The start of my academic year abroad

I am now in France, in a town called Arras. I have officially started my year abroad which is weird as I remember thinking back in Upper Sixth that a year abroad would be a long time off but it has come around very quickly.


Arras is a medium-sized town with lots of history behind it, especially World War One history from what I have gathered so far, and it has lots of Flemish architecture because it is situated quite near to the border to Belgium. It has lots of nice boutiques and shops which suits me quite well as we all know I derive a lot of joy from spending money on clothes and such. It also has lots of bars and cafés, a cinema and a theatre and it is about an hour away from Paris.


I arrived last Friday evening and was picked up at the airport by the woman, Annick, who I am renting a room from, and her daughter, Sophie. They are French and very nice and hospitable. They can speak enough English to communicate when I can't get the words in French which is quite good. When they picked me up they brought me back to the house and we dropped my stuff off (I brought excess baggage as usual) in my room which is really nice, it is very spacious and has a double bed and a huge wardrobe - very ideal for me. They then took me out to dinner at what they think is the best pizza place in town; it was in fact very good. So all in all they made me feel very welcome upon my arrival which was great.


On Saturday, Annick took me to the supermarket to stock up on food for the week and for lunch that day she barbequed for me and Sophie and we all ate lunch together outside in the garden. It was seriously hot that weekend, I was practically melting. 
On Saturday afternoon I went into the centre of town to meet up with another Northern Irish assistant called Aaron and we explored the town a bit; I managed to come across even more shops than I had found with mum when we came to visit at the start of September, fab. That evening Annick drove me into town to show me the only Protestant church she knows of in Arras and we looked up the times of the weekly Sunday sermons.


On Sunday then, Annick drove me and Aaron to church which was very kind of her as it would be about a 30 minute walk away from where I live here. Church was great!! Everyone was really welcoming, the minister immediately came over and introduced himself and made sure we had copies of the hymn book and the order of service. A few other people came and chatted to us as well - one woman had even spent a year working in Northern Ireland she told us. I really enjoyed the service, I managed to get surrounded by little kids - just the same as at Ballygilbert back home! - the service was all in French but I got the general gist and it was all quite traditional which I liked. I had stupidly forgotten to bring my Bible along with me which would have been helpful to see the readings in English but not to worry because I actually recognised the reading anyway. We even sang a hymn that we have sung at church before back home, only this time in French. 
Afterwards, we were invited to stay for coffee so we took them up on the offer and got chatting to quite a few of the congregation. There were no other people our age there (the nearest in age would have been 30 probably) but they were still all very nice and friendly. The woman who has worked in NI actually went to the cupboard and got a French Bible and gave it to me to keep which was incredibly kind of her! They also invited us to a free music concert which is this Friday at the church and one man told us about his Art & Music shop in town where he holds Art classes. When I get my school timetable I hope to be able to figure out a time when I can go and take some Art classes at his shop. 


I am going to be an English assistant at two schools whilst I am here; at College Marie-Curie and at College Diderot which is just outside of Arras so I will have to take the bus there. On Monday I went to Marie-Curie to observe some of Aurélie's classes (she is one of two English teachers there, the other is called Délphine). The classes were medium-sized and I read through some of their English work and some were very good but others it was clear they don't care at all. When I start teaching them I will take 5 at a time and have a conversation class and talk to them about Ireland, Scotland etc and play some games with them.


On Tuesday I did fun stuff (not) such as buying a bus pass, train pass and arranging an appointment to set up a bank account. That evening I met up with some other assistants here at the cinema and we went to see a French film, which was quite good but weird (typical France) and I understood most of what was going on in it which was encouraging, and then afterwards we went for a drink. There were two German assistants, two Americans and two Spanish ones so because we all don't share the same native language we actually spoke in French for the majority of the time which was good. 


On Wednesday I had to take the train ridiculously early to Lille to go to a language assistant induction day which was long and soul-destroyingly boring. It lasted all day and I was shattered afterwards. I got to see Holly though from St Andrews who is working in Lille, it was great to see a familiar face. I also met quite a few other language assistants living in Arras too, some Canadians and some Australians, and when we arrived back after the induction I ended up having dinner with two of the girls at one of their apartments which was nice. 


Today I went into Marie-Curie again to observe more classes, this time Délphine's classes which are smaller (there are only 11 pupils in them). These classes seem nice and they were quite good at English and were well-behaved. The classroom also had one of the Union Jack flags with Will and Kate's faces on it!!


Tomorrow I am going to College Diderot for the first time to meet some of the English teachers there and to figure out my timetable etc. In the afternoon I have my appointment with the bank so fingers crossed I will have a French bank account by the end of tomorrow. Also, Sarah (one of my closest friends from home) is coming to visit me tomorrow from Boulogne-sur-mer where she is working as an assistant. I am so excited to see her and spend the weekend with her!!

This is the Belfry in Arras at night. 

Reflections upon my Summer in Maine.

The two and a half months that I spent this summer in Maine were without a doubt two and a half of the best months I have ever had. 


I feel very privileged to have been hired by Camp Sebago; it is a remarkable camp and I cannot thank the staff enough for being so welcoming and for all that they did whilst I was there. Everyone truly was like one big family and I have never met so many amazing people who are all inspiring in their own ways and who I got the pleasure to get to know so well this summer. I have made life-long friends and have so many hilarious and great memories to look back upon. 


Camp Sebago holds a special place now in my heart not just due to the people that I have met there but also for its beauty. It is such a picturesque place and one of my favorite things to do was just sit on the pontoon and speed boat and admire the lake and the camp waterfront whilst out on the water on a sunny day. Maine sunrises are incredible also, I am so glad I decided to haul myself out of bed at 5am to see it. 


Being a counselor, particularly at a Christian camp, was the most rewarding thing I have ever done. The kids were fantastic and it was great being able to build a rapport with them as well as the staff. I was touched by many of them in lots of little ways and although as a counselor I was there to look after them and set an example to them, they definitely taught me things and inspired me in many ways too.


Never before have I been so outgoing, willing and less anxious and fearful. I am normally quite a reserved person who is scared of absolutely everything but I just went for it with so many things this summer (Sleeping on the ground outside by a camp fire? Scoring a goal in sideline soccer? Racing kids on the blob? Singing and dancing in front of the whole of camp in the talent show? Who would have thought!). I have never before just seized every single little opportunity that passed before me and have no regrets. I made the most of everything and never took any of it for granted and am so thankful that I had the opportunity to spend my entire summer back in America, which I have always considered my second home, and meet so many incredible people and do so many amazing things and visit so many great places! 


Most importantly, it was a great opportunity to grow in faith and to surround myself with encouraging people whom I can relate to and whom I got to work in a strong team with to provide great kids with the best week of their summer vacation! I feel very blessed to have such good new friends in my life and to know that the bonds we formed over the summer will last beyond life at camp even despite being an ocean apart!


There is no doubt in my mind that I will see everyone again. As for working again at camp next summer; I would go in a heartbeat. But who knows what adventures are in store for me this year. We shall see.

Let faith arise.

Trip to Washington D.C

After camp ended, I still had a week left in the US, so Dom, Sean, Kelsey and I decided to go to Washington D.C for a few days vacation before going up to NYC for two days before flying back to the UK. This was a very good idea, it definitely made going home easier as saying goodbye to everyone at camp was very difficult. We had a great time as well! Washington D.C has become one of my favorite cities now, although Boston still claims the number one spot.
The four of us had to stay a night at a hotel in Portland, Maine before flying down early the next morning to D.C. David Eric dropped us off at our hotel after camp closed up, and then we decided to walk into Portland from the hotel to meet up with Andrew for lunch. Why oh why did we decide to walk? We didn't think it would take that long, probably only 20minutes, but we ended up walking for an hour and 10 minutes before we made it to the harbour!! In the end we had a lovely lunch with Andrew at a very nice restaurant on the harbour and then got ice cream afterwards and walked around for a little bit before getting a taxi back to the hotel (good call, should have done that on the way there! haha) and as we were all so shattered from staying up for the majority of the last night on camp, we took a "cabin six nap" and then went for a swim in the hotel pool and relaxed in the jacuzzi. We had dinner in the hotel and then it was bedtime...we were all that tired still that we didn't bother checking the flight itinerary as Sean had said the flight was at 7am and we thought we remembered booking the 7am one so just went with it and set the alarm for 4:30am. DISASTER STRIKES. We wake up at 4:30am and as I'm getting ready in the bathroom Kelsey knocks on the door and says "Err, Sarah, just to let you know, we need to leave now, the flight is actually at 6am". I nearly died. I get easily stressed in airports as it is, so we legged it to the airport in record time, and then Sean and Kelsey checked in no problem and went on while Dom and I checked in, of course, my bag was overweight so I had to pay extra for it, then Dom's bag got weighed and it was overweight too (I had dumped half my stuff into his the night before) so with it now being 5:30am and no time to move things around, I just paid again for excess baggage. We then ran to security, there was a huge line and they wouldn't bunk us up as there were 10 other 6am flights apparently, so when we got through security we sprinted to the gate, got straight on the plane and after 5mins were heading down the runway...The word the others used to describe me during this whole drama was "seething". My blood pressure has never been so high, I'm sure.

Me and the front of the White House.

In the end we made it to D.C, yay! And took a taxi to the hotel which was so nice, we were given room 911 though, not to be superstitious... This soon became referred to as "Cabin 911". We then had the whole afternoon to start exploring D.C. We went for lunch at what looked like a lovely restaurant called "Art & Soul" or "Art & Funk" according to Sean, but its service was not exactly the best. We then went to the White House, which was cool! It is smaller than it looks on TV.

Me, Dom, Sean & Kelsey with the White House in the background.

Hey there, Kelsey!

Me at the Washington Monument.

Next, we walked to the huge obelisk called the Washington Monument which is in the middle of the National Mall. We had fun looking around and taking fun pictures at it.

Me & Kelsey at the Pearl Harbor Memorial.

Then we walked to the Lincoln Memorial. It was so hot and humid however, that we stopped along the way and relaxed by the huge water fountain which is in front of the reflective pool leading up to the Lincoln Memorial (which was also drained, unfortunately). Around it were stone columns with wreaths representing all the states and there was a Pearl Harbor memorial. It was really nice, and interesting. We then walked to the Lincoln Memorial, which was further away than it looks, we stopped at a street vendor and bought WATER ICE! Best invention ever. Water Ice is sort of like a cross between sorbet and sno-cones, it is so good that we got another one on the way back from the Lincoln Memorial and more later on in the trip! The Lincoln Memorial was interesting to see, and it was nice to sit on the steps and admire the view also.

Me on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, view in the background.

Dom, Kelsey & Sean at the Lincoln Memorial.

We made the big mistake of walking back to the hotel instead of taking the subway...It was a really long walk, once our water ices were finished the heat got unbearable and we got lost and walked far more than necessary...thank goodness Kelsey had google maps on her phone! When we made it back to the hotel, we basked in the air conditioning and headed straight to the bar for ice cold drinks and sat there absolutely shattered, haha. Somehow we ended up finding the energy to play shuffleboard...Sean & I won against Dom & Kelsey, thanks to my amazing skills haha...not! We headed out later that night for dinner at a nice restaurant near Chinatown.

Me at Arlington Cemetery.

The next day after breakfast at Starbucks (this became our routine) we visited the Pentagon and its 9/11 Memorial. The Pentagon is huge and the Memorial at it is very nicely done, I do like to visit 9/11 memorials but they always make you stop and think and are sombre. After that Kelsey and I spent the rest of the day together on our own while the boys went off and did their own thing, so we went to Arlington Cemetery which is huge and it contains all the graves of past soldiers who have fought at war for America. It was very peaceful to walk around, and we were astounded by the number of graves there are, they go on and on. We saw a memorial to JFK and also visited the Tomb of the Unknown Solider which is just outside of this huge sort of temple building which is made from white stone and was very impressive. We watched the changing of the Guard also. 

Me & Kelsey in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

After that we were going to go look around Georgetown but when we got off at the subway stop we got caught in torrential rain so we went to a lovely restaurant for a late lunch. It ended up clearing up again later on and the four of us went for dinner at a restaurant on the river at Washington Harbour near Georgetown. We decided to take a taxi on the way back to the hotel instead of the subway and the driver showed us all the main monuments which were illuminated for no extra charge, great times! 

Just like elephants...

The following day we went to the Zoo...thank goodness it was free entry because it would not have been worth paying for! I was very surprised that Washington DC didn't have a fantastic zoo. We saw a orang-outang, some hogs and some fish... And a lot of sculptures of animals.  Nonetheless we had a good time anyway walking around, joking about. 

Sean left that afternoon to go up to New York so Dom, Kelsey and I spent one of the best afternoons ever wandering around D.C. We bought sandwiches for lunch and sat on the grass at Capitol Hill having lunch and then took a look around the grounds of it before heading over across the road to see the Supreme Court and a few other buildings of note as well. 

At Capitol Hill.

At the Supreme Court.

We went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum which was actually pretty cool and not boring. We got to touch a piece of the moon! It was black and looked and felt like plastic, weird. After the museum we started walking back to the hotel but stopped at a big water fountain that looks onto the Capitol and we sat on its banks relaxing and admiring the view; it was definitely one of my favorite things that we did on the trip and probably the most simple! 

Touching a piece of the moon!

Kelsey and I admiring Capitol Hill.

The three of us spent a really last evening together out at an Italian restaurant and afterwards we got some amazing frozen yogurt! I think we all were converted to the wonders of frozen yogurt after that. 

Me & Maddie at Times Square.

All three of us had to be up really early the next day to leave. Kelsey left first to go back to LA and we were so sad to see her go! Then Dom and I left around 7am on the Greyhound bus to go up to New York City. We all missed the Washington D.C earthquake by literally hours, very lucky!! After a 4 hour bus ride we made it to NYC and checked in at the hotel before heading downtown to the financial district to have a look around the Wall Street area and to go shopping. That evening we headed to Times Square where we met up with Katie and Meaghan who were also visiting New York and we all went for dinner at the Olive Garden at Times Square. I had the best surprise ever - Maddie came to meet us!!! She lives just outside of NYC in New Jersey and she had been in the city that day to see a relative and decided to come for dinner with us. I didn't think I would get to see her again for ages once camp had finished so I was so happy! After dinner we hung out on the red steps at Times Square for a while. The next day Dom left very early in the morning to fly back to the UK so I went to Katie and Meaghan's hotel to stay with them. Maddie had stayed the night in NY so the four of us spent the day together and visited Chinatown and ate a very nice lunch in Little Italy. We then went back  uptown and spent the afternoon shopping before Maddie left to go back to New Jersey. 

Maddie, Me & Meaghan shopping.

Me, Katie & Meaghan had dinner that night at Planet Hollywood and then the next morning they went on a Statue of Liberty sightseeing cruise whilst I only had until 3pm free until I had to get my cab to the airport to fly back home. I was already all packed so I wandered down to Union Square and looked around some of the shops before spending ages perusing Barnes & Noble and sitting in the Starbucks there having lunch whilst reading the September issue of American Vogue...so good. Then eventually it was time for me to leave. I took a cab to JFK airport and had a pretty uneventful flight to London Heathrow (excess baggage was of course paid yet again, typical me) and then a connecting flight to Belfast. It was so hard to believe that my summer had come to an end and that my 2 and a half months in America was over; it was undoubtedly two and a half of the best months I've ever had. 

Last Break & Session 6

Break
Our last break before the final session of the summer was SO much fun! Definitely one of the best breaks, if not the best. On the first day around 20 of us went for lunch at On the Border, a mexican restaurant, which was really nice to relax and hang out and eat food other than camp food! We then all went to the mall afterwards to find outfits for Banquet! This started off being really fun and we kind of split off into small groups, so Sam, Maddie and I went around together looking for dresses, shoes, jewellery etc. It ended up getting a little stressful though, especially when people couldn't decide what to wear...(Dom shopping in Macy's drove everyone to breaking point, haha). A group of us then went for dinner afterwards and decided then to go back to camp, get changed and go for icecream at Dairy Queen, then after that we went to a beach further up the lake from camp and hung out there sitting on the dock and all talking. It is definitely one of my favorite moments of the summer, sitting on the dock with my close friends just discussing loads of stuff and with stars in the sky and the lake so peaceful it was such a good atmosphere! :-)

Everyone on the pontoon boat.

Kelsey, Sam, Me & Katie on the boat.

The next day of break some of us went for lunch at Applebee's and then came back and spent the whole afternoon on the pontoon boat on Sebago Lake. This was an AMAZING afternoon! SO much fun! We sailed out quite a bit and stopped the boat and all lept off it into the water and swam about and jumped off more which was wicked fun. We then sailed to Frye Island which was quite far away from camp on the other side of the lake (Sebago Lake is huge) and by the time we got there we realised that we had hardly any gas left and wouldn't be able to make it back to camp unless we got some more! Frye Island didn't have a gas station, so we got some icecream there and tried not to panic, and thankfully some other people very kindly offered to show us where the nearest boat gas station was so we followed them across the lake and got more gas just in time before we totally ran out! This meant we could now all relax so we went back out into the middle of the lake and stopped and jumped off the boat more and played music and danced etc, it was just sooo much fun :-) On the way back me, Maddie and Kelsey sat on the very front of the boat and let our feet get carried along by the water and just laughed and sang along to the music. Great memories from that day!

Jumping off the boat!

Me, Maddie & Kelsey.

Session 6

Session 6 was the last session of the summer, and it was definitely one of the best, everyone made the most of it and gave it their all. Deejay and I had 10 campers that week, which was double what we had the week before so things seemed a bit more normal again. One of the evening programs was called Collaboration, which was just for the girl campers. All the girl counselors had to pair up with their co-counselor and perform something on stage for the campers to watch. Deejay and I did an alternative Taylor Swift performance...I pretended to be Taylor Swift singing her song Love Story whilst Deejay was pretending to be a DJ behind me, then the music cut and I yelled out "Hey, DJ turn it up!" and then it changed song into Thug Story, Taylor Swift's gangster parody of her own song Love Story and we rapped along and acted like rappers. It was fun, all the other performances were really entertaining and funny too. Mel and Kirsten got all the other counselors up on stage and squirted us all with water guns, haha. 

Team Ireland's staff members.

Session 6 was a little different from the other sessions because we had Olympics. Basically for a day and a half we ran fake Olympic Games. The counselors and kids were all assigned to countries (I was the Captain of the Irish team) and during the opening ceremony which was one of the evening programs, each country had to put face paint on and create and perform a chant after the passing of the torch procession. I taught my team the Ireland rugby chant (Ireland, Ireland together standing tall...etc) and we added a few other chants to the end of it. The kids were so cute singing it all decked out in green, white and orange with shamrocks and Irish flags on their faces! 

Me doing the high jump, haha!

The next day was Olympic Games day, this was undoubtedly the most exhausting day ever!! It was a lot of fun but it felt more like bootcamp than simple games for the counselors. It was so hot also that day, it made it hard to keep going. The Games were fun though. We went around in our countries and did activities like javelin, discus, shot put, high jump, triple jump, long jump, hurdles, sprinting and we built a lean-two (basically a tee-pee). The counselors had to participate in everything as well as the kids, which was tiring but hilarious. Thank goodness we had Freddie on team Ireland as he is really athletic and set a lot of records for the events!

Me, Fred, Mel & Abby

That day we ate meals with our countries etc, and in the afternoon we took part in tug-of-war, swimming relay races, dodgeball, freeze dance, soccer and capture the flag against the other countries. It was non-stop!! It was fun, but quite stressful as team Ireland seemed to have most of the youngest campers who needed more instruction and control than the older ones. By the time it was our turn to do the water race we were all just ready to jump right off the dock into the water to cool off and try and relax for a little bit! After dinner that night we had to come up with a skit for our whole team to perform, so we made one up about how our kids wouldn't listen all day and ran off on us and when they returned and we asked where they were they said they had followed a rainbow and found a pot of gold so we wouldn't need to win the Olympics anymore, haha. In the end Canada won, and Ireland came 5th out of 8 countries which wasn't too bad seeing as Freddie was really our only team member really into athletics! 

YO- G! Younger Girls Unit.

We had a Younger Girls Unit night out in session 6 where we just went to Wal-Mart and stocked up on snacks and went to the dock by TJ's where some of us had gone during our last break to hang out which was nice just to get off camp for a bit and hang out as a unit one last time before the end of camp. 

  

Jesus Theater during session 6 was incredible! So many of my campers were really affected by it and wanted to talk and share with me issues that were going on in their lives. It was amazing to see how many of them wanted to pray and talk about God not just with me and Deejay but among themselves. I heard so many interesting, encouraging and inspiring stories from these little 9 & 10 year old girls and it was a really special night. Jesus Theater was a big part of camp life each week and it was really successful, enjoyable and rewarding for everyone. Hannah, who was in charge of it, deserves so much credit for doing such a good job! 

Sebago Awards on the last night of the session was so much fun!! The week before, kind of embarrassingly, me, Sean, Dom and Meaghan were pulled up on stage by the unit leaders and made to dance to S Club 7, which was really funny, but this time at the end of the awards the whole camp had a dance party which was a brilliant way to end the last night! Everyone went crazy dancing to dance music, Bon Jovi and Don't Stop Believing by Journey. Marshall, who was one of Dom's campers that week and has autism, wanted to dance with me as I had helped him out making something in Arts & Crafts earlier in the week, and he pulled me up on stage with Maddie to dance which was fun. He took it a little far though by then telling everyone in the infirmary during Night Meds that I was his girlfriend!! Haha, this only got worse on closing day when his mom came to pick him up and he pointed me out and said "there's my girlfriend!". Thankfully she was not annoyed and saw the funny side! 

After closing day, camp clean up began and lasted for two days. We had to completely clean our cabins and areas from top to bottom until they were spotless which we made fun by blasting music etc so it really wasn't bad at all. One of the nights of camp clean up we had Vespers which is something we had once every week, just a time of sharing what had happened during the week and of music and prayer, and then we were allowed to go off camp for a bit so some of us went to Applebee's (our second home it would seem) where Jared decided to order 3 desserts, hahaha, what a bad idea! The next night after camp clean up a huge screen was set up in the field and everyone brought couches and mattresses out to sit on and we watched two movies, which was really nice. 

Abby, Me, Jaime, Sam & Katie all ready for Banquet.

Our Banquet Table - Abby, Jared, Jaime, Lyle, Me, Dom, Kelsey & Sean.

Me & Kelsey with our awards.

The following day was Banquet Day! Camp clean up was all done so we had the whole day off, so me, Sam, Jaime and Abby left early and went to the mall and got pedicures and shopped for last minute jewellery and shoes and had a really nice girls lunch out. We then came back to camp and had from about 1pm until 6pm to get ready! This was a lot of fun, we had a shaving party on the porch of cabin 26 and sat on the porch for ages just talking and took our time getting ready, doing our hair, make up etc so it was all really relaxed and fun. All the girl counselors got ready in 26 and at 6pm the boys walked over across the field to meet us, and get pictures etc. We then all walked over to the pavilion where dinner tables had been set up and there were caterers and a huge buffet of really good food! Everyone chatted and took photos and had a great time at the dinner. There were camp Superlative awards, which everyone had voted for, for things like Best Tan, Camp Comedian, Friendliest, Honor Staff etc. I won Best Hair which was really nice as I didn't expect to win anything at all! Also on show at Banquet was the big Camp Sebago Staff 2011 board which is a huge board with a painting of a sunset at camp with everyone's names on it, which is really nice. We also watched a powerpoint slideshow of photos taken throughout the summer which was really nice and it was funny looking back on some of the hilarious moments that had happened.

Wazzo getting the party started.

Me & Maddie whipping our hair back and forth.

After the meal, the tables were cleared away and everyone started dancing. All summer, the Younger Men (Younger Boys) Unit counselors had always introduced themselves on skit night by saying "I'm Sean/Lyle/Jared etc... and I like to party". Well, Camp Sebago staff likes to party. It was one of the most fun nights of the summer dancing crazily with everyone! Maddie and I got up on stage and whipped our hair back and forth like crazy to Willow Smith's song "I whip my hair" and Wazzo got everyone pumped up by having a dance off, and Sean & Fred performed their Justin Bieber routine one more time, it was just such a great way to spend the final night at camp :-).

Sunrise.

We only got a couple of hours sleep before me, Wazzo, Meaghan, Alicia and Magnes got up to do watch the sunrise down at the waterfront. I had to force myself to get out of bed to go and am so glad that I did because it was so beautiful. The sky was purple, pink, orange and red and the water was so still. We wandered along the shore and sat on docks and rocks watching it, and it was definitely the perfect way to end our time at camp for the summer, just admiring the beauty of where we had been all summer. I have seen pretty sunsets in Florida and at home in Ireland before but this was undoubtedly the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen :-).

Meaghan, Me, Alicia & Magnes on the dock watching the sunrise.

The staff board.

It was one of the hardest things ever to say goodbye to everyone the morning after Banquet. I still can't believe camp is over, the time flew by but at the same time it felt like I had been there forever. I really did not want to leave! I don't think anyone did! After camp ended me, Kelsey, Sean & Dom went on vacation to Washington DC and then to NYC for a few days before going home and had a lot of fun which I will detail about in the next entry! 

Long Break & Session 5

I realise I have not blogged in a month...when I returned to camp after long break I decided that I would rather not spend my free time writing and instead just hang out with everyone as much as possible as the summer was quickly coming to an end. But anyway, I shall update it now as usual.

Long Break
Once session 4 had ended we got 4 days off so for long break I went down to New York to visit Tylar my friend from St. Andrews. It was a really good trip, I did however have some travel issues. I stupidly decided to take the 8hour long Greyhound bus instead of fly (why oh why??) and on the way there once we crossed over the state line into NY the bus got pulled over and a cop got on board and said "Everyone, I would appreciate your co-operation at this time as we are searching for someone". I was freaking out inside! Thankfully after waiting for 20 minutes the bus was allowed to continue on and nothing was wrong. 

Me at Times Square

It was really exciting to see Tylar outside of school, and we had so much fun! The first full day we went into NY from New Jersey where she lives, and went to Macy's, visited Times Square, went shopping on 5th Avenue, went to the Rockefeller Center, and we got food from a street vendor (not great) and hung out in Central Park for a bit. In the afternoon we went on a boat tour which took us past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty which was really cool. We ended up going back to NJ for the evening to eat and go to the mall there where everything was tax free, woo! Tylar also took me to a place called Eagle Rock in NJ which was really nice; it is a big observatory point up on a hill which looks out onto the skyline of NYC and has a big memorial for 9/11 with all the names of everyone who was lost during the attack. It was one of my favorite things which we did. 

Me & the Statue of Liberty

The second day we went to Ground Zero and saw the new World Trade Center being built and visited the memorial preview store which had documentaries etc showing on large screens. We also visited the church beside Ground Zero which offered loads of support in the aftermath of the attacks and it was really interesting to walk around and look at the displays it had on show. We walked along Wall Street and then went back uptown to the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art). I loved the Met, it had some really nice exhibitions in it (I was disappointed however that there was a big Alexander McQueen exhibition on and the waiting time in line for it was over 2 hours so I couldn't see it). We met up with Andrew, another friend from St Andrews, at the Met and he took us to see the musical Jersey Boys on Broadway. It was really good and so funny! I love musical theater so really enjoyed it. We then went for dinner after it at a very nice Italian restaurant in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, which was very relaxing and pleasant. Later that night, Tylar and I went up the Empire State Building, which although it was cool being up at the top, was not particularly enjoyable as we were so tired by this point and we had to wait in line for 90mins to even get up to the top, which was packed full of people, and then we had to queue to even get out of the building. Not really the best time to do it, even though the city looked really nice at night. As it took so long at the Empire State Building we had to rush like crazy and had an epic run through Port Authority to catch the bus in time, which was hilarious upon reflection!
The next day I then had to travel back up to Maine, and everything went really well until we got to Boston for a layover. When it was time to leave Boston the bus had a new driver who had never driven the route before, thus had no idea how to get out of Boston and onto the highway. Passengers started yelling out directions at him, which wasn't helping, and as we were driving through Boston suddenly we crashed into the side of a truck and the bus' wing mirror fell off...Passengers started screaming and the driver took forever to find his way back to the station. Eventually after waiting around at the station, we got a new bus and a new driver and made it back to Portland, ME just fine. Sam picked me up from the station and we went and got massages with Alicia - I definitely needed one by then!!!

Me & Tylar on the steps of the Met.

Session 5
Session 5 was a little strange as after the previous session in which I had 14 campers in my cabin which was crazy, I now had 5 campers! There were pros and cons to this - it was less stressful and we could keep count of them easily and get them organised easily, but then again it was a little difficult trying to play games etc when there were so few of them. 

Abby, Me & Maddie dressed up for Superhero Night.

Me & Sean dressed up as catwoman and catman.

We had some really fun evening programs that session. One evening we had Superhero night so everyone on camp dressed up as superheroes and the program staff dressed up as super villains. Early in the day at lunchtime Captain Brett came into the dining hall and announced really seriously and really angrily that a canteen key had gone missing so there was now only one and that whoever had it must return it (I did not realise this was a joke...oops). Evening program started in Sebago Hall, and Fred was dressed up as the Joker and he came up on stage and stole the last remaining canteen key... This launched evening program. All the kids and counselors then had to take part in games of kickball, poisonball, capture the flag and an obstacle course in order to defeat the supervillains and win parts of a puzzle that when put together would lead us to where to get the key back. Once we'd finished the activities we went up to the camp fire site and waited silently until the Joker appeared, then some of the staff "fought" against him and won the key back. It was a really fun evening, definitely one of my favorites!! 

T-Swizzle, Thunder, Lightening & DJ turn it up.

Another really fun evening program was gangster Clue. We played Clue earlier in the summer but this time gave it a gangster theme, which was really fun to get dressed up for. My cabin was paired up with 6B again to go around camp and figure out who murdered "Mr. Sebago", and Brent and Tyler (6B's counselors) were hilarious, and get cracking jokes the whole time making everyone laugh. They called themselves Thunder & Lightening (because together they create a storm...) and gave me the gangster name T-Swizzle (after Taylor Swift) and Deejay got called "DJ turn it up". This time when we went around camp to get the clues our cabins were made to rap the week's memory verse, sing Thunderation etc. It was a lot of fun, and ended again with the murderer being thrown in the lake.

Lorissa (Miss Scarlett) gets thrown in the lake!

 For clubs that week, me, Sean & Dom took British Club as I'm from Northern Ireland, Sean is Scottish and Dom is English. It was quite good; the first day we did a scavenger hunt around camp to find dodgeballs in teams and every team was a different country and we played a few more games with them after that. The next day Sean organised Highland Games for them to compete in in their countries. The final activity in the Highland Games was human ring toss, where the kids had to throw hoops and try and get them on me, Sean & Dom... My favorite British Club activity however was my own idea haha (well, with a little help from Dom). We took the kids to the playground and Dom and I pretended to be guards and tied Sean (a.k.a Prince William) up and entrapped him in the playground castle. This meant the aim of the game was to set Prince William free so that he could marry Kate Middleton (Kelsey). To do so, firstly we had the kids do a number of challenges like walk with a book on their head, introduce themselves in a British accent etc. The last challenge was to go find Kelsey (a.k.a Kate) who had a map which showed where the key to a treasure chest was hidden. When they brought Kelsey back then they had to complete an obstacle course in order to get the map from her, which led them to where the key to the chest was hidden. They then found the chest and in it were loads of dodgeballs and a crown. They had to throw the dodgeballs at me & Dom to defeat the guards and then climb up into the castle, untie Sean and give him his crown. Then we performed a fake royal wedding so it all ended happily ever after and Wills and Kate got reunited and married, haha! It was actually very fun and successful even though Dom & Sean were a bit dubious at first.


Another entertaining thing from that week was Dom asking me to banquet. Banquet is at the very end of camp and it's a big dinner party with dancing after it and most people arrange to go with someone to it. After some over the top proposals (Buckley made Sam a big powerpoint presentation for example) Dom decided to have me get up at 5am and meet him at the gazebo. From there we went to boating and there was string the whole way down the stairs and along the boating dock which I had to follow and pull on when I got to the end of the dock. Out of the water, attached to the string, came a message in a bottle which basically said go to the pavilion. So we went to the pavilion and on the floor there were loads of chalk drawings and a message saying Now go to the waterfront. So we went to the waterfront and as I was walking down the ramp I saw in pebbles on the ground the word "Banquet?". It was highly entertaining and really nice! We hung out at the waterfront for a bit and fed some ducks who appeared on the shore. I definitely had the most extravagant banquet proposal out of everyone on camp, haha!

Pirates attack!

Lord's Day that week was also really fun as at lunchtime some of the program staff came in dressed as pirates and seized the unit leaders hostage. Then when everyone went down to the waterfront for all camp swim that afternoon the pirates came over on the pontoon boat with the unit leaders and when they docked they threatened to push the unit leaders into the water as their treasure had been stolen by them. Captain Brett stepped up and sacrificed himself in order for the unit leaders to go free so he was pushed in. It was really funny, and made all camp swim more fun! 


Jesus Theater that night was also really good as I got to talk to one girl after it called Alexis, who was also in British Club that week, who was very affected by it as she had dealt with a lot - her family had just got out of a homeless shelter, her grandfather had passed away and her grandmother was in hospital. And Alexis is only 10 years old. I talked to her for a little bit and she was so thankful to have someone just listen to her. It is definitely one of my favorite camper moments.


That night the Younger Girls Unit camped out, which was fun. I set my s'more on fire and couldn't get it to blow out...oops, me & Maddie were on Angel Watch that night and had to tell the 7 year olds off multiple times for talking, and Abby and Sam convinced me to sleep outside on the ground by the fire with them instead of in the tent but we got rained on in the middle of the night and had to move into the tent in the end!


All in all, it was an eventful session and the break which followed it was definitely one of the best breaks of the summer! :-)

End of Session 3 & Session 4

Session 3 ended up being even tougher by the end of the week because there was a heatwave which made it pretty unbearable to do anything. As it was music camp that week, on the last night there was a concert featuring performances from all th different classes etc, which was put on outside at the pavilion. I have never been so uncomfortable sitting for 2 and a half hours in 96f heat, crammed into rows of chairs with campers all around me complaining the whole time about how hot it was. I have surprised myself this summer by being a lot more patient than I thought I was. A lot of the campers went home that night because their parents came to watch so there were only 3 girl left in my cabin that night so DJ and I let them set up a slumber party on the floor with their mattresses etc instead of being in bunk beds. The next day we only got a 9 hour break instead of our usual day and a half break so because it was so hot we went to the mall to shop and then to see Harry Potter where there was air conditioning! In the Maine Mall there is a train ride that does laps of the mall, which is really for little kids, but we all went on it and called it the Hogwarts express to get us in the mood for the film. Some of the group put on lightening bolt fake tattoos on their heads that Captain Jessica had given us from the canteen...they looked so overly keen for the film!

Session 4 started the next day, and there were over 200 kids here this past week which was cray and a big challenge for everyone. I had 14 girls in my cabin this week which was a little overwhelming at first but I think me and DJ handled it pretty well. 14 girls made everything a lot more stressful, as everything took longer than usual, it was hard to keep track of them all. That reminds me actually of session 3 when there was a code 5 alert one day which is the signal for a missing camper. When the alert was announced everyone ran to the flagpole and counted their kids and started to break up into search parties only to discover that there wasn't a missing camper at all, they had just gone to the wrong music class or something. It was pretty scary at the time though, hopefully it won't happen again! But the girls I had this week were a handful. When they were good they were really cute but they fought a lot and complained a lot and there were several that had really bad home sickness but I think we overcame all these things pretty well. I had to lay down the law several times though to the point that I had them trained into saying "this is a no fighting or complaining zone". I also had to give them a talk about cabin clean up as the cabin was disgusting. Just so many more girls than normal pushed the cabin over it's limits. I had to do some major clean up of it this morning when they all left.
There were some interesting evening programs this week. For skit night, the younger girls unit did a super hero skit where we tried to solve the problem of not having enough ice for sno cones on Lord's Day (we got the inspiration for this from Magnes who was genuinely concerned about not having enough ice and brought it up at the staff meeting. Needless to say everyone just laughed at him). So one by one the younger girls counselors went up as different superheros to try and solve the problem. Maddie went up as a broken wizard as she has a broken elbow so we used this as an excuse to get Magnes up on stage to be her helper. I then came on as ice woman and solved the problem by holding up two pitchers of ice and pouring them all over Mag. Haha.
One evening program we had was called crazy corners which was a huge game that the whole camp was involved in. Everyone dressed up in crazy colored stuff and the staff were given labels to wear with points on them. So counselors were worth 10points, leadership staff were 15points etc. All the staff had to stand in the middle of the field and run when the campers were let loose so that they wouldn't tag us. If they tagged us they took us back to their unit bases. Maddie and I paired up as a duo and made it funny for them by speaking in funny accents and clinging to the flagpole/soccer net so they wouldn't take us. The next night counselors got a night off! We were all so excited and just spent the time at Applebees having dinner (camp food is getting worse by the day). It was so funny though as we felt like parents leaving our kids at school or a crèche or something. We were told we had to be back at 8:30pm to pick our kids up at Sebago Hall so as we pull up at camp we check the time and it's 8:29pm so we start sprinting to sign in and then I start running to Sebago Hall when I hear DJ screaming across the field "Sarah!!! They're in the Rec hall!!!" so we bolt across the field and just make it in time. Had we not made it we would have been given early curfew which would have sucked!
Another evening program this week was a staff auction night where each cabin had 500points they could use to bid on staff members who would perform tasks for them. My girls decided they wanted to bid on Steffan and Roger who said they would do anything they wanted so we blew 450 of our points winning them. This then caused major stress because we had hardly any points left. Thankfully we won bonus points for being the best at saying the memory verse and dancing the hoedown throwdown, but we still didn't have enough to win anything else so loads of them started fighting and crying and it kind of ruined the fun. Personally I wanted them to just win the housekeeping team who would do cabin clean up for them but that idea was shot down! So we won Roger and Steffan so last night we cut Roger's hair off, put makeup on them and made them clean the cabin. The girls enjoyed it!
On Lord's Day night it was the younger girls turn to camp out which was fine, just uncomfortable sleeping on the wooden platform. I set my marshmallow on fire making a s'more which provided a bit of entertainment.
For clubs this week, me Mel and Leann took Finding Nemo club which was actually a huge success to the dismay of our nemesis club, water world. We made Nemo fish with the kids and then did a scavenger hunt around camp to find them, one day we went down to the lake and did water games and the last day we got water guns and sneaked up on all the other clubs and squirted them. It was pretty fun!
Last night we had Sebago Awards where honor camper awards are handed out in between songs etc. I was asked to come up on stage to do the Sebago song with 5 others so we start doing the song when people came along and soaked us with water! Justin's cabin had won some junior staff in the auction who promised to take out their "enemies" with water guns so they had planned the whole thing and purposefully chosen all of us on stage! They chose me because all week long they believed that I was Justin's sister. Can't believe they fell for that.

Now I am off until Monday night on long break so I'm currently on a bus going to see Tylar in New York for the weekend. I'm really excited, we're going to do lots of tourist stuff,see a broadway show etc. Can't wait!