Taxation without representation

Phase 3 of my travels has well and truly begun...I am currently kickin' it in my cousin's apartment in Washington, DC and it's all breezy goodness baby.

Rewind. I've been here since Friday afternoon, arriving by bus to the amazing news that a friend of my cousin had just moved out of DC that morning and has a swanky rent-paid empty apartment with cable TV, just waiting for me to occupy. So I basically have my own place for the week, only a 5 minute walk from my cousin's and an awesome pizza place around the corner. Catching up on sleep is a luxury I haven't been afforded in the last 3 months, so that's what I've spent a lot of the last few days doing, and it's just bliss. We also went to the Eastern Market fare, Georgetown, drove up to West Virginia (getting extremely lost on the way) to go tubing down the river, but got there too late so ended up just hanging out around the river.

Prior to DC I was in the crazy city known as New York with friends from camp. First night involved 9 people in a 4 person room...good times indeed. I also did the touristy thing; Statue of Liberty, Soho, Greenwich Village (the best part of NYC), Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, watched a Broadway show (Rent is incredible), saw John Mayer perform on the Today Show at Rockerfeller Centre, free Maccas on 42nd Street...I heart NY.

It's incredible that almost a week and a half has flown by since I finished at camp...my last night was spent partying and looking at the beautiful Connecticut sky one last time...I even saw a shooting star for the first time. A fitting end to an incredible summer.

Early Monday morning everyone got up at the crack of dawn to finish packing and hug and cry their amazing friends goodbye. A bus/train ride into Grand Central station began and finished with me shedding tears like an absolute nutter, but it made me realise how ridiculously grateful I am for the friendships and experiences I've gained this summer (and the ones I already have back home and all around the world)...I'm blessed beyond belief, and who knows if I deserve it, but I'm holding onto these beautiful people for as long as I can.

And yes, I mean you. And you. And you.

New York trippin'

Wow...another week flies by...and only another to go before the end of camp, and an incredible summer. I was thinking earlier today how much my view of myself has changed over the course of the last 8 weeks; with the whole getting fired and relocated saga. I'm aware that it sounds conceited, but I think that I've earned some bragging rights for managing to pull through disaster to become a stronger, independant and grateful person from an experience that i'll not soon forget.
A conversation with some friends the other day about first impressions revealed to me that people saw me as a 'sad person' upon initially meeting me. And if you know me (which you should if you are reading this), then you know that I'm anything but sad. But that's how miserable I was when I got shoved into Kenwood camp...and 8 weeks later I've formed such close friendships here that I almost don't want to leave. Almost.

Anyway, enough of the DnM stuff. Life is good here...I went to New York on Tuesday night; a bunch of us tried to find some cool bar on recommendation of a random local on the street, and we ended up on some street in the meat packing district that has like 5 clubs on it. We were unsuccessful on our attempt to get into the only one that didn't charge $20 to get in, because it was extremely exclusive (and we were some of the only non African-American people there!). After much debate we went to Bleecker St and found a manky-yet-cool little bar with live music. It wasn't quite the party-hearty night we'd hoped for, but was still a good time.

The next day was spent shopping...all day. There's not a lot to write about, because that's literally all we did. Times Square, uptown, Chinatown. I got some good bargains, and I plan to get even more when I go to an outlet place tomorrow on my half-day off...it seems like I'm always shopping haha!

My next entry will probably be on the road, away from camp...woah.

See you bye.

Ya face...

Only two more weeks left at camp and then I step into the world of unknown travel and some serious monetary debt. Obviously I'm stoked to be so close to getting out into the real world, but I've also become so used to the lifestyle and people of camp. Oh well, I'm sure I'll figure something out hehe!

I had a day off today, and a bunch of us went to Kent Falls, a beautiful waterfall/picnic ground just outside of the town of Kent, about 15 minutes from camp. We maxed, relaxed and took a lot of photos until returning to camp to do much of the same by the camp's lake. It was an awesome day and tomorrow will be spent at Lake Compounce, an amusement/waterpark. Yeah baby!!! Ok, I know it sounds like I'm not really working, but trust me, the amusement park thing is stressful, we have to watch the kids all day and make sure nothing happens to them. If we let them out of our sight we also lose our job. DRAINER!

The kids and general vibe of this session is so different to the first, everyone seems much more mellow. It could be due to the fact that the numbers second half have dropped dramatically. In my bunk alone I went from have 13 kids to just 9 this session. I think I'm quite enjoying camp at the moment, because in addition to it being the home stretch, I received a 'Shining Counselor' award a few days ago, so I guess I must be doing something right. Woo hoo!

I think I may be going to New York again in a few days, and I plan to shop shop shop. Yih!

I'll update again when I have something more interesting to write.

see you bye.