Just found out the Hurricanes Score

OMG IM SO EXCITED

I went into the office to chat to them about other stuff and I was so excited. One person understood what I was talking about the other was just like "here, make an announcement and let all of camp know" and so I did. Only the Kiwis and the one Aussie knew what I was talking about. It made my life.

IM SO HAPPY AND EXCITED!!!!!!!

Campers arrive today!!

(I wrote this all last night)

Wooo so another camp blog!

Its been hot, seriously hot (and yesterday we even had a thunder storm that put a tree through a cabin over at Awosting!). On Wednesday and Thursday it got up to around 33-35degrees Celsius (we have to define which system we use here lol). Its definitely been a new experience for me there!

On Wednesday we went to a theme park about an hour away with some of the guys from Awosting. It was our day off and the camp put on a trip for those of us who wanted to go which was awesome. It was sooo hot. Its called Lake Compounce and its half theme park, half water park which was perfect! Ended up with a random group of people which included one guy who was quite happy to sit out of the rollercoasters with me (he even got strapped into a ride but just when they were about to take off, asked yo be taken out, poor guy) so that was a little better than sitting by myself. The water park part was great! So many fun water slides and fun things to cool ones self off in such ridiculous heat. So that was quite a fun day. Apparently we take the campers there throughout the summer too. Came back in the evening and went out for a nice dinner with some camp friends (posted this pic on fb but I'll stick it her too for reference). Free wifi!!

L to R - Maggie (Music), Amanda (Sport), Hannah (Journalism), Malia (Camper), Joan (Nurse), Emily (Camper) and Katie (Gymnastics and cabin mate)

On the way back to camp, I got dropped off at the local bar wher most of the counsellors were so hung out there for a little which was fun. I didn't dare drink anything though, they give you pretty much half a glass of vodka for a vodka cranberry, a dash of cranberry and then ice. Overkill much?

Thursday was also super hot, I even got in the lake twice!! Also, Thursday was the day of finding out days off, cabins and the epic Walmart trip. So, I got Mondays off with a whole bunch of fun people from both Chinqueka and Awosting. I ended up in Cabin Six which is the first intermediate cabin, ages ten/eleven. Quite happy. Am with a chick from England who I get along with quite well. We also have a counselor-in-training (CIT) in our cabin which is cool. Shes 16 from New Jersey and has been here for a few summers so its nice to have someone to chat to about how things happen. When we went to Walmart, we got heaps of cool stuff for our cabin, like some awesome magazines with One Direction posters in them which we have plasterd around the cabin and stuff so its pretty cool. We actually put up a whole lot of balloons up but today found out that one of our campers has a severe latex allergy, so we are about to go and take all them down. Photos from said Cabin -

Reppin' the Canes in Connecticut

Foot of my bed

Head of my bed

Our doorway and Julia - our CIT

Pretty posters

Yes, thats all my bathroom stuff haha

Walmart was awesome. I spent a lot of money, but I can't quite figure out what on. But its all justified stuff haha. I went to a shoe shop also and got some "styley"crocs cos we have to wear closed toe shoes in the dining hall, and pretty much all around camp! It was a fun experience though, a lot of of the guys thought I was a little crazy haha.

Yesterday we pretty much just set up the cabin and I finally have my awesome new computer to edit on, so I worked on that pretty much all day. Oh yeah, we went to Social Security and I had such a cool lady. She was like "oh, Emma is your middle name? Man, Prince William has so many middle names". Me "yeah, Arthur Philip Louis" her "you know them?"me "yep, it was his birthday yesterday" her "I know!" me *lady, you're awesome* hahahaha.

So yeah, campers arrive tomorrow. Excited but slightly nervous cos I'm not really sure what to expect but fingers crossed it all works out!

Hopefully I'll get some stamps soon and send out all the postcards from LA that have been sitting around waiting to be sent!

Miss you all! Xx

CAMP!!

Well, I've made it to camp. Right now, I'm writing this on my tablet in my cabin cos the computers are always busy and painfully slow, so I'll just risk it and copy and paste this over later. I wish they had wifi! It sounds like I'm gonna get to have my own computer with internet in my little video cave so hopefully I'll be able to upload photos and stuff there.

Yesterday was my first day here and it was a nice chill out day, although it was kinda weird, the group of us that arrived on Wednesday night arrived just as everyone else was going out and so we missed all that, but we woke up to some stories. Turns out that one girl ended up getting fired yesterday for getting so bloody intoxicated, before even this thing called "precamp" begun today! So I think in the end I was pretty glad I wasn't there for that.

While I write this, there are some seriously weird noises coming from outside. We have been told they are frogs/bullfrogs/toads (I don't get the difference!) but they are so loud and weird! Today we had a talking to about the bears in the region, something new to think about. I am so thankful we don't ge bears at home, and snakes for that matter, but I'm yet to see a wild snake.

I don't know how often I'm going to get to update this, its a lot easier right now cos there are no campers, they arrive NEXT Sunday, so we have a while without them but once they get here, no phones are allowed to be seen etc, so we will see what happens. We have been told that we get off 2 nights a week which are from 7.30-1am which isn't too bad, and then we get one day off a week also which goes from 7.30am one morning till 7.30am the next. So hopefully we will get a bit more exploring done around the cities etc round here like Boston and NYC!

Today was information overload man! So much to take it, it was like starting at college in third form again, so much information! I should probably be reading that right now actually haha.

Turns out there are another 4 NZ counsellors here, from Dunaz, Invers and Chch and another from WGC haha (she was in Hannah's year). There is also a guy from the Tron in the kitchen and a man who helps run the place from Mt Maunganui. So ther are a few of us around which is nice. They know what I mean when I talk about Togs and Jandels (is it jandEls or jandAls?). There are a lot of Brits here which is nice, a few Americans, one South African and quite a lot from Hungary and one or two from Poland. Apparently quite a lot of the campers are internationals also which will be cool.

Hoping tomorrow to get to Walmart, there is so much I need to get! Maybe even a set of small plastic drawers, living out of a suitcase really isn't my style......And I need to get my ukulele!

Can't really think of much else to say right now. Oh, I've found a couple of people to go on a Les Mis movie date with when it comes out! Also managed to find some fellow directioners which is nice. I'm sure there will be more once all the campers arrive!

That is all for now everyone, hopefully I'll manage to post more photos soon!

So I wrote all that Friday night, and its now Sunday, but there have been a few fun things happen that I thought I should update about.

Last night, Saturday night, there was a rodeo in town so camp took a whole bunch of people down to it which was awesome. It was soo stereotypically American and hilarious! There were a whole bunch of these "confederate" flags which I learnt about which apparently made the whole thing a lot more hickish and American according to the locals. There was a giant horse which we paid $1 to go in and see (it was rather giant, but I felt so sorry for it, it was tied up so tight and looked so sad :-() but I refused to go into the animal freakshow, they had a 5 legged sheep out the front and it just looked so miserable that I couldn't pay and give the people that run the show my money.

Apart from that though, it was nice to get off camp for a bit. Just hang out with some people and see what the haps is around town. I was a little sad that we missed the horses and cattle run just for the lolz but what we went to was fun.

Oh yeah, one thing I mentioned is that we have to say Grace with every meal. They do have some cool graces, but I guess its just something I have to get used to. The other thing that happens every morning is the raising of the flag. They play the national anthem and raise the flag. Fun fact, the American Flag isn't allowed to touch the ground. If it does, you have to send it away to get burnt. Today, we wer talking about it and one of the Americans said to a Brit "what happens if you drop you're flag?" to which the Brit replies "pick it up, dust it off and get on with it". I loled.

Tonight, we went over to the guys camp -Awosting- for a camp fire which was fun. There were a whole bunch of skits and songs which were a lot of fun. I got pulled up for one - they obviously knew who I was and stuff (probably from precamp facebook) -anyway, my question was about who won RWC last year, I got very excited that I knew the answer and jumped when I pushed my buzzer (which happened to be on some poor guys head) and said who did, but the whole thing was rigged so I lost to some guy who said England invented Rugby so they win hahaha.....lame.....anyway, ended up drinking some cold curry soup which had whipped cream on top, not my fav! Thankfully I didn't have too much of the god awful stuff! All in the name of fun! Then a little later on, we had to play charades but we were told the people were gonna be acting and we had to guess totally what it was't. Pretty sure it was for the Star Wars one that I guessed the Justin Bieber 3D movie.....it got a good laugh which was nice.

Anywho, its hurting my neck to write this under this top bunk so I think I'll sign off.

Oh, one more thing, my cameras that I'm meant to film on, take floppy discs.....help!

I’ll do a post about my trip around LA soon!!

LA Tour

Had one yesterday. It was pretty fricken cool. We went around a lot, Beverley Hills, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Chinatown (which was pretty much just one giant $2 shop). Its weird, it still just feels like I'm in New Zealand but I suppose the American will kick in once we start saying the pledge of allegience every morning.
Anyway, tour. Had a great guide. There was only 11 of us on the tour and so it was nice and small. I hung out with a nice lady from Florida when we were on Rodeo Drive. Man, that place is sooooo cool!  I only wish I could afford one thing on that street. It was cool to see all the designers stores and look in their windows. Apprantley the is a ool hotel around there that you go into and people wash your hands and spritz you with perfume but I didn't get that far, next time.
There isn't really a whole lot to say about the tour, the pictures say it all. I'll upload pictures once I get a proper computer and get to look at them better. But yeah, glad I did it. I'm keen to go back there one day, to places like Santa Monica, Beverley Hills and Hollywood with a friend and a car!
Will update FB when pictures are up.

Apprantley this is where BayWatch was filmed?

Rodeo Drive, this is just one of many amazing stores I saw and was too scared to go into

Kahu and I on Rodeo Drive

New York likes yellow.

For shizz. Yellow taxis, yellow traffic lights, yellow school bussew.

If you use yellow so much it doesnt stand out.

Geeeeez

San Diego Zoo

Its a pretty awesome place. We had to get up early, cos San Diego is a 2 hour drive, but it wasn't too bad. Amber hadn't seen the sea in over a year so she was excited about that haha. The GPS we had took us over a toll road which was lame, but oh wells. We had a mini stop to take photos of the sea lol.
Anyway, we eventually got to San Diego, parked up and headed in. Amber's mum had given her a voucher for money off our tickets, so that was cool. We headed towards the kiddies area first and the reptile house. Snakes are gross, officially. Anyhu, then we wandered round the kiddies area and found a Kea! It was cool, cos I had my Kahu the Kea toy, so we got some pictures of Kahu with the real Kea! The pictures are on Emma's camera, so I just have to wait to get them, be prepared for a picture post lol. A security guard came over and we were leaning over the fence holding Kahu up to the cage etc and this guy was laughing at us and encouraging us. The real Kea totally attacked Kahu's foot and tried to pull him into the cage too. Lols.
Then we headed out and around a bit, got some lunch and decided to go on the half hour bus trip round the zoo. We saw the new baby giraffe - less than a week old! The zoo is huuuuuuuuge! We saw some cool things, gorillas, orang-utans, chimps and so many spider monkeys and birds. The koalas in San Diego smell just as bad as the Koalas in Aussie lol. The hippos were fun.
Managed to spy a polar bear too, first one ever, which was cool. So many firsts really, gorillas, orang-utans, GIANT PANDAS!!!!!! That is the whole reason we went to the zoo was to see the pandas. OMG they were soooo cute and fun. We got there at a good time go watch one of them in the hammock eating some bamboo, which was awesomeeeeee. Naw the pandas were so cute. Kahu had fun with some stuffed pandas too, again, pictures to come.
Just general zooness went on, fun though. We caught the skyfari back over the zoo to the start and I wanted to go to the Kiwi trail,so we wandered over. The Aussie outback section is getting remodelled and so it was meant to be round there. We couldn't find it, so I went and asked a keeper, and he was all "It will open with the outback section" and so I was all "but NZ and Aussie are different countries...." and Amber and Emma found it rather amusing.
Anyway, after that we went gift shopping and I was annoyed that I couldn't buy what I wanted cos I have noooo room left in my luggage. But managed to pick up a small panda shotglass. They had so much koala merchandise too which made me lol.
Ahhhhh, now, anyways, gotta go now, app HP 7.2 is on TV!
CATCH YA LATER

Baby Fresh Giraffe



PANDA PANDA PANDA



Stopping for a quick look at the sea

ZOMG PANDA

First impressions of America

x

• There are US flags EVERYWHERE.  I was yelling out "flag" everytime I saw one on the way to San Diego, and there were lots.

• When people don't see the sea for a year, they get rally excited about it. Personally can't contemplate not seeing the sea for a year
• 
  
• Yellow school busses exist. As does Macys, JCPenneys, IKea, Taco Bell and In and Out burger.
• America is behind NZ and still has Shell petrol stations.....lol
• Squirrels are cute.

That is all for now

LA Baby

well, I made it! My friends left this morning so today I've just been hanging out in my hotel room, painting my nails and just doing stuff. Walked about 1k to the place where my tour leaves from tomorrow and sorted a ride from the hotel at 9am, yuck.

Anyway, so I arrived on Saturday. Flight wasn't too bad, a little bumpy in the middle of the night, but I managed to get a little sleep. Customs wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, I filled out the wrong form though and the guys were really nice about it and helped me out. Once I got outside, I found a bus that took me directly to my hotel for free = first tipping experience. Checked in all goods and stuff, had amazing shower (so happy about the fantastic water pressure) and eventually my friends Amber and Emma from Arizona showed up. They drove 7 hours to come meet me! We met online a few years ago, so it was cool to finally hang with them. We went and got taco bell which was an experience. The guy behind the counter was really helpful and so we eventually ordered some stuff.

Kahu look, we made it!

Then we went on a bit of an Adventure. Firstly, we went to AT&T to get me a phone which was fun. Got an American phone and number - if you want it, just message me and I'll give it to ya. Then we headed out to Venice Beach which was an experience. Firstly, parking was a mish, then we had to walk about 10minutes to get to the beach. Nice beach it is too. It was a little too cold to swim, but we turned Emma into a sand mermaid which was fun. We just hung out on the beach for about 45 minutes, and then walked along the boardwalk which was scary. I didn't trust any of the food or anything, so we found this little Asian place for dinner, but turns out that food repeated on me quite a bit overnight, yuck!

Feet in sand an Venice Beach

Me, Amber (Blonde) and Emma (Brown)

Here we are!

Mermaid making

Creepy as boardwalk

OOOOHHHH a sign

I got really excited about this yellow school bus. Amber and Emma laughed at me.

I typed most of this on my tablet, but it  was getting annoying, so now I'm using the hotel computers which is costing me, but at least I can finish this!!

Yesterday we went to San Diego Zoo, but I'm going to put that in a separate post and hope that I can deal with my tablet by then!

So yeah, I'm here. Tomorrow I fly to NYC, woooO!!

made it to la

its 9.30pm local time, im exhausted. been out to venice beach which has lol.
bed.
now.

last night n NZ

feels kinda surreal, will be interesting to see what happens from here on out!

go you spacebar, go!