The EP was so great! We played something called "Gold Rush" which is a game wherein the "Booty" is hidden all over camp and the staff are placed all around in an attempt to stop campers from returning the stolen booty to their treasure chests. Really it's just an excuse for the counselors to dress up as pirates and chase the children with shaving creme and flour!
The game begins when a select few pirates approach the dinning hall in canoes, who then splash all the people in the dinning hall with water. They then storm the hall and capture another staff member. In this case, the brave Palmer was captured and was forced to walk the plank into the freezing lake. The aim of the game is to collect the most treasure and save Palmer from the pirates! The kids broke into cabin groups and set off. Meanwhile, we were all placed in our positions, painted faces and swords in hand, ready to attack (I mean tag) any kids who dared to steal our booty! I was placed with the best group of pirates I could ever ask for: Kelly, Kaki, Tyler, and Caroline. We had a blast scheming... Anna jumped into our group at some point, and ended up pulling Kelly down some stairs which she sat in a little wagon. I couldn't make this stuff up.
My cabin won the Hilltop competition and won us all Ice Creme Sandwiches, which in my opinion are the BEST things you could win! It was great.
The next night was my night off and Kelly and I tagged along with a new group of amazing people. We went for sushi at Umi's with 8 others including Caroline, Anna, Maggie, and Angie. We were split across two tables as we did not make a reservation, whoops, who knew it was so fancy? We saw a few camp parents there so were all on our best behavior! We enjoyed a very delicious but very expensive meal, coupled with laughs and jokes between the two tables of friends. We were thoroughly surprised when the bill (or the cheque as its know here) came, however, as someone had payed for our entire meal! It was the best thing ever, especially because I am living on a budget and the bill was so high. We all suspect it was some of the generous camp parents, however we can never be sure which set. If you are out there reading this, thank you so much for your kindness, your gesture will always bring a smile to my face.
We left Umi's and headed off to Anna's holiday home in high spirits. Caroline, Kelly and I jammed to some awesome music, which is an absolute God send when you are at camp and away from technology. When we arrived, I was blown away. The house was nestled between the forest and the mountains, down a secluded driveway. It is one of those places that makes you feel calm and elated all at once. Once inside, it opens up into a beautiful naturally lit lounge that merges into an elevated patio outside. The view was breathtaking as we stood and watched the sun set between the trees, over the horizon. The house was great and one of its best features is the uncapped wifi! At this point in my life, wifi is like gold! We all sat in the lounge and talked the entire night, laughing and joking while a movie played in the background. We headed back to camp and went to sleep, with many more memories and personal jokes than we had had that morning.
The next night was my night in and the EP was what is know as "The Auction". Basically, kids are split into cabins and given "$100" to bid with. They bid on secret prizes and have to do/get what they win. Some prizes are great, such as a pizza party, a movie night, or dressing up your counselor for the day. Others are not as great such as the polar plunge in the lake before breakfast or doing the cabin clean up for another cabin for a week. Our cabin won an automatic Super +++ on their cabin clean up score sheet which was great as it brought us one step closer to the winning prize for the week's cleanest cabin! It goes without saying that cabin clean up was a breeze the next day!
Flag day was so interesting, and nothing we have back home is similar. Basically, a ceremony takes place in which we make a big circle around the flagpole, and many patriotic songs are sang and poems are read, as the flag is hoisted up into the air. It was both awesome and slightly intimidating, as strange as that sounds. It made me a little homesick, which surprised me. I think it was the pride I could feel everyone had for their country and it made me miss mine a little. Still, I decided to lap up the joy of those around me, and I left the ceremony feeling better than when it started. I think I am starting to understand it here, at least a little more than before.
That night was my "Overnight" which means that we were allowed to have an entire night off, and only needed to be back at 10am the next morning. Our overnight was pretty fun as Kelly, Victoria and myself headed outward to Asheville, a little town just over from Hendersonville where we were. We met up with some of the boys from Camp Carolina for dinner at an Irish pub and then went for "drinks" at a Mexican bar up the road. As most of us were under 21, out drinks consisted of sweet tea and Diet Cokes, but it was all the same to me. The guys are really cool but the funniest thing about their staff is that only about 10% are actually American. After drinks, us girls went our own way and ended up at a Hookah bar in downtown Asheville until 1am. We then went to Cook Out for some yummy and super greasy fast food and drove back to camp, rather than spend the money on a hotel room for the evening. We arrived at 3.30am and peeled off to our separate cabins. Kelly and I found out the following morning that poor Victoria had been locked out of her cabin and ended up sleeping in the counselor room!
The next day was a Sunday which operate completely differently to all the other days at camp. We all sleep in an hour longer and wake up to a breakfast of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts! We then head up to the Chapel in the woods for a half an hour church service, which is so beautiful it makes you feel like you are in a movie! There are no activities to teach or be had so the camp normally does one big tribe based event for the entire camp population where teams start to accumulate points. This day we had the Tribe Swim Meet.
All Lifeguards on the dock, all tribe colors on, all faces painted and all spirits high!
There were something like 6 events and the tribe Chiefs put forward tribe kids to participate in each. The events included relays of all strokes, t-shirt relays, life jacked relays, endurance swims, diving, wild cards and noodle relays. The kids really loved it and my tribe killed it, winning most of the events! The highlight of the swim meet is what is known as the counselor dive which is really just a skit that involves all the staff jumping in the lake. The Navajo counselors did a Frozen skit and rewrote all the lyrics to convince people to join our tribe, and I had such fun. The skit goes towards your tribe's score and so I hope it was as good as we thought it was!
That night was movie night and all the kids piled into the gym and awaited the announcement of the movie: Frozen, much to Caroline's and my delight! We, and our other friends, sat behind all the kids and part watched the movie, part caught up with each other. The best thing about camp is that all the counselors are friends, yet the worst part of camp is that all the counselors are friends. We all want to be with each other all the time but are always separated or need to be with our kids, which of course is what was always going to happen but it's a bitter sweet situation. It's so strange but I feel so close to these girls, even though I hardly know them and only partially know their stories, I feel a real bond that runs through camp and connects us all.
Bedtime came too soon that evening, but when our heads hit the pillows, we were all fast asleep within seconds!
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