Monday June 26th 06 10:40pm
Ok, so first of all, ive been exceptionally busy lately and haven’t had the chance to go on the internet at all. The Campers have arrive and they are all really cool. Last week (which was the first week of camp) was Mother Daughter week and I taught two of the mothers who weren’t particularly bothered about what they learnt or what they didn’t… so we had fun all week just getting to know each other and I took them on trail rides etc to keep them occupied for the three hours of riding we had to do everyday! Last week I was able to go to “the lake” to learn how to drive the jet ski (which is really a sea doo) so that I can take the kids out when we go. Unfortunately ue to the fact that I was teaching three hours a day last week, I still haven’t played tennis or taught any water skiing but im having fun doing al of the horsey things. I really like three of the ponies/horses here and im thinking of different way of fitting all three into my suitcase to bring home with me… I will take some pics of them eventually to show you all but the three are ‘Miami’ who is a really sweet mare who really reminds me of Ella, ‘Boo’ who is the most gorgeous 3 year old pony who just wants to be friends with everyone (including the horses that kick him because he invades their personal space) and follows absolutely anything around that MIGHT pay him some attention and Mikey who is a girl pony standing an incredible 10 to maybe 11 hands high (for those of you who don’t follow… its slightly bigger than my dog) and she is a skewbald but has on blue eye and white mane tail and forelock. ANYWAYS… So quite a bit has happened since I last posted, I think maybe three counsellors have left. One of them was Katie, who decided that she liked the YMCA camp that we went to lifesaving at, so she transferred, and the other two were fired just yesterday, one for being extremely rude to one of the senior staff here and one for inappropriate conduct around the camp (basically nobody got along with her and she was rude and didn’t do any work). As I said before, im pretty busy… Liz and Marieke have started teaching lessons as well and have put me in charge of the barn when they aren’t there so I get to look really cool and wear a walkie-talkie on my bum! …its lots of fun.
In the last two days it has rained more than I have ever seen it rain before. Yesterday, all the stalls in the barn flooded and so we spent the afternoon gutting stalls and sweeping water out and banking the aisles of the barn etc. Anyways, because of all of the rain, HUGE puddles have formed, to the point where we have a pond at the back of the barn (where there is normally grass), which the frog and toad population of New York State have decided to reside and breed in. Today, at the end of the day, Marieke and I were so unbelievably soaked through, that we both took our rain jackets off and dove into one of the ‘puddles’ like a swimming pool and rolled and splashed around like idiot with our clothes still on. So by the time we were done ‘swimming’ in the ‘puddle’, it was dinner time, and we went up to the food tent soaking wet and acted as if nothing had happened. But then we had to shower REALLY quickly because it was our day to do ‘evening activities’ because Gina (Arno’s sister/the person who ACTUALLY runs the camp) has decided that Marieke and I are good at being loud and should therefore run the evening activities of the first day of each session (so basically whenever we get new campers)… which is kind of painful, but fun all the same. I have campers in my dorm this session so I have them or two weeks as of last Sunday and they are all really cool, two of the are from Florida and one is from California and one of the girls form Florida is a teen model and she is in “Teen Vogue” magazine. Anyways, they are all cool and they are all 14 years old but really mature for their age.
Im really tired so im going to head off back to the dorm because im in the staff room and hit the sack… 6:20am start everyday day now, so needs my sleeps! K, adios.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
Certified, Qualified, Dandified Lifeguard!
Ok, so last night i got back to camp after spendiong 3 days and two nights at Lifeguarding camp, where i got up and swam for a minimum of 6 hours everday until they told me i was a lifeguard... ok it wasnt that simple, but it was something like that. We went to a place called 'Camp Mason' which was a YMCA in New Jersey and experienced what 'real' camp life was all about, we had a camp fire and toasted marshmellows and learnt campfire songs and watched campfire skits... it was quite the experience however i am now glad to be back in 'civilisation' at my camp, which i may or may not have forgotten to mention is infact the richest camp in the US! Apparently one of the girls who comes here every year has a house which is used on the set of the OC... i thought that was pretty cool. anyways, On friday morning we got up at 5:30am and Arno drove us to New Jersey and left us in a dining hall with about 200 kids running around and basically said Have fun, see you on Sunday! We then ate breakfast and headed to the pool, where we had to swim non stop for something stupid like 20 laps of a pool and if you failed that, you werent llowed to complete the course! All i could think of while doing the test was "Arno has already left" so i wasnt allowed to fail! - in al fairness the test really wasnt that hard, it was just made worse by the fact that we werent allowed to fail it! AAAaaaaanyways, we experienced the whole camp thing, and we were also taken to Walmart because we said that we hadn't been. Katie and I were so excited about the whole thing that we took pics (see one of them below) and we were there until 1am! Anyways, the point to this post is to basically tell everyone that I survived the course and I'm now a lifeguard, so - there you go... hope everyone is doing well to the max, please email me and let me know what you are all up to because i love hearing from you all!
The unbelieveable Oreo selection in Walmart (and Katie and I being idiots)
The unbelieveable Oreo selection in Walmart (and Katie and I being idiots)
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Pictures!
Ok, so many of you have asked for some pictures so, its my day off today so i thought would sit down and take the time to upload some... The first one is our walk from the barn to the dorms (which you can see in the distance to the right), the second and third is me (clearly being a dick) with Marieke's horse after work, the 4th one is Marieke being 'serious' and Liz Smiling, The next one is the dorms that we are staying in, And finally, the girls from left to right: Marieke, Brenna, Livvy and Katie, i will try to put more up as i go.. today is a special day because the internet is letting me put the pics up! i might put more up later on... I missing you all already! Catch!
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Journal continued...
Sunday, 4 Jun. 06 2:14pm NY
Ok, so a while since I sat and wrote something, but I am working really hard which is a good thing. Last week seemed to drag on but this week has flown by. In the last couple of days we have gained 7 new staff. On Thursday, we had 2 German girls, 2 Ukrainians and one English girl arrive all at once. They are all really nice, Livvy especially… who is from Wales and has the coolest accent ever! Also, Martin (pronounced Mar-teen), the polo groom has arrived so we no longer need to groom or ride the polo ponies or have anything to do with them except sometimes randomly catch them when they get loose because Martin can’t control all six at once, but insists that he can. FYI: Martin is from Argentina and speaks very little English. Ok, I have to get back to work but I will continue this after work and after I have figured out how to get my laundry out of the washing machine!! 2:25pm NY
Monday, 5 Jun. 06 7:40pm NY
I worked out how to get my washing out of washing machine and then struggled to work the dryer until I got Marieke to come and help me out and realised that all I had to do was press a button… anyways, I didn’t get to finish what I was saying yesterday about the new people so I will pick up where I left off… or there abouts… anyways, so there are the six people that came on Thursday and then on Saturday we had a new girl, Katie from Kingston in England who is well cool. Despite gaining 7 new people, we have lost 1 person, Patty, who I mentioned in previous posts. Patty had ‘differences’ with bosses here and decided that she wanted to run the place and the bosses weren’t too happy about the situation or her attitude towards the situation and hence fired her. AAAAaaaanyways, I have been working very hard as I said earlier and I have been riding at least two horses everyday, and trying my best to get them fit for the summer. Yesterday, we had an adult guest arrive (which is unusual) at the farm and she is here until Sunday, so from now until then we are teaching her to ride for two sessions a day, which includes teaching her to tack up, and how to groom the horses properly. Some of you will be pleased to know that because we now have a lot of staff here, we are being cooked for and therefore I am eating properly now with three square meals a day and the occasional round or triangle meal thrown in for fun. I don’t particularly have any really exciting news to tell because I’m pretty much doing the same thing day in, day out. Oh, I have a day off on Thursday with Livvy, so that is something to look forward to I guess… I just finished a meal of salad, Ukrainian meatball dumplings, mashed potato and bread so I’m really full. I’m also sitting on the couch in the staff room laughing at the two boys (the only two guys on the property!) on the other computers because they are playing gams and shooting each other and the swearing (neither of them speak English very well) at each other very loudly whenever one loses. Martin is also getting very frustrated with his computer because it keeps stuffing up and freezing… this is why I’m glad I have my laptop with me and am also glad that the wireless functions on it work! Well, that’s me for now, I believe I’m about to head back to the dorms to watch a dvd because a few of the girls went to Ellenville to find a dvd rental place, but the problem is that NONE of our staff at the moment have American citizenship, so we aren’t sure if we can rent dvd’s here, oh well, only time will tell.
Hopefully now that I have got you all up to speed on my happenings I can be more pro active and keep it that way. Thanks for all the emails guys, I really do appreciate them, however with my limited Internet time I sometimes get halfway through replying to them and the net drops out or something ridiculous like that, so I’m trying my best to reply to all of them when I can and hopefully I will get up to speed on that as well over the next few days. Thanks, Catch!
Ok, so a while since I sat and wrote something, but I am working really hard which is a good thing. Last week seemed to drag on but this week has flown by. In the last couple of days we have gained 7 new staff. On Thursday, we had 2 German girls, 2 Ukrainians and one English girl arrive all at once. They are all really nice, Livvy especially… who is from Wales and has the coolest accent ever! Also, Martin (pronounced Mar-teen), the polo groom has arrived so we no longer need to groom or ride the polo ponies or have anything to do with them except sometimes randomly catch them when they get loose because Martin can’t control all six at once, but insists that he can. FYI: Martin is from Argentina and speaks very little English. Ok, I have to get back to work but I will continue this after work and after I have figured out how to get my laundry out of the washing machine!! 2:25pm NY
Monday, 5 Jun. 06 7:40pm NY
I worked out how to get my washing out of washing machine and then struggled to work the dryer until I got Marieke to come and help me out and realised that all I had to do was press a button… anyways, I didn’t get to finish what I was saying yesterday about the new people so I will pick up where I left off… or there abouts… anyways, so there are the six people that came on Thursday and then on Saturday we had a new girl, Katie from Kingston in England who is well cool. Despite gaining 7 new people, we have lost 1 person, Patty, who I mentioned in previous posts. Patty had ‘differences’ with bosses here and decided that she wanted to run the place and the bosses weren’t too happy about the situation or her attitude towards the situation and hence fired her. AAAAaaaanyways, I have been working very hard as I said earlier and I have been riding at least two horses everyday, and trying my best to get them fit for the summer. Yesterday, we had an adult guest arrive (which is unusual) at the farm and she is here until Sunday, so from now until then we are teaching her to ride for two sessions a day, which includes teaching her to tack up, and how to groom the horses properly. Some of you will be pleased to know that because we now have a lot of staff here, we are being cooked for and therefore I am eating properly now with three square meals a day and the occasional round or triangle meal thrown in for fun. I don’t particularly have any really exciting news to tell because I’m pretty much doing the same thing day in, day out. Oh, I have a day off on Thursday with Livvy, so that is something to look forward to I guess… I just finished a meal of salad, Ukrainian meatball dumplings, mashed potato and bread so I’m really full. I’m also sitting on the couch in the staff room laughing at the two boys (the only two guys on the property!) on the other computers because they are playing gams and shooting each other and the swearing (neither of them speak English very well) at each other very loudly whenever one loses. Martin is also getting very frustrated with his computer because it keeps stuffing up and freezing… this is why I’m glad I have my laptop with me and am also glad that the wireless functions on it work! Well, that’s me for now, I believe I’m about to head back to the dorms to watch a dvd because a few of the girls went to Ellenville to find a dvd rental place, but the problem is that NONE of our staff at the moment have American citizenship, so we aren’t sure if we can rent dvd’s here, oh well, only time will tell.
Hopefully now that I have got you all up to speed on my happenings I can be more pro active and keep it that way. Thanks for all the emails guys, I really do appreciate them, however with my limited Internet time I sometimes get halfway through replying to them and the net drops out or something ridiculous like that, so I’m trying my best to reply to all of them when I can and hopefully I will get up to speed on that as well over the next few days. Thanks, Catch!
Thursday, June 01, 2006
The week so far...
24th May 9:08am ADELAIDE time
I have officially arrived in Melbourne and been Travelling for approximately 3 hours. I have about 2 hours until my flight leaves for Los Angeles so I’m taking the time to relax… My trip so far has been interesting to say the least. After leaving Adelaide teary eyed, I flew to Melbourne (where I am right now) and I went to collect my baggage. After going the wrong way twice (I’m slowly learning that the “follow the crowd” theory doesn’t work 100% of the time), I was re-united with my beloved blue suitcase and made my way to the International departures section of the airport. As I was waiting in line to ‘check in’ I was pulled aside by a security lady who announced that I had been “randomly selected”…. As in, I was at the end of the line for a security check, so I was taken out of the line and the lady kindly undid the hour of work it took to get everything into the suitcase by going through everything and turning things upside down. Once she had discovered that no, I wasn’t a terrorist and no, I wasn’t the next Corby or Leslie, she dumped everything back into the suitcase and zipped it up and put me at the front of the line to check in. Whilst checking in, discovered that my suitcase zips weren’t shut properly so I had to buy a small padlock which is sure to be cut off and also that my suitcase was 6.something kilograms over the limit so I had to ay a fee of $35. If that wasn’t enough, as I went through customs, I had a lovely chat with the immigration officer who seemed to think that my passport was “held in Adelaide” despite the fact that I had handed it to her and that she was holding it. A phone call soon sorted the problem out that some dipshit in Adelaide didn’t change the status of my passport when it was lost from my Europe trip. Any whos, that my story so far, I’m currently sitting in front of Gate 6 in the international Terminal of Melbourne Airport and its 955am AEST and 925am in Adelaide. Hopefully a smoother run for me in America but I’m looking forward to what ever comes my way.
11:14am Adelaide Time Thursday 25th May 06
9:45pm Washington Dulles Wednesday 24th May 06
Well it’s been an interesting experience to say the least. The plane from Melbourne to Sydney was nice enough, getting off of the plane from Sydney to change planes to LA I was once again “randomly selected” to get my hand luggage checked for explosives… WOO HOO…. I really must look like a terrorist! The flight from Sydney to LA was delayed and we arrived in LA at 10:30am Local time and I discovered that my plane for NY left at 11:30 and boarded at 11am. Needless to say, I missed the flight to NY, hence me sitting in the Washington Dulles Airport. Anyways, straight out of customs, they handed me a different boarding pass t get to Washington and I jumped straight on the plane at 1145am and the plane left LA at 1235pm. LA was weird… the first thing I noticed was that there was minimal tree-age and it REALLY flat and dessert like, but in the distance there are these huge hills…the second thing I noticed was the SMOG! There is this thin layer of smog across the sky’s of America… its really gross to be honest. Anyways the flight from LA to Washington was a pain on the buttocks to be honest… the guy sitting next to me was this creepy old dude who insisted on telling me about his life experiences and “risqué” jokes as he put it… basically they were just gross jokes which no sane person would tell an 18 year old girl from the other side of the world. Anywhos, I spent the 5 hour flight leaning against the window with my sunglasses on, avoiding all possibilities of engaging in conversation with the man and as a result, my back hurts. Once I had arrived in Wash, I caught a shuttle to gate A5, which is where I am now, awaiting my delayed plane to NY… I rang Arno (camp director) and he seemed to find it pretty amusing that his ‘driver’ had to wait another 3-4hours or something ridiculous to drive me back to the farm which will be an extra 3 hours. Gee-Whiz. I also rang home and left a message and then rang mum at work and left a message there so now I cant contact Australia anymore because my free minutes have been used up and I don’t know how to get more on the phone card! Everything is so stereotypical here, I just had a Twix bar and I’m drinking a coke as I type. As I look around, there are many-a fat person sitting down… there is a pizza place about 50m from where I am sitting who sell ‘slices’ of pizza for about $2.60 American dollars, but the slice is literally quarter of a large pizza… I was going to get some but when I saw the size of the pieces… I didn’t bother. I also bought some starburst, which I was disappointed with because they don’t taste any different. Nor did the coke. But my point I was going to make about the starburst was that it was less than $1 American! Ok, so I’ve been travelling for more than 24 hours, I think I’m going insane, to the point where I’m finding the price of starburst exciting. I cant wait to reach a bed tonight… but hat wont be til about 1am… never mind, anyways, I think they are about to tell s something about boarding the delayed plane so I’m guna put this laptop away so I’m all good to go when the time comes. I’m impressed with the laptop business, its very much the convenient, and not hard at all and I seem to fit in with the majority of people here! Ok, its 11:33am Adelaide time and about 10pm here, I’m guna cruise.
Ok, its approximately 6:30pm on Thursday the 25th of May… NEW YORK!
Finally made it to New York City (after the big kafuffle) and managed to find the ‘driver’ Constantine, who picked me up outside of the airport. I’m not sure how, but my bags beat me to NY, I’m not asking questions, I’m just thanking my lucky stars that my suitcase made it here. We got to the camp at about 3am after the long drive home and I fluffed around a bit until about 4am and then went to sleep for a few hours and got up at 6:30am, when I suddenly realised that I had no idea what to do once I was up. So I bummed around the room for an hour or so and got stressed and freshened up a bit and then as I was putting on my shoes a girl walked into the room and was quite shocked to see me awake! I was then invited to the “food trailer” which is a caravan loaded with staple foods like bread ad milk etc and about 20 boxes of cereal. Apparently, that’s what we live on until camp starts and then all the food is cooked for us. Yay… well, at leas ti will lose some weight! After breakfast today, I went down to the barn and helped bring the polo ponies into the stables and stood around a lot and then I got to ride a horse called Polly. We then spent the day washing and grooming most of the horses and at the end of the day, we put the polo ponies back out… FYI, there are 6 polo ponies, all almost identical to one another. At the moment, I have just finished “dinner” of a banana, 2 cookies and a tub of yoghurt…. Ok, guna cruise, time for a shower!
Saturday 27 May 2006 12:15 AM NY
Just got to bed. The last two days have been so unbelieveably hectic. Have befriended all if the girls, they are all really cool. Friday morning I got to learn to ride the polo ponies, so I rode a horse called Primero, he is really relaxed. Also, whilst doing our daily routines around the barn, Arno ‘popped in’ to give us all donuts from dunkin donuts. All the food in the US is ten times as fatty as any of the food in Aust and it has ten times the sugar, I think even the sugar has ten times he sweetness here. They have a tub of peanut butter the size of a… well you cant really compare it to anything in Aust but its massive… maybe the equivalent of a 2L ice cream tub?? I don’t know, I will check tomoro. Anywhos, later that night, I was on my way back to the bedrooms with my banana and peanut butter bagel and ended up having to walk all the way over the other side of the farm with Marieke and Liz because they are scared of the dark and Liz lives on the other side of the farm, so I had to walk Marieke back, which was cool. Today, I rode Primero again in the morning and then I rode a horse called All Star, he is a bit of a skitz, but nice enough. Also, Patty, one of the girls has fallen really ill, she has a migraine so has gone home, hopefully back by tomoro. She is cool. Today we also completely re-mucked the stalls, it was a tough job but it needed to be done. After work, at 6pm, Brenna and I went to have dinner at a diner. It was really cool, it had Tips and everything and it felt like we had gone back to the TV show happy days! After that we went to an ice cream place and I had a frozen strawberry yoghurt in a cone… yuk! Oh well. In the diner, they have drinks, which you pay for but they do free refills so you only pay for one drink!! Its great! – kinda like a hungry jacks but diner style! There is a maccas here in Ellenville… must go to that soon. I’m starting to pick up wording and accents already… not a good sign, they say I have a really cool accent so im going to try and stay different. Apparently I’m the only Aussie going to be here all summer long… I think that there is going to be a NZ’er coming as well though, so it will be cool, I also understand that there are two more German chicks coming in a couple of weeks. So anyway, life on the farm is cool, my body is getting used to it, although I’m not quite sure if im over the jet lag thing yet I don’t seem to be slowing down. Ok it must be about 12:30am so I better get to sleep.. have to be up by 7am… it gets worse when camp starts! Ok, ciao for now.12:30am.
Sunday, 28 May 2006 10:45pm NY
Ok, today was a very non-productive day. In the morning, I rode two polo ponies and lead one whilst riding the first. It’s quite the workout, you have to work each horse for 40 minutes non stop. Once that was finished plus some of the regular muck out stuff, we went to lunch and then after lunch, I busted my arse puling hay bails off of a trailer and cleaned up the barn for the people who came for a pony ride! Basically the children are too young to attend the camp this summer, so the parents come and inspect the premises whist t he children sit on a pony and go around he barn a couple tomes each. We got a $10 tip each, which was really cool because that paid for our Chinese buffet dinner which we had at a place called “’sun’ china buffet” it was $9.99 each for the buffet plus whatever drink you wanted. Any Ways, that was our day. When we got back from dinner, we went to Lizzie’s place and checked our emails and then the internet crashed so we came back to the dorm and then watched an episode of season one ER and then went to bed. Ok, that’s it for now. I found out tonight that I get Wednesday off… NO idea what to do with that one but im sure opportunities will present themselves! 10:52 pm NY
Tuesday, 30th May 06 10:30pm NY
Just got into bed. Yesterday I rode the polo ponies and then spent the afternoon cleaning jumping cups and scrubbing them whilst talking to Brenna about Australian animals in comparison to America and Canada. As I was putting two of the horses out to the field, I buried my feet in mud and ended up walking out of my shoe and therefore got all of my shoe COVERED in sloshy mud and then my socks muddy as well due to the forward momentum out f my shoes… they are still drying today. After work we went to the 209 Diner for diner and I had a “pizzaburger’ which is basically a burger with melted cheese and pizza sauce on it. We then went to an ice-cream place and I had “panda paws” ice cream in a cup. It was really hot yesterday and I ended up sleeping in the other room (I have a room to myself at the moment). Today we worked the polo ponies, and then after lunch, I cleaned out the Tack room and moved a fridge with Brenna That pretty much took up my day. Dinner today was ‘vegetable beef’ soup out of a can followed by dry cereal (no milk) and a peanut butter and cereal sandwich. After an episode of ER, Marieke and I went to the food trailer for some tea and came up with the idea to walk to Liz’s house and scare her, but we made so much noise going into the house that she heard us giggling and wasn’t even surprised to see us! The weather had been really erratic as of late, this morning before lunch it got up to at least 36 degs Celsius but after lunch it was stormy and we have had thunder and lightning since then. I’m quite burnt at the moment as a result of not wearing sunscreen a couple of days ago, today I managed to get rid of the ridiculous glove tan I have sported over the last couple of days, by not putting any sunscreen on my wrists! Tomoro is my day off but because Patty has been sick for the last couple of days, Mareike’s day off has been pushed back to tomoro as well so we are heading into town together to look for things to do. Ok, I should go and get some sleep; I get a sleep-in in the morning! YAHHHHhhhhhooooooooo… 10:47pm NY.
Wednesday, 1 Jun. 06 10:15pm NY
Today was my day off, Marieke and I decided to sleep in til 9:30am, watched episodes of ER and then headed to the office to see if any of the senior staff were driving into town to see if we could get a lift. To our surprise and extreme luck, Gina, the main reception/shopping/everything lady drove us into the MAIN town, which is 45 mins away, and we spent the afternoon shopping. We then came back and the other girls had made spag bol so we ate that and then Marieke did a fashion parade with her new clothes that she bought. Then we decided to come up to the house to see if the Internet worked and clearly it does! So I’m not sitting on a couch, enjoying the fact that the blue tooth on my laptop works with the wireless Internet up here and about to go to bed… Today was a good day! Am missing home, but I’m having heaps of fun here. Anyways, time for me to cruise. Ciao! 10:20pm NY
I have officially arrived in Melbourne and been Travelling for approximately 3 hours. I have about 2 hours until my flight leaves for Los Angeles so I’m taking the time to relax… My trip so far has been interesting to say the least. After leaving Adelaide teary eyed, I flew to Melbourne (where I am right now) and I went to collect my baggage. After going the wrong way twice (I’m slowly learning that the “follow the crowd” theory doesn’t work 100% of the time), I was re-united with my beloved blue suitcase and made my way to the International departures section of the airport. As I was waiting in line to ‘check in’ I was pulled aside by a security lady who announced that I had been “randomly selected”…. As in, I was at the end of the line for a security check, so I was taken out of the line and the lady kindly undid the hour of work it took to get everything into the suitcase by going through everything and turning things upside down. Once she had discovered that no, I wasn’t a terrorist and no, I wasn’t the next Corby or Leslie, she dumped everything back into the suitcase and zipped it up and put me at the front of the line to check in. Whilst checking in, discovered that my suitcase zips weren’t shut properly so I had to buy a small padlock which is sure to be cut off and also that my suitcase was 6.something kilograms over the limit so I had to ay a fee of $35. If that wasn’t enough, as I went through customs, I had a lovely chat with the immigration officer who seemed to think that my passport was “held in Adelaide” despite the fact that I had handed it to her and that she was holding it. A phone call soon sorted the problem out that some dipshit in Adelaide didn’t change the status of my passport when it was lost from my Europe trip. Any whos, that my story so far, I’m currently sitting in front of Gate 6 in the international Terminal of Melbourne Airport and its 955am AEST and 925am in Adelaide. Hopefully a smoother run for me in America but I’m looking forward to what ever comes my way.
11:14am Adelaide Time Thursday 25th May 06
9:45pm Washington Dulles Wednesday 24th May 06
Well it’s been an interesting experience to say the least. The plane from Melbourne to Sydney was nice enough, getting off of the plane from Sydney to change planes to LA I was once again “randomly selected” to get my hand luggage checked for explosives… WOO HOO…. I really must look like a terrorist! The flight from Sydney to LA was delayed and we arrived in LA at 10:30am Local time and I discovered that my plane for NY left at 11:30 and boarded at 11am. Needless to say, I missed the flight to NY, hence me sitting in the Washington Dulles Airport. Anyways, straight out of customs, they handed me a different boarding pass t get to Washington and I jumped straight on the plane at 1145am and the plane left LA at 1235pm. LA was weird… the first thing I noticed was that there was minimal tree-age and it REALLY flat and dessert like, but in the distance there are these huge hills…the second thing I noticed was the SMOG! There is this thin layer of smog across the sky’s of America… its really gross to be honest. Anyways the flight from LA to Washington was a pain on the buttocks to be honest… the guy sitting next to me was this creepy old dude who insisted on telling me about his life experiences and “risqué” jokes as he put it… basically they were just gross jokes which no sane person would tell an 18 year old girl from the other side of the world. Anywhos, I spent the 5 hour flight leaning against the window with my sunglasses on, avoiding all possibilities of engaging in conversation with the man and as a result, my back hurts. Once I had arrived in Wash, I caught a shuttle to gate A5, which is where I am now, awaiting my delayed plane to NY… I rang Arno (camp director) and he seemed to find it pretty amusing that his ‘driver’ had to wait another 3-4hours or something ridiculous to drive me back to the farm which will be an extra 3 hours. Gee-Whiz. I also rang home and left a message and then rang mum at work and left a message there so now I cant contact Australia anymore because my free minutes have been used up and I don’t know how to get more on the phone card! Everything is so stereotypical here, I just had a Twix bar and I’m drinking a coke as I type. As I look around, there are many-a fat person sitting down… there is a pizza place about 50m from where I am sitting who sell ‘slices’ of pizza for about $2.60 American dollars, but the slice is literally quarter of a large pizza… I was going to get some but when I saw the size of the pieces… I didn’t bother. I also bought some starburst, which I was disappointed with because they don’t taste any different. Nor did the coke. But my point I was going to make about the starburst was that it was less than $1 American! Ok, so I’ve been travelling for more than 24 hours, I think I’m going insane, to the point where I’m finding the price of starburst exciting. I cant wait to reach a bed tonight… but hat wont be til about 1am… never mind, anyways, I think they are about to tell s something about boarding the delayed plane so I’m guna put this laptop away so I’m all good to go when the time comes. I’m impressed with the laptop business, its very much the convenient, and not hard at all and I seem to fit in with the majority of people here! Ok, its 11:33am Adelaide time and about 10pm here, I’m guna cruise.
Ok, its approximately 6:30pm on Thursday the 25th of May… NEW YORK!
Finally made it to New York City (after the big kafuffle) and managed to find the ‘driver’ Constantine, who picked me up outside of the airport. I’m not sure how, but my bags beat me to NY, I’m not asking questions, I’m just thanking my lucky stars that my suitcase made it here. We got to the camp at about 3am after the long drive home and I fluffed around a bit until about 4am and then went to sleep for a few hours and got up at 6:30am, when I suddenly realised that I had no idea what to do once I was up. So I bummed around the room for an hour or so and got stressed and freshened up a bit and then as I was putting on my shoes a girl walked into the room and was quite shocked to see me awake! I was then invited to the “food trailer” which is a caravan loaded with staple foods like bread ad milk etc and about 20 boxes of cereal. Apparently, that’s what we live on until camp starts and then all the food is cooked for us. Yay… well, at leas ti will lose some weight! After breakfast today, I went down to the barn and helped bring the polo ponies into the stables and stood around a lot and then I got to ride a horse called Polly. We then spent the day washing and grooming most of the horses and at the end of the day, we put the polo ponies back out… FYI, there are 6 polo ponies, all almost identical to one another. At the moment, I have just finished “dinner” of a banana, 2 cookies and a tub of yoghurt…. Ok, guna cruise, time for a shower!
Saturday 27 May 2006 12:15 AM NY
Just got to bed. The last two days have been so unbelieveably hectic. Have befriended all if the girls, they are all really cool. Friday morning I got to learn to ride the polo ponies, so I rode a horse called Primero, he is really relaxed. Also, whilst doing our daily routines around the barn, Arno ‘popped in’ to give us all donuts from dunkin donuts. All the food in the US is ten times as fatty as any of the food in Aust and it has ten times the sugar, I think even the sugar has ten times he sweetness here. They have a tub of peanut butter the size of a… well you cant really compare it to anything in Aust but its massive… maybe the equivalent of a 2L ice cream tub?? I don’t know, I will check tomoro. Anywhos, later that night, I was on my way back to the bedrooms with my banana and peanut butter bagel and ended up having to walk all the way over the other side of the farm with Marieke and Liz because they are scared of the dark and Liz lives on the other side of the farm, so I had to walk Marieke back, which was cool. Today, I rode Primero again in the morning and then I rode a horse called All Star, he is a bit of a skitz, but nice enough. Also, Patty, one of the girls has fallen really ill, she has a migraine so has gone home, hopefully back by tomoro. She is cool. Today we also completely re-mucked the stalls, it was a tough job but it needed to be done. After work, at 6pm, Brenna and I went to have dinner at a diner. It was really cool, it had Tips and everything and it felt like we had gone back to the TV show happy days! After that we went to an ice cream place and I had a frozen strawberry yoghurt in a cone… yuk! Oh well. In the diner, they have drinks, which you pay for but they do free refills so you only pay for one drink!! Its great! – kinda like a hungry jacks but diner style! There is a maccas here in Ellenville… must go to that soon. I’m starting to pick up wording and accents already… not a good sign, they say I have a really cool accent so im going to try and stay different. Apparently I’m the only Aussie going to be here all summer long… I think that there is going to be a NZ’er coming as well though, so it will be cool, I also understand that there are two more German chicks coming in a couple of weeks. So anyway, life on the farm is cool, my body is getting used to it, although I’m not quite sure if im over the jet lag thing yet I don’t seem to be slowing down. Ok it must be about 12:30am so I better get to sleep.. have to be up by 7am… it gets worse when camp starts! Ok, ciao for now.12:30am.
Sunday, 28 May 2006 10:45pm NY
Ok, today was a very non-productive day. In the morning, I rode two polo ponies and lead one whilst riding the first. It’s quite the workout, you have to work each horse for 40 minutes non stop. Once that was finished plus some of the regular muck out stuff, we went to lunch and then after lunch, I busted my arse puling hay bails off of a trailer and cleaned up the barn for the people who came for a pony ride! Basically the children are too young to attend the camp this summer, so the parents come and inspect the premises whist t he children sit on a pony and go around he barn a couple tomes each. We got a $10 tip each, which was really cool because that paid for our Chinese buffet dinner which we had at a place called “’sun’ china buffet” it was $9.99 each for the buffet plus whatever drink you wanted. Any Ways, that was our day. When we got back from dinner, we went to Lizzie’s place and checked our emails and then the internet crashed so we came back to the dorm and then watched an episode of season one ER and then went to bed. Ok, that’s it for now. I found out tonight that I get Wednesday off… NO idea what to do with that one but im sure opportunities will present themselves! 10:52 pm NY
Tuesday, 30th May 06 10:30pm NY
Just got into bed. Yesterday I rode the polo ponies and then spent the afternoon cleaning jumping cups and scrubbing them whilst talking to Brenna about Australian animals in comparison to America and Canada. As I was putting two of the horses out to the field, I buried my feet in mud and ended up walking out of my shoe and therefore got all of my shoe COVERED in sloshy mud and then my socks muddy as well due to the forward momentum out f my shoes… they are still drying today. After work we went to the 209 Diner for diner and I had a “pizzaburger’ which is basically a burger with melted cheese and pizza sauce on it. We then went to an ice-cream place and I had “panda paws” ice cream in a cup. It was really hot yesterday and I ended up sleeping in the other room (I have a room to myself at the moment). Today we worked the polo ponies, and then after lunch, I cleaned out the Tack room and moved a fridge with Brenna That pretty much took up my day. Dinner today was ‘vegetable beef’ soup out of a can followed by dry cereal (no milk) and a peanut butter and cereal sandwich. After an episode of ER, Marieke and I went to the food trailer for some tea and came up with the idea to walk to Liz’s house and scare her, but we made so much noise going into the house that she heard us giggling and wasn’t even surprised to see us! The weather had been really erratic as of late, this morning before lunch it got up to at least 36 degs Celsius but after lunch it was stormy and we have had thunder and lightning since then. I’m quite burnt at the moment as a result of not wearing sunscreen a couple of days ago, today I managed to get rid of the ridiculous glove tan I have sported over the last couple of days, by not putting any sunscreen on my wrists! Tomoro is my day off but because Patty has been sick for the last couple of days, Mareike’s day off has been pushed back to tomoro as well so we are heading into town together to look for things to do. Ok, I should go and get some sleep; I get a sleep-in in the morning! YAHHHHhhhhhooooooooo… 10:47pm NY.
Wednesday, 1 Jun. 06 10:15pm NY
Today was my day off, Marieke and I decided to sleep in til 9:30am, watched episodes of ER and then headed to the office to see if any of the senior staff were driving into town to see if we could get a lift. To our surprise and extreme luck, Gina, the main reception/shopping/everything lady drove us into the MAIN town, which is 45 mins away, and we spent the afternoon shopping. We then came back and the other girls had made spag bol so we ate that and then Marieke did a fashion parade with her new clothes that she bought. Then we decided to come up to the house to see if the Internet worked and clearly it does! So I’m not sitting on a couch, enjoying the fact that the blue tooth on my laptop works with the wireless Internet up here and about to go to bed… Today was a good day! Am missing home, but I’m having heaps of fun here. Anyways, time for me to cruise. Ciao! 10:20pm NY
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
