Diary of a camp counsellor

Ready and waiting

2011-04-28T13:36:00.001+01:00

Last time I talked to you, I'd just come back from my visa appointment. I got my passport back a few days after that, and I've done a test pack to see how much space I'll have in my bag. I've sorted my transport from New York to the bus station near camp, and emailed my director to let her know my arrival information.

So basically, I'm all ready and waiting now! I'm doing my exams at the moment, with my last one next week, but it's very hard to focus on revision when another one of my friends from camp starts work or heads to America every few days. A couple of girls are traveling for a week or two before hand, and starting the same time as me, and they've flown out now, and one or two people who live locally have moved on to camp. I can't wait to see these people again, and hang out with them, and I'm so impatient to be back!

Next Friday is my last exam, then in the evening I'm getting a sleeper train to London, then Saturday morning I'm getting on the flight! It gives me a couple of days to recover from jet lag and just hang out at camp before my contract starts.

I'm going to do one more post before I fly, about packing, so until then, have fun!

~Ailsa

Visa approved!

2011-04-14T12:14:00.002+01:00

I had my visa interview yesterday, and, thankfully, it was approved! Yay! Here's my thoughts:

First vlog for the summer

2011-03-26T21:18:00.002Z

Here is an introduction video-log for the summer! :) I'm hopping to post these all through the summer.

Restarting for summer '11!

2011-03-22T19:17:00.002Z

Well, hello there!

I'm kicking this blog back into action for the summer. For those who don't know, last year I went to Camp Ockanickon/Matollionequay in New Jersey, where I was working as a cabin counsellor and lifeguard/swimming teacher. It was amazing, I met some great people, and I'm excited to say that I'm going back for another summer. I'm going to try and post here about once a week, if not more often, and hopefully get some vlogs up too.

My next couple of posts are going to be about getting ready for camp, all the things that need sorting out, etc, and then once we get to the end of May, I'll be flying over there, so I'll be posting live from camp!

Hope you like reading :)

Catching up

2010-02-19T10:01:00.004Z

So, I've been pretty rubbish at posting. I'm sorry. I've got two more delayed-posts that I want to share, to do with some very exciting summer-camp related stuff, and I hope I can get them up later today (it's my day off, so I should have time). I'll do them back-to-back, then we're fully caught up.

Anyway, I wanted to do a 'typical day' for my first Days in the Life post, but I realised I'm never going to have such a thing, so I should just get on and write about what I've got, and you'll get the idea of what it's supposedto be like as we go.

10:00 - wake up for breakfast, having enjoyed a lie in because I don't have a morning shift today. Eat said breakfasst with other staff at the far end of the restaurant, while speculating about which bits of mountain will be busy today, and will it be worth going out or not.

11:30 - start work. Set tables, feed some people soup, hoover dinning room & bar/lounge area, mop bar/lounge area, polish window sills and other things, wash some glasses, refill salt & pepper shakers, polish cutlery. Believe it or not, this takes two and a half hours.

2:30 - finish work. Sit in staff lounge with friends and catch up on emails & the blogsphere while we watch something strange on tv.

3:00 - tidy room a bit more, so that roommate doesn't start tearing her hair out. (Not that roommate would actually do this. She's too nice to say anything about my messy-ness, but I am trying to tidy up and then keep it tidy.) Head across the village to the post office. Discover that it costs extortionate amounts of money to send a small package to my brother, but pay for it anyway.

4:00 - start work again. Iron napkins for evening service, clean toilets, set up tables and bain-maries for kids/staff tea. Feed children, then eat dinner with fellow staff, where we complain about guests, children in the hotel, and work in general.

6:15 - help tonight's waitresses set tables, then go back down to the cold little ironing room to count the clean sheets & towels that the laundrette have sent back. Spend a lot of time going up and down stairs to put things in their cupboards once they've been counted.

8:00 - continue to count laundry as I watch finishing time glide gracefully past. Finally finish with laundry, and go to mop the set of stairs to the staff area & customer toilet that always seem to get filthy. Alter the housekeeping sheet for tomorrow morning so that morning housekeeper will know which rooms need changing over.

9:07 - finally finish work, come down to staff lounge & discover that internet is not working. Decide to watch CSI instead, because I got Season 2 part 2 in the post today.

9:20 - disturbed from watching by roommate, who is currently waitressing upstairs, and has come to ask me to clean up sick from beside reception as all waitressing staff are busy at the moment. Clean up, on the condition that brownies are offered later, but not actually expecting any brownies to be forthcoming.

9:30 - sit down and watch the rest of the episode, plus another one, undisturbed. Discover internet is now working, so spend a while looking at bits and pieces, and talking to the ex.

12:00 - decide that I'm not really interested in going out tonight after all, and therefore bed might be a good thing. Here endeth the day.

Day Four

2010-02-14T18:50:00.000Z

Day Four: Sunday 14th December

Today, we tidied rooms, re-did beds, moved furniture, cleaned up, mopped floors, I hemmed a curtain, sorted laundry, and put up some Christmas decorations. Along with miscellaneous other things that I’ve managed to forget about already. And we got our equipment!! Great!! :-) We went down to the shop a couple at the time, had a nice chat with the couple of guys in the ski shop, and I came away with a pair of blue boots & blue poles, and some red(ish), slightly battered Salomon skis. I’m happy. We’ll see how it goes when I’m actually using them. It feels very real now we’ve got the stuff. Really can’t wait to get to the slopes.

I love these people I’m working with - Sam, Dan, Nick - they’re brilliant, so nice.

There were frustrating bits today, yes, but I don’t really want to write about them. It was a nice day. I think we’ll keep it short and sweet today. It was busy, it was nice. And, as a bonus, we found out this evening that the guests coming tomorrow have cancelled. So, lots of freedom until Friday! Get some of that skiing in :-)

Day Three at Hotel Christiania

2010-02-12T21:48:00.001Z

Day 3 - Saturday, 12th December

Again, a busy day. I think today might be worse than yesterday, but it’s hard to tell. All the jobs blend together into the days. Breakfast was at 8, so I was up at 7 to make sure I got in the shower. We have 8 people on this corridor, and one shower between us. There’s a second shower down here, but on the other corridor, with two more people. 2 showers between 10 people is a bit... tricky. It wasn’t too bad this morning, but I’m not looking forward to when we’re all out skiing in the day, getting all icky, then fighting over the showers before/after the evening shift.
Jobs done today include... sorting the ironing/housekeeping cupboard, putting things in the wash (& taking them out again... and putting things in the tumble dryer), stock taking in the housekeeping cupboard, making all the beds, putting goodie baskets in all the rooms, making the tumble dryer leak & then fixing it again, moving sheets & towels into cupboards and other rooms, polishing stuff in the tv room, and a lot of other little things that I’ve forgotten about.
Three course meal tonight. We had the adventure of fondu, which included almost setting the table and two people on fire when Gracie tried to blow out a burner. There was a tart thing for pudding that was lovely.
Oh, and the most important thing! It snowed today!! So exciting. The mountain had been looking like it does at the end of the season, but now the runs are all white. They’ve got the snow cannons on this evening to boost it, too. The village looks so beautiful, so different with just a little bit of snow on it. All the roofs and walls & window sills are topped with white. It’s so exciting!
We’ve got tomorrow afternoon off, so I think some sledging might be on the cards at some point.
Just been out to Bar Bush this evening, for a wee while, but I kept yawning, knew I should come back if I wanted to get up at a sensible time tomorrow. It was so funny, though (in an ouch kind of way) - there are several steps (at least ten) going down from the front door of the hotel, and about half of them are wooden. Just as we were leaving the hotel, there was this ‘thump!’ and Sam had slipped off the first wooden one and landed on the ground. So funny. Not surprisingly, he went back in to change his shoes after that.

This is quite a short post so far, so before we get any further with this diary thing, I’m going to do some names. Allow me to introduce the staring characters in this performance.

First, there’s me (Ailsa), your charming, if slightly random, narrator.
Anna, my roommate & fellow housekeeper/waitress.
Kayleigh, another housekeeper/waitress, who’s just a little bit older than us (nearly 20).
Gracie - 20 - really nice, one of the ones in charge.
Neil, head chef, Kayleigh’s boyfriend.
Dan, works in the kitchen, crazy hair & a really nice person.
Chris - an aussie, another kitchen person.
Nathan - second chef.
Sam, one of the barmen
Nick, the other bar man
Derek - a bit older than us, another manager person.

Day Two: Friday 11th December

2010-01-22T21:13:00.001Z

So, first day that I’ve put the computer on, because we’ve just moved into our ‘real’ rooms - we were staying in guest bedrooms before because not everything was ready down here. I say down - all the staff bedrooms are here in the basement. My bedroom window is at ground level. We have really nice windows, proper sized ones. So, the ground level is at a little above waist height if I stand up. No internet yet - it’s kind of working, but they’re having trouble with the wi-fi & passwords - so I’ll put this up when we get signal. Hopefully it’ll be later tonight because quite a few people are keen to get online, and a lot of the work that needs doing needs internet.

I guess I’d best talk about today then, huh? Breakfast was at 8 this morning, then it was on to work. First thing was for some of us to finish cleaning out ‘the boys corridor’ downstairs, and the rooms off it, so that we would be able to move all the staff downstairs this afternoon. That took a while, but we got there eventually. I can’t remember exactly what was next, because we’ve done all sorts of bits & pieces today just sorting things out so that it’s live-in-able now. Just before lunch I went up to the guest rooms to put skirts & mattress protectors on all the beds that were free - John (the owner) has some friends staying at the moment to help get things up and they are in guest rooms. It took absolutely ages, having to drag every mattress off the bed, then put it back on. To think that I’m going to be changing sheets etc on all the beds at once some days... not good. This afternoon has been more of the same - we eventually got everything done enough to move ourselves in, and when there are pauses where we don’t have jobs, then we’ve been unpacking & making our beds.

Another helper is being picked up from the airport this evening, so we don’t get dinner until 9 tonight! I was going to go out with people this evening, because it’s a Friday, so there should be more people in the bar to find to talk to, but if dinner’s that late, then I think I’ll just go to bed afterwards. Wait and see. Going to go have a wander around the town now, maybe find something to munch on if dinner’s not for another three hours. Two scones, while nice, do not tide you over for four hours.

*continued later*

All unpacked now, everything’s good. Dinner was really good, there was a choice of salmon or red mullet, so I tried the mullet because I haven’t had it before. It was nice, but next time I’ll go for salmon. I worked on my wine drinking again - had white, and I liked it, managed a whole glass. And we had pudding for the first time. Sorry, desert. Crepes, but they put marmalade on for some reason, so although the crepe itself was nice, it was a bit weird.

After dinner, we chatted for a while inside, then I went out with a bunch of the guys and Anna to the bar up the road - Bar Bush. Hardly anyone there, and they left just after we arrived, despite it being a Friday night, so we had the place to ourselves. Continuing with the day of firsts & trying things, I had a sip of Anna’s beer - it was disgusting. I’m thinking about having a half glass of cider next time, if they do cider, but I’m not sure what I’ll do if I can’t drink more than a few sips. It’s the kind of thing I need to build up slowly like the wine, so maybe I’ll stick to stealing sips of it - usually it’s Stewart I steal cider from, I don’t know what I’ll do now, no handy boyfriend to share a drink with. You can’t really drink out of other people’s glasses when you’ve only known them for a few days.

The bar was fun, despite it being just us. Some of the guys played table football, and it was funny to watch, and I sat for a bit with Anna, Dan & Nick just chatting. Then we decided to head down to the Zebra bar, to see what it was like, as the barmen had said it was licensed till 5am - we thought it would be interesting to check it out. Just as we were leaving, though, they called us back to give us shots. I’ve not encountered this practice before, but then I haven’t been in many bars so don’t really have anything to compare it to. They were giving us toffee vodka. I said no thanks, of course, but some coaxing and a call of “We’re seasonnaires now!” made me decide, why not? I only had a tiny sip though, nearly spat it out. I thought it tasted disgusting, but as we got outside I could taste the toffee, and it was really good! I think next time I’ll try for at least half. Or maybe do it properly. Not sure you can count it as shots if you don’t down it in one go. An interesting experience. Sam saw me put a half full glass back though, so he was saying, “Oh, I think we have to have words, Ailsa, (tutting noises).” Heh. It’s fun, the way everyone really gets on well with each other. It’s nice. And it’s like the guys all take care of us, always throwing conversation towards us if it looks like we’re being quiet, and just checking we’re ok. Like I said, it’s nice.

So, eventually made it to the Zebra bar, which was absolutely heaving. It was like a sauna in there. It was there opening night, so they were doing free beer, which the guys liked, but I left them to it. It was a brilliant evening though, I hope everyone can get on this way for the rest of the season.

I'm alive!

2010-01-22T16:23:00.001Z

I've been keeping a sort-of diary of what's been going on, although I haven't written anything new for a couple of weeks now - and too much has happened in those weeks to try and catch up now. So, what I'm going to do is post the stuff I do have over the next few days, and then get into the habit of writing straight to the blog. I'm going to aim to update it every two days, maybe even every day. I hope you enjoy reading about the life of a seasonnaire!

A discussion on hats

2009-12-01T15:01:00.003Z

A hat, of course, is a vital thing to have with you anywhere snowy. I've managed to collect several hats over the years, and after whittling them down earlier this year, I'm left with 6 possibilities to take with me.

Bottom left, alas, has been with me for a long time, and is a bit thin. Top right will probably come. The jester hat, while nice and warm, might look a little silly. I haven't quite decided if I mind or not. The stripy one is reversible, so you get 2 hats in the space of one, but it doesn't cover my ears so well. The purple one at the top is made of fleece, lovely and warm, maybe a little on the large side.

Does anyone have any opinions on hats? Which one(s) do you think I should take with me?

It's been a long time

2009-11-26T17:01:00.003Z

Right, hoping to get into regular posts now - I'm going to aim for at least once a week. So if I don't post, come and nag me ;)

The long delay...

2009-10-04T23:30:00.003+01:00

Sorry for the delay in posting, folks!

I've been busy... Here's a very quick v-log for you, and when I get back, then I'll share stories from this trip, and do about five more posts on my summer adventures - two for Budapest (maybe 3, not sure yet), one for Vienna, and 2 or 3 for Prague.

So, video (and I'm sorry about the wobbling and the crazy camera angles):

A Quick Post

2009-09-19T10:16:00.000+01:00

The Second & Third Full Days in Nice

Well, full day & 3/4 of a day. But still.

Second full day was much the same as the one before. I went shopping in the morning, just looking at everything. I went in FNAC, which we'd been told about in 5th year French lessons, and I enjoyed looking at the books in there. I spend a lot of time in bookshops when I'm at home, and I think it's really interesting to find my favourite books in a foreign language, and have a look at the differences. I also bought a Tryo CD (Tryo came up in our lessons several times this year. I like them.)

In the afternoon, I went swimming, and drifted about the old town a bit, and found some ice cream in interesting flavours - something very chocolatey , but I can't remember exactly what it was called.

For dinner, I went along to the harbour, and found pizza that was lovely. I got to use my french enough to order food and say "Do you have a toilet? Where is it?" *sigh* But it's a start, I guess.

The next day, I got up really early and had fresh strawberries for breakfast, sitting in the Justice Square in the Old Town. As soon as it opened, I went to the bus station to swap my ticket to one that left that afternoon. I would have loved to stay longer, but there was just nowhere to stay - not for what I was willing to pay, anyway. I took final drifts past my favourite places, and finally made it to the bus stop. Now for the next part of the adventure: Budapest.

Day 4: Nice

2009-09-16T19:06:00.005+01:00

21/7/09

I started my day by wandering down the hill through the town, just looking at everything, and made my way to the Old Town section. It was really interesting, all these narrow streets with tall buildings on either side, twisting back and forth. The range of ice cream some shops had was incredible - toblerone, cookies, every imaginable kind of fruit, tiramisu... all sorts! Another cool shop was one selling biscuits. It was a bit like a pick & mix, but for delicate little biscuits. They had samples of one - sweet biscuit, the kind I associate with Christmas biscuits, and in the centre was soft, chocolate-flavoured stuff.

I had lunch at a crowded place my guide book recommended, where I tried the local speciality - socca. It's cooked on a wide flat pan, then the server takes a spatula-like tool in one hand and a plate in the other, and slips the spatula underneath in fast chopping movements, scooping it onto the plate until it looks like there's a reasonable amount.

I went back to the hostel, shifted my stuff to an actual bed, in a spare room under the bar that the staff called 'The Dungeon'. Then I changed and caught the tram down to the beach and went swimming. Oh! Swimming in the Med!

Do you know how awesome it felt to go swimming in the sea, without a wetsuit (which is an achievement on its own), without getting cold?? It was amazing. So much fun.

I had another lovely dinner with the same group as the night before, but I went to bed reasonably early, to get caught up on some sleep. Another great day, but I'm not sure a day in Nice could be anything but great.

Oh, and this is socca:

Day 3: Paris/Nice

2009-09-04T21:24:00.000+01:00

19/7/09

Today has mostly been travelling. I really like Paris sometimes, but overall I'd decided I'd rather just move on, so yesterday I booked a flight down to the French coast, to the second place on my 'Places I must stop' list. I had great directions from a guy called Jerome to get to Orly airport. It was a bit of a hassle in the airport, but fine once I got on the plane. Landing in Nice was one of the scariest plane landings I've ever experienced, even though there was no turbulence the whole trip. You curve out over the sea, but then you just kept following the water by the coast, getting lower and lower. I kept thinking "I'll see the airport soon. Okay, I'll see it in a minute. Right, I really should be seeing the airport now." The airport is right on the coast, on a little peninsula.

I got myself on a shuttle bus, and the drive into town was lined by palm trees. Palm trees. Woah. In case you haven't guessed, this was pretty cool for little ol' me, who's never been on a warm foreign holiday before.

I found my way on & off a tram, and treked up a hill to the hostel. One thing I liked really quickly about Nice was how, if you take out a map and looked intently at street signs for a few seconds, someone will come up and ask where you are trying to get to.

The hostel is amazing - such a great atmosphere. There's a paved outside garden that curves around the building, down the steps, with benches and tables. I ordered the pizza they make there, which was great (& only €5.50) and joined some friendly people. Topaz & her mum are from Canada, and traveling around Europe before she went to Uni in the autumn. Sophie & Nada are from London, and have been traveling around France for several weeks.

Because I hadn't booked in advance, I was on the waiting list for the hostel, but they guarantee you a bed somewhere, and I ended up on a mattress in a 5 bed dorm, which was really nice, and worked fine for me.

If you go to Nice, I would definitely recommend that hostel: The Villa Saint Exupery. Such a great atmosphere, really friendly helpful staff, and an amazing view.

Daily life of a gap year student

2009-09-02T13:35:00.000+01:00

I need to find a better phrase than 'gap year student'. 'Person on a gap year' just doesn't flow. And I don't really like 'gapper'. But I'm taking a gap year between high school & uni, so 'student' seems ok, so I'll stick with that for now.

Anyway! The post.

1) Between Saturday and today, I have written absolutely nothing on my new story, which still needs a title, although I did spend some time thinking about what my other important characters want at the moment.

2) I've sent off loads and loads of applications & copies of my CV to various ski companies, and had a couple of e-mails back saying they are fully recruited. Two or three of those also said they would let me know if that changed, though, which is good, although I'm not confident about it happening.

3) I went to talk to the chef at the local museum cafe on Saturday, because someone had recommended me to him to be a waitress. He basically gave me the job without me having to say anything. Yippee! Employment! My first shift is on Monday. Only two shifts this week coming, but I hope it will pick up after that.

4) I'm going to a party tonight that a friend is having, just as a get-together before everyone goes off to uni/college in the next couple of weeks. It'll be really great to catch up with people that I haven't seen for most of the summer.

And finally, in the last few minutes as I was writing this, the post came, and I've got a letter from a ski company inviting me to an interview! Yay! (I'd been getting a little concerned that I might have to make a back-up plan.)

Travel Tales: Day Two - Paris

2009-08-30T12:30:00.000+01:00

(18/7/09)

Today was fantastic!! Breakfast in the hostel, then after stealing a couple of roles for lunch I set off up the hill for the Sacre Couer. One of my roommates had said he spent "practically the whole night up there", but I wasn't sure what to expect. When I got within sigt of it, I got what he meant. It was fantastic. Absolutely incredible. It's this huge, white church.But the details are incredible. It's so beautiful. I just couldn't stop taking photos. I'd come up at the back, and when I got round the front, the view was great. You can see right across Paris, and it's amazing. Turn around from the view, and behind the tourists are the doors, framed by several statues. Inside, there's a sudden contrast to the noise and sunshine: it's very peaceful and most of the light comes from candles. You walk all the way around, past stones describing the history of the church. When I got to the back, I suddenly looked up and noticed the painting on the ceiling. Amazing.

I stayed for the start of the service, listening to songs that echoed around, then went back into the sun, where I found a man making keyrings with pipecleaners. In a bag on the ground he had coils of pipe cleaner, and he would take two or 3 at once and wrap them around a frame to make a little dog. Moving on, I made my way down the hill & steps in front of the cathedral, carefully avoiding everyone trying to sell things to the tourists.

I wandered through the packed streets, just soaking up everything there was to see. If you visit, try to time it so that you're in this area for lunch - it's so much cheaper than in the middle of the city.

I ate my lunch on the garden outside the Louvre, then next up it was the Musée d'Orsay, which is free for 18 & unders (yay!). Again, this was great. It was so interesting to see the Monet paintings I'd looked at in book, in reality. There were also many I hadn't seen. And the sheer scale of some of the paintings was amazing. They were huge.

(just pretend that's the right way up, okay?)

Eventually, I had to call it a day and head back, but it really was an amazing day.

A slightly new way of doing things

2009-08-29T11:48:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking.

I want to make this interesting, and I want to be telling more of a story. I want more 'me' in it. More of this Gap Year thing. Because it's not just about the traveling. There's more in between that. There's trying to find a job to pay for things, and the stories in that. There's how I'm trying to write a novel that I might one day be able to polish up enough to send out to agents. There's my friends who are all starting University & College, moving away places, while I'm sitting here working out how to fund the next adventure.

I think all of these things are important parts of the Gap Year experience, and I want to share them. Some things will stay on my personal blog. But here, on this one, I want to share more.

I'm going to keep up the posts about my Europe Trip, but I'm also going to start putting in what's going on now.

I hope someone out there enjoys it!

Day 0/1: Paris

2009-08-28T23:38:00.001+01:00

So! I will now start posting the diary entries I wrote while I was traveling. It just wasn't practical or sensible to post while I was away.

Day 0/1 London --> Paris
This was not what I imagined leaving London was going to be like. It's pouring with rain. Not just pouring, but bucketing down, and has been for over an hour. Accompanying the rain is lightening: lots of it. And this, too, does not seem to be passing. Never the less, we pass slowly through London, and I attempt to ignore my wet socks and damp clothes enough to get some sleep. It must have worked at least a little, because the next thing I know, we've reached what I assume is the boarding place for the Channel Tunnel train. People come on board to check our passports, and I notice some people get really interesting colours. I never knew that before. The train goes on and on, and makes me feel more than a little claustrophobic. The only way you can tell it's moving is the way the bus rocks around occasionally. On the other side, we stop at the boarder-thing, and then we are told to disembark, and we have to take our bags inside this glorified shed to be searched, and show our passports again. All this takes place in a mixture of french, hand signals, and the occasional english word thrown in to help you get the gist of the sentence. You may not be surprised that I fell asleep pretty quickly after that.

Large chunk removed where I snuffle about being homesick.
I trundled round some things in the morning, taking lots of photos

Notre Dame Cathedral

Buildings at the Palais de Justice

After struggling across the city with my rucksack, I paid what I think was a silly amount of money for a hostel, and went to sleep for a couple of hours. Very good plan, because I was much more cheerful later. I got off the underground near the Louvre, and wandered around taking lots of photos outside. Didn't go in, because there was only about an hour till it closed.

The Glass Pyramids outside one entrance to the Louvre

I wanted to make days 1 & 2 into the same post, but this is already pretty long, so I'll do Day 2 later, as there are lots of photos there.

Quick post...

2009-07-20T13:21:00.000+01:00

Hey everyone!
This is just a very quick post - I need to go and find somewhere to stay for tonight!

I ended up not staying long in Paris, because it just wasn't working for me. I'm now in Nice, which is beautiful. I haven't posted so far, because internet in Paris was extremely expensive. Here, the hostel I stayed in last night, it's free.
Unfortunatly I can't stay here again tonight, because they are full, but it's brilliant - such a wonderful atmosphere, so many great facilities.

So anyway, I'm going to find a hotel (I've got a list of cheap ones) and then go swimming! One of my aims while I'm here is to get my skin to go somewhere off-white, for a change. Maybe I can finally do it! *g*

Hope everyone is doing ok.