A great weekend ...

Saturday 10am through to Sunday 3pm is the time off that we get for a weekend. And this weekend we made the most of it

First off we had the duties of cleaning blah blah blah. At about 6 we all went out to dinner, Pizza. Then we came back to camp and dropped off the people who weren't joining us for the evening. In the end it was just 3 of us, Wave, Volley and I.

The fun began, as we were driving out of camp past one of the hundreds of grave yards which are around this area, and well there was this wrotten smell, so I said ... Well they must of buried a fresh one. It took a couple of seconds but afterward the car was in histerics.

Then off to Walkerton, to Rob's bar, where we walked in at 7:30pm and we were the only 3 in the bar. We stayed for two drinks and then decided to go look for somewhere else. Found a place which had a bit of atmosphere, but still there wasn't that many people there - stayed until 10pm and walked back to Rob's. Got there and started to play some pool. We were at the back of the bar and this guy came up to us looking for the exit ... now the exit is displayed with a brightly illiminated red sign, so I said to the guy in basically the same words were it was ... he took it well. Then about 30mins after, a waitress came up offering us more drinks, but also asked us why we were here and not in Hanover ... as there was a festival in town.

So in a cab we went, but first of all the bar owner was also catchinng a cab to town, so he joined us. And then, the cab driver said he had one more passenger ... Perry, and Wave piped up saying could we go to his door to get him and the cab driver said yeah sure, and Rob the Bar owner said if you do I will buy you all a beer. Incentive aside in we went and knocked on Perry's door and he laughed and off to Hanover we went. Singing camp songs all the way there ... I think we made the cabbies night.

In we went to the Queen's Bush Bar ... more than 3 people this time. And we ended up spending the night with Rob and Perry and are all welcome back at Rob's anytime. Now after a few more drinks and some dirty jokes and fun, we decided to move bars about 1am ... probably our mistake, as we went to one which was absolutley dead and then by the time we got back to the Queens it was shutting up. So we called our lift.

Piled in we went, and stopped at a Red and Wave saw a massive witches hat, which somehow got into the car all by itself. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Then off to Tim Hortons (the Canadian version of Starbucks, but cheaper and better). Inside we found 4 police officers, enjoying their coffee ... now by this stage it was about 2/3 in the morning and well Wave wanted a photo. She went up to them all innocent saying Hi, I'm from Australia, could we have a photo. By this stage I too joined in, and they were starting to joke around with us. Then I noticed, that one of the officers had a name tag on with only a number on it ... by this stage I thought I was safe to have a dig, so I said to the officer; Were your parents so mean that they only gave you a number instead of a name? The real cracker of it all is that he laughed and immediately went for his wallet, and turns out yup ... his name is a number, his surname was Twelves ... I kid you not.

By this stage they were warmed up to us, so Wave piped up and asked if they would handcuff us together. They obliged happily and were laughing along, so to thank them, Wave and I sung G'day G'day to them as a thank you.

The ride home from there was uneventful and we got our selves home and in bed by about 4. It was a great evening and we awoke at midday to start camp again in a mere 3 hours, how quickly time can fly when your having fun.

This week, has been going pretty great, things have been going along pretty well. Nutz had an incident where her hands became blue, and I said thats what you get when you play to hard with a smurf, there colour starts to come off. And today is wacky Wednesday and its pioneer week, so most of us has dressed up in Pioneer clothes and this is a photo of me typing this right now.

Biding time ... and a bizarre day.

So your at camp, you have a repair man on site, and are waiting to find out whats the damage?

What do you do to keep yourself occupied? Play on the net you say, meh already done it. Talk on msn to your friends across the world, was doing it and well we ran out of things to say. Then you see the marshmallows sitting in the basket across from you and you start throwing them at the other person in the office. Its a very soothing way to bide your time. We then realised that maybe we should take it out of the office when 1. The repair man came back in rolling his eyes at us, and 2. When you have to lean behind the photocopier to retrive your ammo.

Outside we went, and blasted eachother with marshmallows, and then did the olden day 10 paces and shoot (10 paces is a long way, by the way).

It was good fun, bided the time and enjoyed ourselves throughly. Now I know why, when we saw a Marshmallow launcher the other day, why it was so apealing.

Went to the bank and came back ... accidentally fell into the lake to push Chatter, one of the other redshirts out of a kayak.

The marshmallow fun continued on everynow and then for the rest of the afternoon, until I decided to throw one at Nutz, and she came our chasing me and squished it in my ear. Not a fun feeling if you ever discover it.

At dinner time, the fun continued, I mucked around with Bigfoot and Wave, by bumping their hand into their face when they were eating Banana Cake ... it was innocent and they didn't get much on their face. But the second piece that Bigfoot had, well ... I bumped her hand again, Volley came in and pushed it harder whilst Wave completed it by rubbing the cake all over her face and glasses. We are laughing so hard we couldn't see. Bigfoot is a trooper and took it really well, she even finsihed eating her cake off her face.

Later on, I got a call to go and get Angel (a redshirt) from our 4 day canoe trip, this ended in another trip to the hospital. I ended up getting back into camp at approximately 10pm at night.

I was winding down for the night, talking to a couple of redshirts (Boom, Jabbers, Felix, Nutz) in york. We played a little prank on their campers as they were all being slobs, and hadn't put any of their shoes away. So I used a trick from school camp, thanks Nikki Bairstow, we took each of their left shoes and put them in a line outside. (I am told that this morning it was an absolute riot of a laugh when all of them were looking for their shoes).

So, back to my day, at around midnight I got a home call from Davinci on Juniper.

Davinci could hear human howling from a mans voice (strange as their are no men on site) and apples were being thrown at the tents. So down we went all of us in York in the camp car, to try and ward off the intruders. It didn't particuarly work, even after I turned on my teacher voice telling them that we had already called the police. So in I went to call the police.

The police arrived, and I got to ride around in one of the two cars that arrived circling camp to scare off the people who were in the bushes. In the end the police left (without catching anyone, the ran I am sure as soon as they saw we actually had the police there) at 1:15am then off to bed I went.

A day which was very bizzare in the end.

Week 3

This week was pretty good.

After a week of a couple of mishaps, frazzled parents, 1 anitsocial child (ask if you want more details, its kind of funny, but not something that I want to share to the entire world) and a couple of resuce missions to get the canoe girls who were stuck in a storm. So for dramas and mishaps it was pretty small, making it a great week. A couple of highlights follow ...

Had a wonderful high tea at one of our sites on Thursday, as it was British Invasion week. We arrived to the table set with tea mugs painted with our camp names and biscuits, with ladies hats and had a lovely time.

Friday night, we had a delivery of stuff from our old office, and a very flippin ugly picture arrived with it. So myself and another counsellor decided that it no longer to be needed in existence, so after a couple of mintues with an axe and then onto the fire, it let out of the steam for the week. So all in all I have a had a great week, and this weekend marks the beginning of the downhill. I can't believe that it has come along so fast!

Can say that at the moment I would probably still do it all again, as I am working with great people and having a ball. Don't know how I will ever go back to being a supply teacher again, but I am sure that once I get back into it, I will be fine.

Hope all is well. V

CANADIAN PHOTOS ...

So, I have finally gotten onto a computer which has microsoft picture manager, so here is a major influx of well overdue photos. First photos is one of the many farms around my camp area, and the other is my camp hat, which I proudly sewed - thanks Nan for teaching me how to cross stitch when I was younger.


Before camp in Toronto ... June 18 - June 20

The thimbil is one of the many many strange statues they have in toronto. Also here we have pictures of the Blue Jays game I went to with Jessica and Belinda (there was no S at the game), the Canadian cheeseburger I walked miles to find to eat, the CN tower (worlds tallest observation dock), me sitting on the glass floor of the tower (ahhhhh).











Now we have photos of antics before camp started June 21 - July 1

Our first nanna nap; we al fell asleep watching the movie matilda (yes, these are the directors of the camp, and then night antics in the local park, how many people can you fit in a garbage bag?, dinner antics, can you find the spelling error and setting off fireworks for Canada - July 1.













And now camp photos July 1 - July 10

This was our first camp fire, and it happens Monday night each week, the staff dress up as their camp name, first off we have Boom, then a group (Orange Shirt is Swing), Ice, bunch of campers, Boo and Bubbles around the fire, Boo and Jabbers









There aren't many photos of me up here, as I am the one taking these. But there is a solution, I have bowed to peer pressure and joined facebook, and there are heaps of photos of me and canada there, so search for me and you can see them.

Tornadoes

Well, did you know that Ontario is subject to Tornadoes ... no? Me either, but I found out last night.

Last night, whilst eating dinner, the sky decided to start to spin and we checked the weather warnings on line, and lo and behold we had a tornado warning. So we took the girls inside, our warning passed in 20 minutes and we were fine.

Found out this morning on my trip into town (driving alone, I must say, so proud) that one actually did touch down, and it was about 10 kilometres away from us. From the account it was only small, and only ripped apart a barn, but it was still enough to do damage. Scary stuff.

Now I can say that I have been near a cyclone and tornado. I have to say I like the prospect of cyclones better, bizzare concept I know, but hear me out. At least with a cyclone you know that they are coming for days and you can prepare. This thing, well as the movie goes, you've only got mintues to prepare.

But we are fine, and well prepared for any further occurances. Just something I had to share.

First Week of campers ...

Camp is going really great, I am very tired, but still enjoying myself.

I have been chef and assistant camp director this week, as unfortunately our chef had to resign. So I have been catering for 100 plus people, it has been interesting and one meal was a little undercatered.

The staff are already asking me to come back for next years camp, so obviously I am doing something right.

Have been driving around Ontario and loving driving again, even though I am on the other side of the road.

Talk soon, have found a computer with MS Picutre Manager, so I will be on the photo thing real soon.

2 Weeks of Camp

Hello there, haven't been here for a little while, have been busy with camp.

In the 4 days I was here, it was all of the directors planning and organising precamp. It was great, we got to know eachother, played in the park a few times, had an awesome dinner at the local pizza shop and got things ready for the staff to come.

This week we have had only the staff here, about 40 of them and we have been doing staff training, team building games and setting up for camp. We all have staff names and there is such a variety, I am Aussie, for obvious reasons, then there is Twitch, Boom, Swing, Bubbles, Angel, Toad, Chatter, Skipper, Oreo, Chef, Ice, Bubblegum, Nutz, Bigfoot, Sunny, Chaos, Bounce, Elmo, Beamer, Baby Cakes and heaps more but that is all I can think of at the moment.

The other Australian and I have been loving using Aussie slang and confusing people left right and centre. Hit the Frog and Toad, Rubbish, Torch, Togs, whats the G.O?, mozzies, bloke ... the list goes on and on, and you don't even realise it, until you get asked to explain yourself.

We got all of the staff to try Vegemite on one of their first nights here, the general reaction was ... Gross, that tastes like cat food. So suffice to say, they didn't like it.

Funniest moment for the week was waking up Monday morning and finding four racoons in our industrial bin, and having to rescue them ... basically putting a ladder into the bin and they climb out (they are pretty smart actually).

Seen lots of animals so far, Ground Hogs, Chipmunks, Deer, 1 Skunk and an Eagle.

Canada is going well and I am enjoying it, campers come this Sunday at 3pm so we will be firing on all cylinders as of July 1 (Canada Day).

Photos soon, I keep forgetting to bring my camera down with me.

CN Tower ...

I have just come back from going up the worlds tallest viewing platform, and i was alright. It was 447m tall and tiny, but with great veiws. You are meant to be able to see the mist from Niagra Falls there, but sadly no one whilst up there knew where to look whilst I asked, and I looked but couldn't see it ... Damn, will just have to go there.

Went to the glass floor and walked on it, but it scared me, have to say it, but I took a photo of my feet and someone took a photo of me sitting on the glass so I am proud of myself.

Then I went shopping, I bought myself some Red Crocs and am very pleased, as now I have wet shoes. Plus they are also very comfy, as Steve would tell me all the time when he was wearing them to school (by accident ... cough cough ... that excuse only went down the first time). But now I am proud to say I am part of the gang too. If you don't know what I am talking about a picture will be here soon.

Well I am killing time waiting for my ride to arrive, then it is off to camp. Don't know what kind of access I will have whilst there but I will email and blog as much as I can.

CANADA!!!! The first 40 odd hours ...

Made it!

Well after an 8 hour flight of blokey movies, I watched Ghost Rider and Wild Hogs, and a little curffle in Immigration (just took forever, but the immigration guy was cute and entertaining) I arrived in my hostel at 6pm Monday June 18.

Then I took myself for a walk, a walk of walks it turned out, I was in search of a Maccas for my international Cheeseburger Challenge. So I walked from my hotel too the water, to the main drag of Toronto, up, then back along my hotels street ... was there a Maccas? NO ... I passed 4 subways in the end but no Maccas. Turns out (as I asked) there are zoning laws in regards to unhealthy food and they can' t have too many of them in the one area. And turns out there was one 2 blocks up the side streeet of my hotel ... Damn it! But a cheeseburger I got, and a photo there shall be, when I get access. Back to the room, read and sleep, damn I was tired.

Tuesday, we had our orientation with NYQUEST, finally met the guys I have been emailling the past couple of weeks, they were really nice and talked us through heaps of things and then set off with us, we walked about a 1/3 of what I walked the day before. We went to the bank and set up accounts and got our SIN (equlivant of Tax number) so that we could work. Then back to the hotel and then farewell to Jonathon and Brad.

Then we 3 aussie chicks, who are all going on different camps, all representing 3 of the Eastern States (sorry no tasmanian). Set off in search of Burrito Brothers (recommended from our camp guys) it was pretty good and had heaps of locals in it. Then off for a walk and browse around the shops. We also introduced ourselves to the underground system of Toronto - which is used when its winter and too cold. Well its used in the warm weather as well, there are entire malls and food outlets etc underneath the city. So thats where everyone has been, and I just though no one was here when I got here.

Anyways, whilst down there, we were distracted by a guy making something at a chocolate factory. Turned out to be fudge he was heating and blending ... we watched the entire process which was great, then .... after our dedicated viewing it paid off ... we all got free fudge, which the word divine cannot simply describe. Continued walking underground, we back to Hotel for a arvo break and then off to the Baseball.

Torontos stadium is a 5 min walk from where we are staying, so off went, but before we went to a baseball bar and had an awesome dinner, then off to the Stadium. With the presumption of $2 tickets. Tickets turned out to be $11, that stopped in May (cough cough Brad and Jonathon) but we had an awesome time, sadly the Toronto Bluejays lost to the LA Dodgers.

Today I am off to camp at 1pm, but for now I am going up the CN Tower ... it has a glass floor, hmmmm I'll get back to you with photos of how I went.

Keep reading for my adventures of CAMP WYOKA.

My last day of supply ... for a little while

Well yesterday it turned out was my last day of supply for a little while, and it turned out to be a great day. I was teaching a year 4 class in Sutton and had a great day. Two girls even drew a picture of me and it is really nice.

And it has only hit me in the last 5 mins, that I am going to Canada and I am really excited now and can't wait. So I have done the things that I have had to do before I go. I have changed my flight home, and am now coming into Brisbane on Dec 18 at 7am in the morning, so be ready people.

Photos of the past couple of weeks.

So, when I have blogged the last couple of times, I haven't had my camera with me to put the photos in, so here are some photos of Mum and Dads trips whilst they were here.

LONDON

PARIS

COPENHAGEN