Day 11

So after last weekend's opening Orientation session and Open House, this I suppose has been the first official weekend of the summer.

Yesterday was quite cool, though a slow burner. I got up at about noon, after having barely slept at the Overnight on Thursday. It was Brooke's birthday, and her party began at 2pm. She had a load of friends over and they made these gumball machines out of flower pots and little bowl things which looked cool!

Leanne called during the party and said that a load of co-counsellors were off to some nearby lake, but we were struggling to get transportation. I don't think the cars have been that well distributed to be honest, as I think most of the International Staff who've been given cars are in subdivisions a couple of miles away. Anyway, after the party wrapped up I wandered over to Leanne and Amy's, and with host families tied up we figured we wouldn't be able to make the lake thing so we just lazed about in their back yard (sorry, back garden...) for just over an hour. Sarah, staying next door to them, wandered over just after 6pm and we went on the mother of all walks! Firstly, about fifteen minutes up the road, we came across a BP garage, which Sarah described as her "temple" due to the fact it provides her with her fix of Peanut Butter M&Ms! It's strange to imagine, but out here the BP garage 15 minutes up the road is, that I know of, the closest shop to us. The neighbourhoods are all huge and well spaced apart, and shops and shopping districts are just dotted occasionally in between them. Anyway, whilst there I got a bottle of Mountain Dew, which is a really weird drink... it's like Sprite mixed with fizzy water, with added citrus and caffeine. Really nice, but apparently it's banned in the EU! Also dabbled in the American Skittles scene! They have these tropical ones in a blue packet and Smoothie ones in an orange packet, although to be honest neither are that great.

Anyway minutes past the BP garage was this little, quite ghostly, little shopping vacinity. Tucked in the corner though was a Yoz, where I'd been with Richard and Brad on Monday night after the latter's baseball game. We sat there for a while and had some frozen yoghurt, which does beat the feeble stuff you get as a dessert at Nando's! We carried on walking after that, and after another quarter of an hour we arrived at this fairly big shopping precinct. We went in this huge Matalan-esque shop called Old Navy, where I bought flip flops for $5. I didn't bring any with me because open-toed shoes aren't allowed at camp but theyre quite handy just for about the house and gardens etc.

Sarah and I both were feeling a bit of a stomach thing which seemed to go away quite quickly, and we also found a hugggge Borders in the vicinity, where Amy quickly threw herself head-first into the poetry etc - we have decided to make a return in the near future! Whenever I'm in Borders in the UK I always buy Entertainment Weekly (film, tv, music... all in one! Amazing!) as they import it from the US. Just because I was actually IN the US didn't mean the tradition was going to be forgotten, so I made the obligatory purchase of an Entertainment Weekly!

We had something to eat at Max and Erma's, which is a nice American restaurant (a bit like Fatty Arbuckle's at home) where I had my first reaaaally fatty burger since arriving! The service was really good, and certainly beat alot of the service you get back home. We began the long trek home after that, but actually the half hour walk seemed to go by quite quickly. Arrived back home at about 10:30.

Today was a bit of a slow day. Got up at about 11 and the host family had gone to the zoo. I did a load of laundry with TV on in the background and I also made my first tea since arriving, only it's a bit of a mission over here as you need to actually boil the water in a pan on the hob. Just after 4:00 we left for Brooke's piano recital and from there we went to Aimee's brother's house for a Father's Day dinner, which was the same crowd as last Sunday, with Richard's dad also in attendance!

We got home just after 8:00, and now here I sit blogging with the Tony Awards on TV! It's really good cos it's obviously an awards ceremony, but it also has a loaaaad of performances of numbers from Broadway shows which is cool. I really want to see the Broadway revival of South Pacific before going home now! A number's just been performed from the Soundheim show "Gypsy", starring Patty LuPone... I don't know much about her, but she is the subject of an in-joke with Dean so it's making me smile! Right now it's a number from a forthcoming Broadway show of Disney's The Little Mermaid. The leading lady is singing Part Of That World (I think that's what it's called... you know the song) but her voice is a bit all over the place with head voice and chest voice so it's not too great.

First official day of camp tomorrow, and the getting up at 6:30 every weekday will begin!