Day 74

So camp is now officially over. It doesn’t really feel like it’s set in though – like I’m still in the mindset that the people I said goodbye to yesterday I’ll see again first thing Monday morning. It’s certainly been a full week; business as usual but it still had the feel of an ending about it. Very sad!

So last Saturday me and Amy took our third and final two-mile walk up 14 Mile Road to 14/Orchard, the intersection that houses Borders, Champps, Old Navy, Walgreens and other outlet stuff. We began in Borders, where most of my stuff was stuff for other people, cos I needed stuff for Jacob and Leanne for their birthdays, plus wrapping and cards etc. My bill came to over $100, and then we went to California Pizza Kitchen and hung out for a bit because it was raining! We each ordered half-portions of salad (I had the Waldorf salad cos I remember dad having some sort of joke about it ages ago) but they were still bloody huge! I only managed to plough through half of that, and Amy pointed out that I’d only managed to get through a quarter of a salad. Measly! I felt very mum and dad finishing off with a couple of cups of coffee and realised that I’m actually acquiring a taste for it. Maybe it’s different in America, I don’t know. So anyway while we were in there we wrote our cards for Jacob and Leanne, scribbled on our tissue-paper-wrapped gifts for them, and then to kill more rain-time we returned to Borders where I decided to buy some books for myself, dammit, and I was very self-satisfied for having bought a very smart-looking Sylvia Plath book called The Bell Jar. Anyway next thing you know you’re at the checkout being charged another $160 and between us we realised we’d successfully passed the $300 mark. I did, in the first phase of our trip, buy a scrapbook and a box of felt-tip pens and decided to make something of it! When we walked back home again we hung out for a while and I began ploughing my way through it. Sometimes I get myself into a little project like that and suddenly feel a lot younger, scribbling things in a book with felt tips!

Sunday was quite quiet during the day. I spent the daytime sorting my stuff into piles, and doing lots and lots of laundry. I also carried on with my scrapbook and then in the evening we went out for Leanne’s birthday, we being Amy, Aaron and Leanne, and it was quite sad because it was our last trip out as a foursome. I’ll miss us four! We started off in Applebee’s, a restaurant where they have this deal where you can get 3 courses for $10… obviously it wasn’t particularly great food but it was pretty good value! After that we walked round for a bit, went into Target and killed some time, then went over to the movie theatre – one we hadn’t been to before – to see Wall-E, which was really good, really clever.

Monday kicked off the final week of camp, and first thing Monday morning when our bus got in I walked over to the pigeon holes to collect our group sheet and schedule for the week, and saw that on the sticky label at the top of the sheet it said “TIGERS – STEVE B/ROB/SHAUN K” but my name had been scribbled out, so I walked into the office to ask why I’d been scribbled out (I was worried I was the next to be fired!) and Liz said I’d been moved to another group, the Barracudas, a first grade group, because their other counsellor Max T had left for a soccer camp. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it really… I was pleased in a way that I’d be able to experience a different group and work with a different co-counsellor, James, but at the same time I’d been with the Tigers for the whole summer so to be taken away from them for the last week with no warning was quite sad. Plus, when I saw Sam in the playground on Saturday, she said “Oh yeah, Dean told me on Saturday!”… so obviously news had got round to other people, but not me!

For first period the Barracudas teamed up with the Wildcats (Max G, Oli and Fiona) for some general silly games like tug of war, sack racing, capture the flag and stuff. It went fine; the Barracudas had five less kids than the Tigers but some of them you could tell were going to be a challenge.

Monday evening was the last soccer/Champps night of the year, and then Tuesday night was the second and final staff social, which was held at the same bowling alley we went to when we first met our host families on the first day (we didn’t bowl though). It was a huge place so there was never going to be an electric atmosphere but it was still quite nice.

Wednesday was my last time of babysitting Bradley, and he was good as per usual, and me, Sam and Amy went to pick up the Green Dot T-shirts, which was very exciting (“HAPPY T-DAY!”). Then on Thursday came the final Overnight day. During the actual day, the Barracudas were a nightmare. All but one of the kids took their turns to throw tantrums, run off, and get in an argument or some other form of misbehaviour. After the normal camp day though when the kids not on the overnight went home, we got put into our groups for the night and I’d been put back with the Tigers!! I was very smiley and happy for that night. The last overnight theme was Celebrity and was set up by Joe, Adam M and Adam S, which was cool as they’d never planned an Overnight before, so I was pleased for them that it went well. Amy redecorated the life-size model cow on The Hill with wrapping paper and varnish and it looks so cool! When the kids went to bed I got a few counsellors to sign my scrapbook so I was quite satisfied…

Friday had such a strange atmosphere because it felt like the last day but at the same time it didn’t feel like the end… if that makes any sense. We had a Carnival type thing in the morning, for which every group had a stall set up somewhere around camp (the Barracudas had Sand Dig in the sand pit) and the kids could wander around and win candy and little toys and that sort of stuff. Then we had the last Friday show, then a last swim session and finally the last Milk and Cookies. The bus ride home was quite sad… we went through Green Dot’s Greatest Hits where all of us counsellors said our favourite camp song and we all sung them… mine was the Frog Song, it’s a classic, you’re missing out… we gave each kid a standing ovation as they left the bus and then shouted a random word of advice out the window as the bus drove away (for example “Eat your vegetables!” or “Study hard!” or “Look both ways before crossing the street!”) which was quite amusing. We had a sad goodbye in our Green Dot T-shirts and one last group photo in front of the bus, and then Sam and me walked over to Warren (the drug store in the parking lot where the buses “live”) which felt very sad because then we said bye to Sam for good! Also had to say goodbye to Aaron but we plan to do something in December.

When I got home chez Simtob it was straight out to Aimee’s parents for dinner. They did me a cake!! It was a bunt cake (a la Big Fat Greek Wedding) and said Bon Voyage Shaun on it. That was cool and then we went back home and I spent the night packing my big cases but I still had to do the hand luggage, which was basically just going to be all the loose crap I hadn’t packed elsewhere. But then on Saturday morning after calling home I had about two hours of dancing stuff from one case to the other. I love how I came here with a suitcase exactly on the weight limit plus bulging hand luggage, and I’m leaving with a suitcase exactly on the weight limit plus bulging hand luggage PLUS an extra smaller bulging suitcase.

Amy, Luke and I got picked up by a driver at 3:15, went to pick up Jacob and then drove to the train station in Birmingham, which was really just a platform in the middle of a weird construction-filled area. After Brigitte arrived and the longest freight train EVER went past our train arrived. It was really roomy and the six hour journey went by quite quickly. When we got to the Union Station in Chicago we hopped in a cab to our hotel and went up in two groups because we have a room for four for five of us. It’s so cramped in here with the sofa bed pulled out and a sleeping bag sprawled out on the floor and seventeen thousand cases… there is hardly any floor space but hey we have a place to sleep for $87 each!

So I’m writing from our hotel room right now, I think today the five of us are going to the aquarium and then to see this Blue Man thing which I don’t know much about, but that should make the next post quite interesting!