Howdy!

So the last week or camp has sprinted right up and slapped me on the back - I can't believe how quickly it's gone! Time flies, as they say...

Reminiscent of the first night off the Internationals were given way back in June, we were taken back to the same hotel, Birch Run, for our last night off at camp - it was gonna be a big 'un. After dinner together in a local Applebees, we all headed back to our rooms to start the party...a few of the waterfront boys had been secretly collaborating all day with some big, mysterious idea that they had planned for the night, which turned out to be big, fake, Jewish wedding ceremony! SO, crowding into the same room, a hat was passed around the group with various roles written on pieces of paper to be picked by each person, from the bride and groom, to the drunken Aunt, slutty Step-mum and pervy Great-Uncle. (I turned out to be the father of the bride, who in turn was Ben, to be married to the groom, Deb, just to avoid confusion...). The boys had prepared; they'd even brought kippah's for us all to wear (the Jewish cap). The girls and guys were then split up and each taken to seperate rooms to host our "hen" and "stag" parties, involving drinking games, speeches and some pretty interesting strip teases from 2 members of the other party - so funny to watch! And then came the ceremony.

Tim, one of the waterfront guys leading the whole shebang, had previously asked the hotel for permission to use their conference room to host our "wedding" in, so we all made our way down there in our "wedding procession". Joss, a lifeguard, took up the role of Rabbi, reading sermons from his Torah (hotel Bible) to his congregation (drunken internationals) in his synagogue (hotel conference room). The bridesmaids, aka waterski guys, led the way in their tin-foil dresses, followed by the beautiful, blushing bride, Ben, in his loo paper gown (who at this point was unable to stand up and so was being escorted by the maid of honour, Josh). It was a sight to behold. We'd even attracted the curious, if slightly astounded, attention of the hotel staff and other customers, who acted as bystanders and laughed along with the event. Speeches were read and the newlyweds' beautiful (ridiculous) vows were said (one written by each person in the room), and with a drunken kiss, the marriage was sealed. Definitely one for the albums.

Then came "Power Hour", a camp tradition whereby each specialist area, i.e., waterski, lifeguarding, and boating and canoeing (me), retreats into a separate room without being able to leave for that hour. Games are played, dares are carried out...whatever the group supervisor decides for their staff. B and C teamed up with waterski as there were so few of us, and being outnumbered 3 girls to 7 guys, the overall decision was naturally to have a "Pants Off Power Hour" - everyone had to remove their trousers/skirts and run around in their underwear. Following this, there was the random, yet intriguing, discovery of "the mattress room", a room filled with nothing but mattresses - so all in all, a pretty interesting night!

The next day was spent trying to shake off some pretty horrific hangovers by going to the movies, before heading back to camp. We had our last beautiful Hav Dallah, the candelit ceremony held to mark the symbolic end of Shabbat, the Jewish holy day, with the whole camp sitting together around a bonfire singing prayers. That night, the 8 prestigious colour war captains were also announced in the hall after dinner, with 2 of of our friends, Caitlin and Adam, being selected. This is a HUGE honour, especially for Caitlin as a first time staff member, so there was a lot of jumping around and squealing!

And so Colour War commenced the next day, the whole camp competing against each other as red, yellow, blue or green to win the title of Colour War Champions. Once again I was on the red team, and after digging around for as many red garments to wear as possible and slapping some red paint on, I helped my team out with the competitions on the beach, and was assigned to aid the kids in the kayaking section of the huge Apache relay race to finish the day. Unlike the Colour War in the last session, I had time to run up to the finish line to watch in anticipation as each team's fire was built as quickly as possible by the captains, to burn through the rope suspended high above it and mark the completion of the relay and the winning team. Usually, as the relay race is so big, extending to all areas of camp, there're often big gaps between each team by the end; however, this one was ridiculously close between the first two, so when the rope finally snapped for the blue team, the noise was deafening as the kids and staff alike leapt up and cheered.

Once everything had calmed down a bit and all teams had burned through their ropes, everyone was sat before the senior staff to await the announcement of the overall Colour War winners. The 2 captains per team stood in a line holding up a giant flame torch together, with only one of the 4 torches soaked in oil - the only one able to light. Simultaneously, whilst everyone looked on silently in anticipation, 4 senior staff members holding a lit torch each, stepped forward and attempted to light the captains' torches. There was complete silence for only a few seconds before the realisation that Adam's torch had lit, resulting in a mass surge of blue team members to swarm at Adam and his co-captain, screaming and cheering while they elatedly held the flaming torch high. It's a HUGE achievement.

That day was the day before my 21st birthday - a big one. As it was the last week of camp, however, each day was an "in camp", preventing us from going out of camp after 10:30pm when we had our free time - poo. Despite my supervisor's attempts to let a few of us go to a bar that evening to celebrate, she was turned down, so we decided to have a small camp fire and invite everyone along to chill that night and celebrate camp-style instead. But when it got to 10:30pm, the girls in my cabin started to lead me the opposite direction. We walked for around 10 minutes, me thinking that maybe we were having the camp fire on the other side of the lake, before ending up at the auditorium, the big hall. Confused, I walked in with the girls to be greeted by the rest of the waterfront staff cheering and singing happy birthday to me behind a huge spread of cakes, chocolate dip, strawberries, marshmallows, crisps, fizzy drinks, etc. It was a complete surprise and so cute that they'd organised this for me! They handed me 2 musical cards, one from everyone on each side of the lake, with cute little messages written inside from everyone, before they shoved a cake in my face. Nice.

The next day, I officially became an adult. During degal before breakfast, where the flags are raised and national anthems sang, I was made to "skip around the degal", a tradition whereby the birthday person skips around the space in front of the flags with their friends, whilst everyone chants "skip around the degal, skip around the degal, we won't shut up until you skip around the degal...". I was dragged up by my little Fishman girls and the girls from my cabin, and they all held hands in a line with me while we skipped. Throughout the day, my birthday would be announced over the microphone or shouted out to remind people, which was pretty funny. It was a good day for a birthday anyway, as we had the all camp play presenting Peter Pan, and the all camp dance in the evening. The day was made even better, however, by the fact that I got "caught": each session, 10 or so members of staff out of around 200 are recognised by the senior staff as having done something well, or done something to be praised for, i.e., getting "caught" for that good thing. The "caught" staff are announced over the microphone during a lunch time, and each given a camp t-shirt with "I got caught" written across the back. And it turned out that I was one of them!

That evening, the staff awards evening was held in the dining hall, with an amazing banquet laid out for us and a red carpet leading between the tables. It was a good excuse for everyone to get a bit dressed up too, for once :) Speeches were made by the senior staff and director, before select members of staff were called up to achieve certain awards. The waterfront area definitely came out on top, with my supervisor, Steph, being awarded "Supervisor of the Year", Adam getting "Most Valuable Person", Maddie achieving "Best Female Specialist" and Joss winning "Best Male Specialist"! So proud. Let's say our table was one of the loudest!

The 15th was the last full day of camp. With just the first 2 periods on, the afternoon was spent clearing up camp, putting all of the equipment away, cleaning up the beaches, and packing. Very sad :( That evening we had "Culmination", the end of camp showcase where the staff from each village stand up in front of everyone and sing a goodbye song to the kids, before speeches from the Director are made and a long slideshow is presented from that session. A candy party was arranged in my little girls' cabin that evening, all 10 of them and their 2 counsellors sitting around in a circle on their sleeping bags and reminiscing about their favourite memories from camp. They were all presented with a "paper plate award" for various things that they'd achieved that session, before they all reluctantly headed off to bed, high on sweets and emotions.

And so, on the 16th August, camp ended. As specialists, we were up early (5am!) to lug all of the kids' GIANT duffle bags from their village lodges to the roadside to be picked up by huge removal lorries and taken to the local conference centre where the families would be waiting. Then, at 10am after breakfast, the kids were all lined up outside and taken over to the big green Tamarack buses. Then the tears started flowing - I had one of my girls latched onto my leg begging me to let her stay with me, whilst another two were hugging me and sobbing. So emotional! They were all loaded onto the buses while the counselors all stood beside them, singing and waving and crying.

And then quiet descended. We all trudged back to our cabins to clean them and finish trying to stuffing all of our, somehow larger, amount of clothes and accumulated bits and pieces into our rucksacks, amongst some nostalgic dancing around and signing our names on the wall for other camp generations to see. We all set about writing letters to each other to read when we'd left camp and it all got a bit emotional - these are friends that I'll have for life.

We knew at 1:30pm that one of the camp buses would take those of us who are travelling together to the Greyhound station in Detroit, so at 1pm we headed down to the dining hall to have a packed lunch while the rest of the staff gradually accumulated at the waterfront outside to say their goodbyes. Suddenly, 1:30pm came around and the director was urging us to get on the bus so that we wouldn't be late. And suddenly we were having to say goodbye to everyone, the other specialists, the supervisors, the international staff, the American counsellors. Some of the Americans started crying and then the tears were flowing and everyone was hugging and exchanging contact details and promising to come back or visit each other. And then suddenly we were piled on the bus and driving to the camp entrance, trying to take everything in one last time before we left our summer home. I had a great surprise also, as, just as the camp gates were slowly opening to let the bus out, the receptionist, Kitty, came running out waving a package for me. It was my birthday present from my parents that we thought had got lost in the post!

And then we were out, me, 5 Aussies, 1 Kiwi and 2 English girls off to Detroit bus station to go on the 7 hour journey to Toronto, the first part of our American backpacking adventure!

To be continued... :)

xx