, you get 2 'sides' - I chose wedges and coleslaw (they serve wedges instead of chips). You can choose from things like corn and baked beans as well!! And then they give you the drink and this biscuit thing... Which was absolutely disgusting!!
On the Sunday we headed to Mountain Creek Water Park, which was awesome!!! We had soooo much fun!! It was very similar to Wet n Wild on the Gold Coast. There was a massive wave pool, waterslides, waterslides that you go down on in rafts, one very similar to a ride at Wet n Wild where you go in a circular raft with 3 other people and then you go through this small tube, and end up sliding up and down around this massive cone shaped slide... I even made it onto a waterslide called H-2-Oh-No!! And believe me, that's not all I said when going down... It was an almost vertical drop from something like over 100 feet... Yes I know I've learned to talk in feet, its over 30m tall!! Which is a long way to fall without being strapped into anything... A few times I went on, my back actually lifted off the slide and I thought I was 'flying'...
On the way back to camp, we stopped at Burger King and had dinner. Yes we definitely lived up to the American way of life while we were here!! We got back on the bus and Ags and I got a little bored - maybe the ADD was contagious?? So we decided to get out a pen and draw all over our legs... This was the end result:
So that was the weekend. Monday started off just like any other day, however we got quite excited after lunch, as we discovered there would be a water balloon fight after study hall that day for the Middler boys and Middler and Senior girls. I couldn't believe that after all these years I would have the opportunity to participate in a water fight... Thanks to the drought I thought it would NEVER happen again, and while this may be true in Australia, I knew I was gonna have fun here!! Not only that, but it was going to be payback time, I could finally get the campers back for all the horrible things they had done!! Or so I thought... Seems they had the same thoughts exactly! I think it ended up pretty even in the end!!
Tuesday 27th July was my last day off! So I decided I would go into New York City, just like my first day off!! I caught the train with Alex and I knew I had a lot to do, so I planned out my route on the way in. I started at Grand Central and made my way on the subway Uptown and managed to get to my first stop at 112th and Broadway (otherwise known as the Seinfeld Diner) in good time!
I then walked down the West side of Manhattan and managed to get some views of the Hudson River and Riverside Park, where there are a lot of community sports courts/fields for sports like soccer and basketball. I was sticking to Riverside Drive, as there was another very important landmark along there... Will's apartment in Will and Grace!! Hopefully those fans out there will recognise it!!
From there I walked further downtown to Central Park, and GOT LOST!!! There are so many different walkways in the park, but they are all circular/round, none of them go in a straight ahead direction. So I kind of just stumbled across important landmarks and areas of interest in the park, and then took a while to get out of there again!! Spent about an hour and a half just walking around, and I still didn't see everything, the park is truly MASSIVE! I did however see the big reservoir in the middle of the park dedicated to Jackie Onassis (apparently she used to jog around the reservoir a lot!). I also found Cleopatra's Needle, which is an Obelisk given to the Americans by the Egyptians.
On the way back to camp, we stopped at Burger King and had dinner. Yes we definitely lived up to the American way of life while we were here!! We got back on the bus and Ags and I got a little bored - maybe the ADD was contagious?? So we decided to get out a pen and draw all over our legs... This was the end result:
So that was the weekend. Monday started off just like any other day, however we got quite excited after lunch, as we discovered there would be a water balloon fight after study hall that day for the Middler boys and Middler and Senior girls. I couldn't believe that after all these years I would have the opportunity to participate in a water fight... Thanks to the drought I thought it would NEVER happen again, and while this may be true in Australia, I knew I was gonna have fun here!! Not only that, but it was going to be payback time, I could finally get the campers back for all the horrible things they had done!! Or so I thought... Seems they had the same thoughts exactly! I think it ended up pretty even in the end!!
Tuesday 27th July was my last day off! So I decided I would go into New York City, just like my first day off!! I caught the train with Alex and I knew I had a lot to do, so I planned out my route on the way in. I started at Grand Central and made my way on the subway Uptown and managed to get to my first stop at 112th and Broadway (otherwise known as the Seinfeld Diner) in good time!
I then walked down the West side of Manhattan and managed to get some views of the Hudson River and Riverside Park, where there are a lot of community sports courts/fields for sports like soccer and basketball. I was sticking to Riverside Drive, as there was another very important landmark along there... Will's apartment in Will and Grace!! Hopefully those fans out there will recognise it!!
From there I walked further downtown to Central Park, and GOT LOST!!! There are so many different walkways in the park, but they are all circular/round, none of them go in a straight ahead direction. So I kind of just stumbled across important landmarks and areas of interest in the park, and then took a while to get out of there again!! Spent about an hour and a half just walking around, and I still didn't see everything, the park is truly MASSIVE! I did however see the big reservoir in the middle of the park dedicated to Jackie Onassis (apparently she used to jog around the reservoir a lot!). I also found Cleopatra's Needle, which is an Obelisk given to the Americans by the Egyptians.
Once I got out of Central Park, I made my way further downtown and saw a lot of swanky shops and department stores as well as the Broadway theatres on the way. M&M's World is located close to Times Square, so I had to duck in and have a look around... You can seriously find anything M&M's related that you have ever wanted!! There were magnets, t-shirts, dispensers, tennis balls, decks of cards, you name it!! You could also get a bag, and choose your own coloured M&M's from the many colours to choose from!! From there I continued further Downtown - by this time I had walked over 70 blocks and I stumbled across the Naked Cowboy, who we recently found out was running in the next election for Mayor of New York City!!! So took a photo of him and continued on my journey.
Macy's has their largest department store (and quite possibly the largest department store in the world) located in Manhattan, I had to duck in and have a look around. Not the best stuff in there, but definitely worth a look, even just to see the sheer magnitude of the place!! From Macy's I caught the subway to Chinatown where I had a look at all of the stalls and bought some souvenirs, and then made my way further Downtown, all the way to the south of Manhattan to again see the Statue of Liberty. On the way back to Grand Central, I went past the United Nations building, it looked pretty awesome, had heaps of security though!!
I met Alex at Grand Central and then we headed to Chipotle for dinner. After leaving the States I have said numerous times that if I have to eat Mexican food again, I'm going to be physically ill, but Chipotle is seriously one of the best things you could ever eat!! It tastes awesome, I always got the chicken burrito with rice, beans, cheese, salsa, sour cream and guacamole. DELICIOUS!!! Then Alex and I embarked on our trek back from New York City to camp for the last time.
Wednesday the water skiing got rained out, so we went to bowling instead. Luis and I played against 'Gramps' AKA Mark O, the first time Luis beat us both, but in the second game, I beat Luis!! Yes that's right, I beat Luis!!! OK, so it's a camp thing, Luis is so good at EVERYTHING!!! So if someone beats him at something, they HAVE to brag about it!! Don't worry Luis, we still know you're the best!!
Thursday afternoon was interesting.... It was starting to get to the end of camp, and so the campers started acting up a bit... So part of the afternoon was spent arguing with them, and ended up in a breakdown for me!! It was funny, looking back on it, I think I just needed the emotional release, cos you just never get any time to yourself, and you're with these kids 24/7.
I was kind of dreading the weekend activity for the weekend... Friday night was great fun - Roller Disco!! How could you not have fun, got out the rollerblades and had a bit of a boogie, ended up with a massive blister, but it was grouse!! But come Saturday morning we were going camping for the weekend... Macedonia State Park... No running water... No electricity... No GPS to get there... 12 kids, 4 counsellors and some charcoal and matches... It was extremely daunting, but the four of us counsellors did extremely well! 
After dinner, we kept the fire going and began to make Smores! For those who don't know, it's the traditional American camp fire food! It was on the movie The Sandlot, if you ever watched that when you were little?? Basically you toast a marshmallow on the fire and then you get a 'Graham cracker' which is kind of like a sweet version of a Salada and split it in half. Then you get some Hershey's chocolate (which is disgusting by itself, but was OK in the Smore) and you put the chocolate on one of the crackers, then you put the stick with the marshmallow between the chocolate layer and the other Graham cracker and pull the stick out, leaving the marshmallow in the 'sandwich'. They were pretty good!!
Breakfast was just as much fun, we had to cook it, and have it packed up by the time the rain started. We got all the kids in the bus and Suburban and then headed to the Air Show, which we thought might have been cancelled in the rain. We drove and drove and drove and drove! Because we didn't have the GPS, we had a road atlas - one page was the size of half of New York state though!! So it was practically no good to us! We think we found it in the end, but decided against going because of the rain, so instead we stopped at a church to ask for directions to the Kingston Mall.
Monday was the mark of the last week for the kids at camp! They had some testing that they had to do during the day, and that night, the junior and middler boys got to make rockets. We put helped them put them together, and the counsellors made one themselves!! We could decorate them any way we liked (we all put our flags on the body of the spaceship) and best of all, they were actually going to be launched on Tuesday night, as a whole camp activity!! 
I was lucky (or unlucky - depends on how you look at it) on Tuesday. It was my first day that I could go to the pool with the kids, as I usually had my day off on that day. Had a lot of fun, even though a few of them tried to drown me!! That night, we launched our rockets, ours flew so far into the air, we actually didn't get to see it land!! I also managed to get hold of one of the camper's hats!! Very gangster... It said 'Rich Boy' on it!! So I got into a couple of poses!! Camp was getting closer and closer to the end :(
I met Alex at Grand Central and then we headed to Chipotle for dinner. After leaving the States I have said numerous times that if I have to eat Mexican food again, I'm going to be physically ill, but Chipotle is seriously one of the best things you could ever eat!! It tastes awesome, I always got the chicken burrito with rice, beans, cheese, salsa, sour cream and guacamole. DELICIOUS!!! Then Alex and I embarked on our trek back from New York City to camp for the last time.
Wednesday the water skiing got rained out, so we went to bowling instead. Luis and I played against 'Gramps' AKA Mark O, the first time Luis beat us both, but in the second game, I beat Luis!! Yes that's right, I beat Luis!!! OK, so it's a camp thing, Luis is so good at EVERYTHING!!! So if someone beats him at something, they HAVE to brag about it!! Don't worry Luis, we still know you're the best!!
Thursday afternoon was interesting.... It was starting to get to the end of camp, and so the campers started acting up a bit... So part of the afternoon was spent arguing with them, and ended up in a breakdown for me!! It was funny, looking back on it, I think I just needed the emotional release, cos you just never get any time to yourself, and you're with these kids 24/7.
I was kind of dreading the weekend activity for the weekend... Friday night was great fun - Roller Disco!! How could you not have fun, got out the rollerblades and had a bit of a boogie, ended up with a massive blister, but it was grouse!! But come Saturday morning we were going camping for the weekend... Macedonia State Park... No running water... No electricity... No GPS to get there... 12 kids, 4 counsellors and some charcoal and matches... It was extremely daunting, but the four of us counsellors did extremely well!
I was lucky enough to score 'Trip Leader' for this one - which means I am responsible for the money, how we get there, what we do if we have to change plans, etc. So we set off from camp, and after half an hour of driving realised we were heading the wrong way! So we drove the half an hour back to camp and then started heading in the right way!! Good start! After a few wrong turns, we managed to get to the camp site OK.
We got the tents up with some difficulty, mainly because there weren't enough parts, or they were packed up incorrectly - the wrong poles were put with the wrong tents... After getting all the tents together, we started a hike, which was pretty challenging for some of the campers and then we made it back to the camp by about 6.30pm.
We started collecting some wood for the fire, and started to light it... Everyone was fed more than three hours later!! All the wood in the area was wet, so the fire took forever to start, but we made sure everything was cooked well and nobody got sick. I was actually really amazed to see some of the campers who I didn't expect to help, help us, and even try and get some of the others involved! Looks like some of our nagging did pay off!!
After dinner, we kept the fire going and began to make Smores! For those who don't know, it's the traditional American camp fire food! It was on the movie The Sandlot, if you ever watched that when you were little?? Basically you toast a marshmallow on the fire and then you get a 'Graham cracker' which is kind of like a sweet version of a Salada and split it in half. Then you get some Hershey's chocolate (which is disgusting by itself, but was OK in the Smore) and you put the chocolate on one of the crackers, then you put the stick with the marshmallow between the chocolate layer and the other Graham cracker and pull the stick out, leaving the marshmallow in the 'sandwich'. They were pretty good!!
Breakfast was just as much fun, we had to cook it, and have it packed up by the time the rain started. We got all the kids in the bus and Suburban and then headed to the Air Show, which we thought might have been cancelled in the rain. We drove and drove and drove and drove! Because we didn't have the GPS, we had a road atlas - one page was the size of half of New York state though!! So it was practically no good to us! We think we found it in the end, but decided against going because of the rain, so instead we stopped at a church to ask for directions to the Kingston Mall. We later found out that a shopping centre and a mall are COMPLETELY different things! A shopping centre is a place where there is a supermarket as well as some other large retailers, but they are not connected internally - kind of like a Homemaker Centre, whereas the mall is where all the shops are connected by internal walkways. We made it to the 'mall', where we all got to eat some lunch and then play some games at the amusement centre. Then we all jumped on the bus and headed back home.
Monday was the mark of the last week for the kids at camp! They had some testing that they had to do during the day, and that night, the junior and middler boys got to make rockets. We put helped them put them together, and the counsellors made one themselves!! We could decorate them any way we liked (we all put our flags on the body of the spaceship) and best of all, they were actually going to be launched on Tuesday night, as a whole camp activity!!
I was lucky (or unlucky - depends on how you look at it) on Tuesday. It was my first day that I could go to the pool with the kids, as I usually had my day off on that day. Had a lot of fun, even though a few of them tried to drown me!! That night, we launched our rockets, ours flew so far into the air, we actually didn't get to see it land!! I also managed to get hold of one of the camper's hats!! Very gangster... It said 'Rich Boy' on it!! So I got into a couple of poses!! Camp was getting closer and closer to the end :(
On Wednesday we had normal camp until lunchtime. We then had lunch out on the patio at the school - sub sandwiches, salads, drinks, chips, the works!! And then after that, we even got to have ice cream sundaes (with chocolate, strawberry or vanilla ice-cream, nuts and Hershey's chocolate fudge sauce. It was awesome!!
We then headed to the long anticipated 'Beach Day'... I put this in talking marks, because the 'beach' was actually a man-made beach on a lake... Not the best thing to go to, after hanging out for some waves and sand for so long, but good nevertheless! I found it funny that you weren't allowed in without a life guard on duty, but there were no waves and most of the kids could stand in the water!! But I guess that's the legal system in America!!
All the campers tried to drown me and some of the other counsellors again, and we all ended up with sand everywhere, from everyone throwing it at us, but we also chilled out on the beach checking out the trashy mags with the other counsellors and just relaxing. Dinner was a barbecue at the lake area - this time it was a barbecue!! After the barbecue, we played soccer and volleyball, and took some photos. We had a few running races too - the campers foolishly thought they would beat me, but it seems that I was just too good for them!
And then came Thursday. The last full day of camp was finally here! The morning was spent doing normal activities - for one last time, and some of the counsellors helped to setup the Dining Hall with balloons and tablecloths in preparation for the big lunch. At the big lunch the campers got to sit with their tutors and counsellors, and the counsellors and tutors told the room about who they had, and their good (and sometimes bad) points. Then the tutors presented each camper with a book. We found out that all the campers improved tremendously in the various areas they needed improvement in - whether that was reading or writing or spelling, etc.
The afternoon was spent packing up the dorm rooms, making sure that no one would leave anything behind and then some free time in the dorm. Everyone was then invited to the end of camp barbecue at the boys dorm. Everyone was there - the boys, the girls, the counsellors, the kitchen staff, the nursing staff and the camp staff. We all ate heaps, and then headed down to the Dance Hall in the School House for the long anticipated Talent Show. There were piano and violin performances, cooking and beauty demonstrations and last of all - the counsellors had a rousing rendition of Hot n Cold by Katy Perry, complete with dance moves! Luis and Alex made the excellent couple!!
That night, the lights out time was midnight - much to the counsellors dismay!! We were sooooo tired, we could barely move - we only just managed!! But as soon as the kids were in bed, and our heads hit the pillow, we were out like lights.... Unlike the kids!! Apparently after we went to bed, they all snuck out and went to the girls dorm to scare them!! Just like the movies!! And they didn't get in trouble, because it was the last night!!
It was finally Friday. The last day of camp. After breakfast, we went down to the woodshop to see the 'Pinewood Derby' which is a car race with the cars that the campers made in woodshop. There was even trophies for the winners!! After the Pinewood Derby was complete, we went over to the stables to watch the horse show, where the campers showed us how they had learned to control the horses, walking them, and making them gallop and jump and all sorts of things! Ribbons were also awarded.
The afternoon was spent packing up the dorm rooms, making sure that no one would leave anything behind and then some free time in the dorm. Everyone was then invited to the end of camp barbecue at the boys dorm. Everyone was there - the boys, the girls, the counsellors, the kitchen staff, the nursing staff and the camp staff. We all ate heaps, and then headed down to the Dance Hall in the School House for the long anticipated Talent Show. There were piano and violin performances, cooking and beauty demonstrations and last of all - the counsellors had a rousing rendition of Hot n Cold by Katy Perry, complete with dance moves! Luis and Alex made the excellent couple!!
That night, the lights out time was midnight - much to the counsellors dismay!! We were sooooo tired, we could barely move - we only just managed!! But as soon as the kids were in bed, and our heads hit the pillow, we were out like lights.... Unlike the kids!! Apparently after we went to bed, they all snuck out and went to the girls dorm to scare them!! Just like the movies!! And they didn't get in trouble, because it was the last night!!
It was finally Friday. The last day of camp. After breakfast, we went down to the woodshop to see the 'Pinewood Derby' which is a car race with the cars that the campers made in woodshop. There was even trophies for the winners!! After the Pinewood Derby was complete, we went over to the stables to watch the horse show, where the campers showed us how they had learned to control the horses, walking them, and making them gallop and jump and all sorts of things! Ribbons were also awarded.
After the horse show, there was a final lunch with the parents, and the rooms were emptied out of all the campers belongings. Some of us received tips too, which was cool, most of them were spent that night on dinner and drinks :D It was finally quiet again!!! We had the place to ourselves...
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