This really isn't my kind of town

Ok, so the last two days have been very very surreal

Yesturday morning i went down to the greyhound station again to chase up my bags, still no sign, however half an hour later i got a call saying that my bags had showed up so I went down to greyhound again to meet luke the baggage guy, again, where he hands me my rucksack, which i noticed was missing the sandels, which caught my attention as being odd, then the second bag wasnt there it was just some of the stuff dumped in a black bin bag,

Luke said that a guy had just come up and said he found the bag in the alleyway across the street

After working through the chain of events luke speculated that the bags had infact been sent up from cleveland on saturday morning as on phoning clevland they said it had been on the bus, but when being unloaded at chicago someone swiped them, took what they wanted and dumped them in the alleyway, so my cd case, and a large proportion of money have gone, as well as some odd items like a couple of t shirts, and most bizzarely quite a few pairs of boxer shorts! Sadly several gifts and souvieners id collected for people also vanished. :(

Im in a strange state of flux at the moment which is proberly just the shock of it all, and i don't really know how to react to the whole situation.

So after nearly 4 hours in the greyhound terminal including calling the chicago police i left and went out with some people from the hostel, firstly to a latin music festival, however that kind of got rained out so we headed for some chicago style deep dish pizza which was great.

T

ARGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

STILL NO BAGS AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The Longest day

Yesturday i decided to culturally enlighten myself a little so headed for the art museum but this time actually made it inside rather than just up the steps, it was very good with lots of art i reconised including Van Gough's sunflowers and several Rodin scupltures as well as some excellent asian art,
On the way back to the hostel on the bus i happened to bump into Johnny and Ryan from camp which was yet another random occurence,
Then at 11pm it was time for me to get my bus to chicago which it turned out didnt actually leave until 12.20, after what seemed like forever along with changes in pittsburgh and cleveland, we finally arrived, one of our drivers having proved his mettle in cleveland by squaring up to an angry passager who couldnt get on the bus! The security guard stood idle and seemed more than happy to let the driver sort the guy out.

As i said, i arrived in chicago, however, my bags didn't. Hopefully they are somewhere between here and pittsburg and traceable, the rediculously helpful man at the chiago office seemed to think they would be in clevland, but they had left for the night so i have to call in the morning.

Luckily the hostel im in is fantastic so im able to partially forget the stressage!

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

or maybe not

T

Le Capitol - Independenceville

Well well well, what a couple of days

After enjoying a truely unique tour of washingtons monuments on saturday morning, in the blinding heat and with a tour guide who was like a cross between a school economics teacher and dennis hopper in apocalpyse now in the boiling hot sunshine, i felt fully aquainted with the sights monuments and memorials of the beautiful and friendly city of washington D.C. The tour even included an obligotry group photo outside the white house!

In the afternoon three of us, all lower leauge fans went on an adventure to the Robert Kennedy Memorial stadium to see D.C united play soccer against the colorado rapids, the d.c united team included 17 year old wunderkind Freddy Adu. Having been orginally seated in between two large concrete blocks and 3 kids , at half time we decided to move to a position where we could see and get a little more atmosphere than the sterility of the first half to which we were greeted by a drunk being ejected having just vomited over two rows of seats!

In the evening i had one of those 'seriously random nights'. This was in the top ten, right up there with swimming pools in fueteventura, razorlights tourbus, 4am bakeries and russian elevators. On coming out from being out at a bar, where sadly your humble authour had been watching T.V and playing snake on my american cellphone, i was coerced into the beutiful idea of walking to the Lincoln memorial with a group of us who has met at the tour in the morning, whilst carrying one of the girls bags as she had to be at the greyhound terminal by 6 am, some people even wanted to go swimming in the reflecting pool, but thankfully sense prevailed on that one!

The next day i went with leah, an australian to arlington national cemetry which was very moving and interesting followed by the huge iwo jima memorial to the US marine corps, which was very impressive and hopefully have some great photos from that. In the afternoon i visited the museum of american history which led me to conclude that britain had taken no part in world war II!!

On monday i headed for philadephia, to discover that my hostel was actually in the middle of nowhere! An unfriendly welcome from the locals on the bus didnt do anything for my confidence but the hostel proved to be lovely. This was where i met will who is from manchester and togther we started to watch rocky (it felt apt being in philly), then realised we were only watching it for the steps sequence so fast forwarded the tape and let the girls in the room hi jack the recorder to watch pretty woman.

The next day Will and I borrowed bikes from the hostel and cycled into the city. After the experience i can definately see why floyd landis took performance enchancing drugs, im still struggling to sit down properly. We did the obligotry photo by the art museum- aka the rocky steps and then went to the excellent franklin science centre, in the afternoon we explored downtown and then took the bikes off to 'Lee's hoagie house' where we had been told was the best place to obtain a philly cheese steak and it didnt disappoint. After a spectaular ride back i collapsed exhustedly into the shower, feeling glad of the exercise.

Today i explored more of the city, and visted the site of the signing of the declaration of independence and the liberty bell which infact is a lot smaller than i had imagined it.

As a side point, monday marked the half way point of my post camp travels, i can't belive how quickly its going.

Hope everyone is having a great time,

T

New York To D.C!

Howdy folks, currently in wahington d.c. and having a great time,

On monday gavin and i went to the american museum of natural history which was really interesting even though they left the dinasores to the last floor, by which time we were quite tired and we could feel the museum shutting around us!

Tuesday saw me head off to the United Nations building, well it felt a crime not to really since id spent an entire term studying it, which was facinating even if i am confident that our guide new pretty much next to nothing about the UN and its activities! Then in the afternoon i explored the beauty and tranquility of central park.

In the evening as we headed back from getting something to eat i had yet another of those random, its a small world type moments. I was just walking past one of the millions of starbucks on the way back to the hostel when i saw Emma Moreton from uni, who was until recently the sabbatical in charge of the Athletic Union at Uni. I was stunned to see someone so familar and we spent a while chatting as it turns out she had been working on a camp in upstate new york. Im still shocked at quite how random it was!

On wednesday we visited the museam of the city of new york followed by a free showing of the new movie idlewild, which is about as much as im allowed to say about it until its released!

Yesturday i jumped on the bus from new york which brought me down to washington d.c. The pepole here are a lot freindler than in new york, i was greeted by one of the local 'SAM' (safety and maintance) staff as soon as i stepped out of the subway who directed me to the hostel where i am now staying.

After finding a beautiful sandwhich shop which made a scrumptious banana and apple smoothie i went for a walk around the city, and found what i thought was the white house and was amazed at how close i was able to get, however i soon discovered by walking a little further that that was in fact the department of the treasurery and oh, THATS THE WHITE HOUSE,

This brought me onto thinking of one of those strange american contradictions, why do they have uniformed secret service personel? surely they lose their secracy?

Today i endulged my geek side and visited the superb smithsonian museam of air and space flight, and spent hours mainly in wonder at all the exhibits! This evening i joined a hotel organised execursion to the Kennedy Centre for the arts to look round and see a jazz concert, in the process finding a statue of presdient esisenhower which looked exactly like gazza! No kidding!

Ok now for a few messages
1) thanks for everyone whos emailed/ left comments, its great when pepole do please do as it lets me know you are all still alive etc etc and yes ele i did get the package it was great thanks, i did send you a letter which should arrive any day now i hope.
2) Becky, i hope you did ok in your exams and your test, let me know!
3) I managed to upload some photos to my facebook.com page, which is quite easy to get to, just type my name in and you can look at them,

Hope everyone is having fun

T
XXX

The End of Part 1

On friday, amoungst many tears from the campers at least, camp wildwood 2006 came to a close.
I jumped onto one of the camp buses which was headed for the outskirts of new york city where i am now.
Ive been travelling with gavin who is from epsom and for the first two nights we stayed in a hostel in chealsea which turns out to be in the middle of the gay district! There was even a bar called rawhide at the end of the street which the hostel was on!

On friday we went for a walk round time square followed by going to see rocky horror picture show in the cinema with a live cast in front of the screen, was abosultely hilarious and a lot of fun, even if i did get called on stage!

On saturday we went down to the river with the intetion of going up the statue of liberty but in the end we just went on the staten island ferry and saw her from the outside as the cue(line) was too long! Then in the afternoon we walked up 5th avenue which was good and saw the empire state building but again didnt go in! We also went to the world trade centre site which was very moving along with seeing the oliver stone film world trade centre which was quite good.


Sunday ment it was time for us to move across town to a different hostel and then we went to the beach at coney island which was awesome, quite like blackpool but with nice weather! Last night went on the walk of all walks and ended up 70 streets away but all the subways had shit so had to walk back! arr!

Anyways it on to Washington D.C on wed and from there, who knows!

T

Colour/ Color War

Wow
Color War was amazing,
The Camp was split down the middle with 3 Seniors (15) on each side as generals in charge of the camp.
The theme was Cats Vs. Dogs and i was a member of the Gray Cats, When color war 'broke' we stayed up to write the theme songs for our team until 3am! Ok thats not really unusal for me at uni but condsidering the latest ive been to sleep for the past two mounths is 1am its quite something!

4 days of very intense competition followed, with my coaching and motivational skills put to the test in newcombe, Street Hockey, Swimming, Athletics, Archery, Ping Pong and all sorts of other sports and events.
I took part in the Staff Soccer, Trivia and Tug O War as well as being responsible for the team song and cheer, we had to perform 3 items a cheer, a fight song and an alma mater.
I helped to write the fight song which proved to be a hit and netted us 40 points.
I had an amazing time and lost a lot of my voice cheering on our team!
In the end we won by 60 amid tearful sceans on both sides, it was quite tearful for me as two of my kids jose and benji left for poueto rico that night too.

Anyways have to go, will put a longer update up soon

T
XXX

Olympics!

The last few days have seen a mini olympics competition between the Junior campers with the groups split into 8 teams as a mini rehursal for colour war which is imminent.

I was one of the officials and oversaw the soccer and the newcombe competitions which was a lot of fun tho some of the coaches decided to get a little too into it tho the kids had a lot of fun which was good

My kids have been on a trip the last few days which means as im a specailty councellor ive been assigned to cover one of the Oak (11's) bunks because on Friday, Chris one of the water ski guys was fired for getting into an argument with one of the group leaders, however im sleeping in bunk 11 which only has councellors in at the moment which means im getting a lot more sleep!

Camp has wound down now ready for the intensity that will be colour war - 4 days of intense competition between two teams- grey and blue both with different themes which are yet to be reveled. Im a bit nervous to be honest as some of the intesity ive seen so far over ''friendly'' games has been quite frightening especially amoung the ex-campers, anyway we shall see.

As soon as colour war is over there are only a few days left then its the end of camp. My travel plans so far extend as far as getting the Bus with the kids back to NYC then who knows. Im planning to go to Clemson in south carolina to visit a friend from camp and go to a football game which should be ace.

For anyone thats interested i now have a US cellphone- (917) 749-7120

Anyways must be off to do some more relaxing on my day off

T
XXX