Boston Baby!

DADAAAAAA

Yeah, so we went to Boston on Monday. It took us 5 hours to get there (Didn't seem like that long, I reckon I must have fallen asleep or someone is lying to me!). Anyway, we got there with the intention of heading to a Fenway Park tour, but after we had a very late lunch, we got to the park and it was closed cos there was a game on. Tom and I decided to try and get into the stadium to take some photos, while Sam, Lilla, Chris and Gabby headed off to go and have a look around Harvard. 

Tom and I ended up finding some guy on the street and he sold us his 2 $27 face value tickets - 2 for $35 as thats all we could scrape up in cash. So we got these tickets, and were just hoping they weren't a fake! We had talked to some security earlier to try and get ourselves in but that failed, so once we had these tickets we headed back to the security and they let us in (they have some special fan thing where they let people in early). It was cool being let in early, cos we got to go right down the front and take photos. Tom even managed to sweet talk a player who was practicing to get him a ball when it was hit his way, so that was pretty awesome. I tried, but then the player had to go inside, lame-o,

Anyway the game started with much fanfare. Man, the amount of people that they introduce for no reason at the start of a game is ridiculous! And then we had to stand for the National Anthem etc, and have a moment silence for the people involved in that shooting in a temple somewhere in the states or something....

They say pictures say 1000 words, so heres some pictures, and a video even!

American town with flags on every lightpost

Seriously, all the housing in Boston looked like this, it was really pretty!

We made it!!

This made me laugh. Bagpipes in America at a Baseball game, WIN!

So close to home, yet so far!

The lines to get in, that we managed to skip

 

The sign that says it all

It was a lot smaller than I expected

Players. The amount of people who asked me who they were and I laughed in their face. lolz

BLIMP!!! THEY EXIST!!!

A full stadium

Pretty house!!

The Harvard Stop

Bike ride? Me? Why yes, yes I did.

So on Monday, Gabby, Ellie and Meg and I went for a nice. 9k bike ride (4.5 each way), which included lots of up hills, which I am proud to say I did most of. I didn't quite realise how much I missed bike riding! It was so nice just to go for a casual ride. If I ever move any where flat (Wellington/Porirua fail), then I'm totally gonna get a bike. We went for coffee at the local, where the lady now knows our orders haha. It was so much fun, and surprisingly, my legs weren't as sore as I thought they were gonna be the next day! Bonus!

Map, incase you don't believe me. 

Me, Meg, Gabby and Ellie. 

Bantam, where camp is

Ma Bike cous

On the way back from coffee, I had a message from the some of the guys asking if anyone wanted to go to this zoo that Ellie had suggested. I was up for it, so they nipped over and picked me up and we headed off for the hour long drive. WOW, what a depressing zoo man. After San Diego Zoo, which was amazing with how they handled their animals and grounds, this place was the pits. It was quite hilarious actually. OK, so it wasn't that bad, but I'm just gonna say this - they had a domestic cat on display, in a "cage". And when we walked over to the sheep, I went "baa" and the zoo keeper looked at me funny, I just kept walking and said "I'm from New Zealand, I speak sheep."

Hello home! I waved to you all

Ginga.

Monkey seriously needing Prozac.

After the zoo, we went out for dinner, which again was a halirious affair. I ended up with a piece of Salmon which was GORGEOUS. I miss fresh seafood. 

 2 weeks left of camp, crazy! This last bunch leave tomorrow and newbies in on Sunday. 

In other news, HOLY CRAP GO KIWIS! They are killing it at the Olympics, I wish I could watch more!

Monday day off!

So yeah, Monday was our day off. We had planned to go to the waterfalls and hang out there for the day before going to Batman, but plans changed when we woke up to Thunder storms in the morning, not our friend.

We ended up hanging around camp in the morning (I watched Cats on DVD) and then went out for lunch with the guys. A few of us decided to go to the Waterfalls anyway (the rain and thunder had stopped) and just have a look. The other option was shopping, so obviously I chose Waterfalls so that I wouldn't spend any money!! Glad I did go in the end, it was so pretty and nice to hang out on some real grass! (Yes, I still get excited about real grass). See photos!!

We also went to this huge ass bridge which some of the group decided it would be a good idea to jump off. Lets leave the story there. I didn't jump!

Bottom of the waterfall

The crazy climbers

A log. 

The pretty much vertical cliff!

Pretty falls!!

Needless to say, they didn't get much further

Apparently it was bloody freezing!

Kahu came with me!

The view upstream

The people up the top

Alex, Piotr, Tom, Tom, Lilla ,Sam (back), Kai, Chris, James and Jackie. And Me in front!

View from said bridge. 

Ended up heading to the mall for a bit and Hollister had a fabulous sale which I may have got some cool yellow and black trackies for 'canes games!

Then we saw Batman. Good movie, but far too long.

OUT!

Session 3 begins!

Hard to believe really. It seemed so far away when we began and now its here! We had a huge changeover of kiddies, mainly because there were a lot who were only staying one month from the first session and now thats over. There are a lot of Chinese girls this time around, whose English is not amazing, so that is proving a difficult task for everyone. They keep running away etc and we keep trying to explain to them what is happening, but Chinese is such a different language from English so its incredibly difficult. I've told admin that I'm quite happy to hang out with them and just be a familiar face for them etc. I feel after our experience at home with our internationals I've been through it enough to do it again.

I've also moved cabins. Interesting. I've been moved from cabin 6 (intermediates - 10/11/12) to seniors (13/14) which is a huge change. I haven't really been in the cabin much yet cos on Sunday when they all arrived I was picked to go to the movies (hello Ice Age 4), and then yesterday was my day off (more on that later!) so today has kinda been my first day with them. I have to get them to bed tonight which will be interesting, they are allowed up a little later and stuff. I have one girl in my cabin who I had a little bit of a run in with last week and so its an interesting mix.

Time to go! Will update more later
x

Woah, NYC!

So yeah, went to NYC on Monday. It was a blast!! One of the guys in our day off group - Sam - was having his birthday, so we decided to head into the city. Only 8 of us went so we could all fit in one car - Meg, Lilla, Gabby and myself from Chinqueka and Tom, Peter, Alex and Sam from Awosting. We left about 9 in the end (once the boys had gotten their A into G) and started the 2 and a bit hour drive south. Was a pretty uneventful drive really. Tom and I got bored in the back seat so started playing with our soft toys (I had Kahu and he had a Luigi) just for lolz. 

Eventually we got there!!

Hello pretty bridge that made us very excited

We had maccas for lunch like any good ol' American (lolz) and then headed out and about a bit. Meg had to go meet her cousin, so we meet back up with her at Grand Central Station. Its like a blinken rabbit warren down there!! So pretty though.

OOOOHHHH Pretty

Found this on the way, may have got a little excited

So many choices!

This made me lol, cos we did this show once upon a time. 

After our wander, we decided to go to Madame Tussauds. OMG, so worth it. We got a reasonable group discount too! It was so fun wandering around, albeit a little creepy at times. I kept thinking (hoping) one of them would jump out and be real!

ZOMG free programmes

I'm really in America now

This one was super creepy

Yeah, R-Patz

Just for good measure

Spy chicks? Check!

Kahu made me do it

And then he read the news

We spent a good 2 hours in there doing things, so that was time very well spent. Then I wanted to go meet up with Matt from home who was in NYC at the same time! Tom and Alex came with me and we headed up Times Square to meet him. Matt had been at MOMA so we met him up there, which is reasonably close to Central Park. So we headed up that direction and Matt was all "Lets go to the fanciest hotel in the city and have a cocktail". Annnnd so we did. It was fun! The lobby bar was gorgeous (and expensive) but totally worth a trip in. It was slightly amusing when Tom wandered off and was gone for a good 10 minutes before we got a little worried, but he arrived back soon enough, with cake.

DADAAAAA

M&M World? Yes please!

We found a few cops along the way, this one was impressed that I was from  New Zealand. 

Made me think of all of you in that fabulous show at PLT!!

Matt and Me at the Plazza Hotel in NYC, right opposite Central Park

Tom and Alex needed their photo under pretty chandelier also

SMILE!

Epic decor

Kahu enjoyed his drink

Red carpet outside hotel. As you can see, our wardrobe fitted the place well.

Coppers!

Add caption

Must admit, got a little excited and creeped out when I saw this

And then I realised what it was for

Heading to dinner! Yum

Just incase I forgot I was in NYC

We then headed to a nice little Irish Bar that we found for dinner. Yum-burger! Well, not really burger. I had Fish'n'Chips with a nice NZ Sav haha. I forgot how sweet and yummy they were! It was quite a hilarious affair, as we were all trying to sneakily sign a card for Sam which resulted in some of us going to the bathroom multiple times in not a very long space of time. The funniest part was how oblivious Sam was to it all! I organised the waitress to bring out a cake with a candle on it also, and a drink for Sam. He looked happy about it. YAY birthdays!

EDIT - So, Gabby said I had to mention the glasses incident. While we were trying to sign the card, Alex got completely lost as to what was going on and ended up going to the bathroom and not signing the card. We told him to go back to the bathroom, so he pulls his glasses off his head and says "Oh bugger, I think I've left my glasses behind". He came back out, still not having signed the card, so we made him go back again, and again his excuse was "crap, where did I leave my glasses?". Something you had to be there for I guess but it was very funny.

Meg and I being rather sneaky

In the middle of my laughing fit

Tom decided that Kahu and Luigi were our children, so this is our family photo

After dinner, we decided to go up the Empire State Building. The line was quite long, and around every corner was more line, but it was a pretty quick moving line so that was all good.

Down the bottom, before we went up though, we were hanging out with this guy who was trying to sell us tickets to avoid the lines, and there was all this screaming coming from somewhere. Personally, I thought Beiber was in town (LOL he's in NZ), but it turned out to be a whole group of Brazilians who were very excited to be in the city. We told them it was Sams birthday and they launched into song. And then they sung it in their language too. It was highly amusing. Especially, when they saw us up the top of the tower again and started singing. How cool would it have been if the whole tower had launched into song? Ahh, one can only dream.

The random Brazillians

In the lift on the way up

View from the top

Its so pretty! And HUGE!

Meg and Gabby up the top

Generic New York City Skyline shot

The other direction

Kahu and I up the top

Ze girls up the top (minus Lilla)

Must admit, I did LOL at the King Kong stuff (part of the reason I wanted to go up it)

So, on the way back to the car, we passed the NYC Public Library. We had passed it earlier on in the day and thought meh and then when we passed it on the way to the Empire State and there were a couple of SWAT looking guys outside. We thought nothing of it at the time, but it made sense as we were coming back, and saw a red carpet lit up outside the library. Turns out, it was some sort of Batman event a-happening. Not sure if it was actually the premiere or not, cos there seemed like there weren't enough people (fans) there for that, but we did hear rumour that the cast were inside. Me, being me, was super keen to stay, but the rest of the group, not so much (the girls were haha). We gave ourselves 10 minutes and in that time I saw my first real American Celebrity! He kinda didn't fit in, but then I suppose when your a celeb, you get invited to all kinds of events! It was Jay from Top Model. (http://www.jaymanuel.com/). I yelled at him to come over (as everyone else was) but alas, nothing. I even pulled the New Zealand card, but I don't think he heard me :(.

Pretty NYC Public Library

My first real American Celebrity!

For all my friends involved in the show :D

We decided that it was so much fun having someones birthday on our day off, so we should have someones birthday every Monday, LOL!

So that was NYC, so much fun! Can't wait to go back now!!