Amsterdammmmmm

So last I left off I was about to head to Amsterdam. I will admit that I am a wee bit behind, seeing as I have been to Amsterdam, and also Copenhagen, and am now starting the last two weeks of camp! Crazy, time has literally flown bye!

The train to Amsterdam was filled with excitement. Leah and I couldn’t even sleep on the train. Which was extremely crappy and crowded might I add, but somehow Leah and I ended up with a seat but no one else we traveled with did for at least an hour! Leah and I spent a good amount of time playing with Photobooth on my pad, which was quite entertaining but I doubt that the people around us thought so! They mostly just stared at us, which is quite common here. At one point our train just stopped for about 45 minutes and we had no idea what was going on. Thankfully a sweet old German woman who only spoke a bit of English told us that there were mechanical issues. So that being said, we missed our connecting train and were pretty worried about making it to Amsterdam because we were meeting some of our friends who are living in Paderborn. Luckily we were all around people who were heading to the same spot, so we pretty much just followed them and ended up getting there just fine. Our hotel was about 3km from the train station which isn’t really that bad, but at 1230 at night it’s a bit confusing. Although, we did finally find it! But the issue then arose that we were fitting 10 people into our room and at night the front door had to be opened by the receptionist when coming in and leaving the hotel. So Leah and I found a stairwell and prayed that the alarm wouldn’t go off so we could sneak all of the people in. It worked out quite well actually, and no alarms! Our hotel ending up being in the middle of everything the street below our hotel was just filled with vendors and people. So we decided to go out and see what was going on, just to scope things out. Also, it was gay pride weekend so there were very few straight people around! Everyone we met was super nice, but we were pretty tired. Somehow, and I’m not quite sure how I ended up in the bed, I fully expected to be sleeping on the floor. But you know, it was my birthday weekend and I deserved it! The next day some people got up and went to the Anne Frank house, I probably should have but I wanted to sleep! A few of us walked around and then went and found a good spot on the canal for the parade. We asked someone where a good spot was and he said “Anywhere, in two hours you will not recognize this street” Basically, there were going to be a ton of people all around us. And let me tell you there were! It was really fun though. Some people wanted to go back and sleep, and I was not one of those. I figure I will only be in Amsterdam once and I am not about to waste that time sleeping in a hotel room. So I went on an adventure with Griffin, and found a whole other part of the city where the parade was going on but with at least twice as many people at is as the place before. And I made friends with everyone around us, it was a blast and I am so glad that I didn’t go take a nap! After that we got some food and then decided to go out on the town and meet people. It was a lot of fun, and I wore a crown because it was my birthday (or at least close enough). The gay guys loved me and my crown, one guy told me a I was a very pretty princess! It was a lot of fun, the night didn’t end that great but meh, oh well. I passed out, so tired, so little sleep! The next morning was odd, almost everyone just packed up there stuff and left the room and I had no idea what was going on. I was honestly a little bummed it was my birthday and everyone just left to go on a canal tour which is what I had said that I wanted to do the entire weekend. Erika and I eventually ended up meeting up with them, not on purpose, in a little coffee shop down the road. We went on a canal tour, it was really fun and interesting in the beginning but by the end, ever one was so ready for bed, no one could keep their eyes open! After that we pretty much got food and the hopped on a train back to Germany. Where everyone proceeded to pass out for a good amount of the trip!

Berlin and week number 2

The first week of camp went quite well, probably the easiest first week of camp that I have ever experienced! The kids are pretty darn cute, and their accents are undeniably cute, there are always those children who don't behave but that is to be expected. We also discovered a Mama hedgehog last week as well that lives underneath one of door ways. Unfortunately the children all poke it with a stick so we are trying very hard to keep them away from there. And then this week we came back to no hedgehog but babies that were in there with her, and... they were all dead! :( we were going to get them out after camp one day but couldn't because the mother had came back so they started to smell. But later this week we were able to pull them out by thursday but the kids had discovered them by then and were poking them with a stick which was not good. Of course I had to be the one to get them out, there was only a little gagging and coughing involved but the job was done! We also had a site visit from the head of Camp Adventure in Germany this week, she was from Iowa shocker shocker. She was very nice and very impressed with our camp which made me feel good! There have been no complaints or anything which is fantastic, I pretty much have the best staff in the world! and we all get along so well which makes everything better

Last weekend I went to Berlin with my friend Leah, and met up with two other people from Oregon and some German boys that Leah knew from having them stay with her as exchange students. Thank goodness we had them, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to travel around or known where our hostel was! Our hostel was quite nice, it was called the Sunflower and only costed us 30 Euro for the entire weekend. All of the floors were themed as well and we were are the Seseme Street floor it was pretty cool! After we got settled in our hostel we went and walked around the neighborhood. And it was pooring down rain the entire weekend so we were soaked head to toe by the time we went back. At that point I just started jumping in puddles, weird right? Me jump in puddles?! NEVER! Leah was not too amused with me but we were drenched anyways, i am very glad that I took my raincoat with me as well! On Saturday some of the Oregon people went on a bike tour around Berlin, Leah and I didn't go. We just had the Germans show us around which was pretty fun. We saw a lot of stuff, and went to Check point charlie, which is hardly anything anymore. Nor did I see any bits of the wall, but apparentely I walked right past it! My bad. We also went to Techels house which is a big old buidling that was taken over by artists and is graffitied top to bottom, there probably isn't an inch of the place that isn't painted. It was pretty phenomenal, and it is about 6 stories high! Unfortunately they are trying to tear down the building because the people who own the building don't like it, and i'm sure that they don't really like that artists just took over the building without asking. But it is such a cool monuement/place to see in Berlin! Leah and I signed the petition to save it! Sunday we were on our own without the Germans, they had to head home so were did tourists and took tourist photos. It was pretty fun! Then we met up with the rest of the people at our site and headed back to Hohne.

This week has been a blast though, we are finally making more friends on base. And the people that we eat with have really started to warm up to us. There is a colonel that eats in our Mess every night and he is hillarious! Everyone was super nervous around him the first night he came to the meal, that was until he started using his fingers to eat then everyone relaxed a bit. Last night (thursday) it was the Colonel's idea to have a dress up party for dinner so everyone dressed up as Super Heroes. we weren't sure at first if they were just playing a joke on us or not but they weren't thank goodness! I made the most awesome ninja turtle costume for me and two other girls! I was Raph, they were awesome! Oh did I say they were awesome? NO? well they were! It was a blast though, the colonel was dressed as iron man, there was zoro, spiderman, super woman, cat women, the pink panther (not super hero, but still funny), silver surfer, and Zena warrior princess!

Well we are heading to Amsterdam today for Pride weekend and it should be a ton of fun, a lot of people from Oregon are all meeting there. We also have one hotel room for 9 people so I don't think that I will be getting much sleep this weekend! But hey, I can sleep when I'm dead! Also it's my birthday on Sunday :) almost the big ol' 22! whoooooo I'll probably buy myself something real nice :)

Cheers!

Zebra, salt spa, first day of camp

So, so much has happened since the last time I wrote! Since then we have been getting to know the base and the sites we will be working at. It is so amazing the schools that are here, they really spare no expense for these kids. There is a smart board, projector, and a million resources in every room! And the people here are just so much laid back, I have keys to so many different things it’s crazy! The just gave me a key to the Youth Club down the block so that we can use the internet. And I also have keys and door codes to almost everything at the School we are working at. On Friday my staff and I went and set up the center we are working at and it looks fantastic! It’s all space themed out!

Our mess hall is super nice, but we have to dress up every single night. And eating there is quite awkward at times because everyone is way higher up in the army and we are just guests. But we have slowly started making friends with some of them. We have hung out with them twice so far and went to their cricket game on Saturday. Can I just say, that guys in the US need to take some lessons from these guys, chivalry can survive! Not even like being sweet, just being gentlemen, opening the door, and just all around nice. Our dining meals are so nice too, aside from the awkardness they are quite good. The other night I tried Zebra for the first time, its interesting, and quite sweet.

On Saturday we went to a very nice Saturday market in Celle, which is about 25 minutes from out camp. After that we just came back to base and hung out. I have never been to a cricket game, and wow, SO BORING. We really had no idea what was going on and the guy’s we went to watch were super awkward so we just sat there and talked amongst ourselves. We didn’t really do much that evening, we just hung out in my room and got to know each other better. On Saturday we slept in a bit because we figured it would be our last night basically until the end of summer to sleep in. Then we went to Bergen-Belson, the concentration camp, which is literally 500m down the road. It was an amazing exhibit. And absolutely gorgeous, it is very hard to believe that something so terrible and so many people died there and yet the place is absolutely beautiful. There are just mass graves all over that have written on them the amount of people buried there, the numbers ranged from 1000 to 5000 bodies in graves. And they were all over. After that we had a pretty quiet car ride to Saultau which a town not too far away from our camp. And I am glad I was paying attention to the road signs because everyone that we had talked to sounded like they were saying the “salt house” not saultau the town. So we could have been really lost for a very long time. Any time we go anywhere we seriously stick out like a sore thumb, none of us know where to go or how much things really cost, someone finally took pity on us and helped us out. It was so nice there though, the pool we were in was all salt water and it was very warm. But for one, I have never seen so many speedos in my life, and two everyone was coupled up. We got stared at a lot. After that we had a good German meal then headed back to camp for the evening.

First day of camp was hectic but when isn’t the first day of camp?! But probably the easiest first day that I have ever had that’s for sure. Theses kids are the cutest thing I have ever seen, there accents are to die for! And they are so polite! I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer holds. And they call my the Head teacher which is pretty darn cute! This weekend I am heading to Berlin, which is only about a three hour train ride! I’m pretty excited to experience some real Germany! Wooooo!

Also I will post pictures as soon as I upload them!

First few days in Germany

So technically this post is a few days old and I will update it in the very near future! I just now am getting a normal internet so I will be able to post a lot more than I have been!

What a crazy three days of travel this has been! I started out my adventure to Germany with a group of about 10 or so people from Oregon. First we flew to Chicago, and watched Jane Eyre, most boring movie of my life! But I couldn’t stop watching.. From Chi town we flew to Warsaw Poland, and I’m not sure why, but every flight that we had I was 10-15 rows ahead of the group so I was always by myself. I was so close to having an entire row to my self, and I totally thought I was going to but just as the plane was about to take off they moved a women into my row! I was so mad! On this flight I was completely surrounded by old Polish couples who did not speak English really at all. And not one, not two, but three crying babies! I did not get any sleep maybe three hours. No bueno. We had a two-hour lay over in Poland and I had to go through security again, third time through for the trip! Then we flew to Duesseldorf where we met my PC (project coordinator) and met up with the rest of the counselors. From there we all went to the Rhinedalen base and stayed the night. And can I just say, they put some weird stuff on sandwiches here, I have no idea what I ate but I was so tired and hungry at that point it did not even matter!

The next morning we met for breakfast and then went and sung some camp songs for some high ranked people on the base. I also got to meet the women I would be working with the most on base, Lynn, my base contact. After lunch I was given a car, a Mercedes benz! WOOOOOOOOOOO it’s pretty freaking sweet! It only had 248.2km on it when I got it, brand spanking new! Navigation too! We named it Large Marge. Okay… the truth is, it is an 9 person van, but it is the nicest 9 person van I have ever been in. I am okay driving a van if it is a benz lets be real! The Hohne people are the only ones who actually went to their base today (Tuesday) and that is only because we live so far away from everyone else. Our base is about 350 km from the Rhinedalen base. So I really got to see a lot of the German countryside today, I drove for four hours to get to our base! I got to drive on the Autobahn it was pretty sweet, and no, I did not drive slow. I drove very fast, about 110mpg approximately! IN LARGE MARGE! That thing moves right along! But everyone goes that fast, and I was not the slowest person on the road either!

Our Base is super nice, and our rooms are amazing! We all have our own room and bathroom and study area. Whoop Whoop I have yet to have a roommate with camp adventure! We all went into town with Lynn, the base contact, and went to dinner together. We went to a Mexican restaurant, which I think is very odd, I did not think that I would eat any Mexican food until I was back in the States. And it wasn’t very good. But it was fun to just sit and talk and not have to worry about traveling anymore!

I am super excited about the next week that is coming up, the people that we are working with are so laid back and helpful. Which is a complete 360 from the youth center staff that I worked with last year! Also my staff is pretty awesome, we all seem to get along really well, but I also need to remember we have been together for ehhhhhh three days now, that all could change!

But thus far, Germany is absolutely gorgeous! I think that this weekend we might be going to a salt water/spring/spa place and an amusement park. Not completely sure yet though. Should be a fun weekend!

It's been a while...

(Birthday dinner)

(At the bean)

(Bean)

(Being tourist on my birthday)

(Waiting at cheesecake factory)

(Cheesecake)

(Drench the Counselor)

(All of the girls for Jessica's Birthday dinner)

Sorry I haven't posted in so long, I don't have great internet in my BEQ and I'm pretty sure it got shut off for a while. After we move out they are tearing down the building and rebuilding a new one. Therefore, they do not repair anything and just shut things off with out telling us!

A lot has happened since my last post! My weeks have been very busy, and my kids are crazy. One weekend we took it easy and just went to the local mall, did a little shopping and watched a movie. All I have to say is go see Inception, it's amazing. Salt is good too, but Despicable me is THE BEST. I laughed the entire movie! Lets see.. Last week I went out to dinner and a group of us went to this nice Japanese restaurant. Grammy would be proud of me, I tried everything that was on my plate infront of me! Even sushi, I don't like sushi.

We went into the city weekend before last to go up Hancock tower and Sears tower at night. We caught a later train and headed into the city to do a little shopping. I got shoes, weird right? We walked around for a bit, but since we didn't know what was in the area we went to Cheesecake Factory because we knew where it was. Bad choice. We were below the Hancock tower and should have gone to the top while we were waiting for our table for two hours. So we were waiting for two hours, with nothing to do and it was freezing. My friend Lauren and I decided that we wanted Chicago sweatshirts anyways so we went in and bought them to keep ourselves warm! Once we finally got seated it took forever to get out food, and it wasn't good. It was awful actually. After dinner we tried to go up the Hancock tower but that ended up not working either. The sign says that they are open until 11, 365 days a year. It was 10:30 and the gates were locked. Fantastic. So we just decided to make our way back to our train and head back. We thought that there was an 11:35 train back to base. We ended up running to make sure we caught the train, once we got inside we found out that the 11:35 train doesn't exist and the next train wasn't until 12:35. Awesome. So we sat, with mostly sailors, and waited for the train. There was a good mix of people to just sit and watch, the Bon Jovi concert was that night too so those fans were waiting for the train as well. Late night on the train equals amazing conversations to listen to. The man sitting in front of me takes off his shoes and socks and just starts pulling 100 dollar bills out of them. WEIRD! I asked him if I could have some but he didn't think I was too funny..

The next week of work was the easiest week that I've had. The most kids I had all week was 7, and they were my better behaved kids. Why can't every week be like that? I had energy to do things after work. Work was fun!

For my birthday we headed into the city to do some more touristy things! We went to the bean, which was super fun. Did some shopping, I'm really good at shopping. I found a Rock Bottom Brewery so everyone went there and had dinner there! SO good. :) good choice Kelsey.

This week of work has been a complete 360 from last week. My kids are all back, and they have been awful. I don't know what it is but I think the entire camp forgot how to act at camp over the weekend! Not only has it been a stressful week but my favorite girl left me :( She went back to Louisiana to her mom. I really didn't want her to go, I'm going to miss her so much. And the hard thing about kids leaving is that I will never see these kids again. I wont be back here next summer.. I don't want to leave these kids yet! This weeks field trip was easily the worst field trip that we have had. We went to the Botanical gardens, and it was hot. Uncomfortable hot. Almost everyone one of my kids had a meltdown. Screaming, crying, throwing themselves on the ground kind of meltdown. The heat did not help anything, my kids were a mess. I finally just started pouring water on their heads to help cool them down. By the end of the day I wanted to have my own meltdown and cry too!

Today, we are doing soak the counselor which is fun. And way better than cream the counselor because I don't have to smell curdling whipped cream! and the kids love it! This weekend we hare heading to six flags again. We are going to spend one last day at the beach too! It's weird that this is my last weekend here with camp. Next week is going to be really hard for everyone and I can't say that I'm looking forward to saying good bye. I am excited to see my family though. After this week I am pretty homesick!

This week was great!

This week has been so much fun, I finally feel like I am connecting with people. I have met some pretty great people since being here. On tuesday night I was invited by my supervisor to go to a free local concert at a wildlife reserve thing. It was a blast! The band played Jazz, and all of the people there were son nice! We went and got some dinner to eat there and enjoyed ourselves! This week I have also gotten to know some of my kids pretty well. It's kind of amazing some of the stories that kids tell me about their home lives. Some stories I've heard and witnessed some things that just break your heart! For our field trip on thursday we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. It is a pretty cool zoo and it's free to the public, they have cool brick buildings that have large exhibits in them. Being with about 30 kids in our group it was hard to move through the zoo so we only got to see a few exhibits. It rained a little while we were there so we brought trash bags for the kids to use as ponchos, I have pictures of my kids with trash bags on, it's pretty funny! And after all the work to get the garbage bags on, it didn't even rain for 5 minutes. Awesome. And let me tell you, it was HOT oh man it was pretty miserable. I was hot, the kids were hot, and it was 98% humidity! The bus ride home may have been the worst part. I was in the back of the bus and it was hot, sitting in traffic, and hitting bumps started to make me sick. I don't usually get car sick but I totally did while I was on that bus!

This weekend has been pretty low key. Friday night we hung out with some sailors and BBQed. Saturday we went to Gurnee Mills and went and watched Inception. I highly recommend that move! It was amazing! then we did a little shopping, I bought a case for my phone! Ha surprise surprise! I think today we are going to go to the beach with some sailors and play some volleyball.

This should be an interesting week, my friend Jessica and I were in charge of planning all of this weeks activities. I'm kind of nervous, and I hope that this week goes well!

(Morgan me and Jessica)

(Concert Venue)

(sunset reflection on the lake)

What a weekend!

I must say this has been one of the most fun weekends I have had in a long time! Saturday Jessica and I took the train into Chicago to do a little touring on our own. It's quite convenient, the station is just out themain entrance of the base. And the train is amazingly cheap here, Portland could learn athing or two! For a twoday, round trip pass, it was only sevendollars! It's five in Portland for a one day pass! The train was really nice, it had two levels and wonderful airconditioning! The train takes a little over an hour from base which isn't too bad and it's cheaper than paying for a cab! Once we got into the city we decided we wanted to go to Navy Pier, it was gorgeous. There was mix of eclectic shops, lots of touristy type things.It was extremely hot, and extremely humidso we took a break for a bit. After wandering around there for an hour or two we met upwith our director Morgan and headed to the Hancock building to meet a few other girls for dinner. We only got a little lost! We found the building and we also saw the filming for Transformers 3. No, I didn't see Shia. There was an insane crowd and I lost patience quickly and moved on. We at dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was FANTASTIC ohhh it was nice to not have a microwavable meal let me tell you! After dinner we shopped a little, I got a new top. Mom, I may be sending stuff home before I leave... A lot of stuff..But I have only bought my self one thing since I've been here that isn't food! Unfortunately we wandered a little too long and almost missed our train. We ran, people made fun of us, andI rolled my ankle! But we made the 9:30 train so that's all that matters!

This morning started bright and early, well like 8 so not that early.. Myself and five other girls caught a cab and were off to six flags. I love amusement parks! And this one has a water park too! BONUS! The downside to amusement parks is lines, I don't wait in line well, I get wayyy too bored! And one ridewe tired to go on we were the next to board and then it broke! Not even fair! I did all of that waiting for nothing! We spent a good amount of time in the water park and it's pretty amazing some of the swim suits that some people were wearing1! I can't even begin to describe some of the outfits I saw today!

(My 16 dollar lunch)

Tonight at our meeting my supervisor Morgan showed us a pretty amazing video to help remind us why we are doing this program. It's for these kids, they are amazing. I have only been here a week and amfalling more and more in love with them. They have such big hearts. I am so thankful that I am able to be apart of this program. Please watch!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ervaMPt4Ha0