Ich packe meine Sachen und bin raus mein Kind...

The rainforest

bekky — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:39:00 GMT

The next day we went to the far end of the city, we took a 45 minute MRT ride and then took the bus (first in the wrong direction) for another hour to a little place where they had bumboats that took you to the island of Pulu Ubin (i probably spelled that wrong) it was really great to get to the outskirts of the city because it was totally tourist free and we had some real original singapore. the island is mainly rainforest, what singapore looked like in the 1960s. we rented mountain bikes for 3 euros (i love this country) and rode around the island through the rain forest. it was amazing, we saw a ton of things and had the original rainforest sounds going on all around us! i took like a million pictures of rainforest :-)...we also saw two huge lizzards, that crossed the road right in front of us, they scared the shit out of us, becuase they were like one meter long!! our trail also took us through a swampland where our bikes got stuck and we had to get off and push them because the trail was too narrow to ride on it :-)! my legs were so muddy i really looked like i came straight from the rainforest :-)! we got back on the mainland and found this adorable food plaza that all the locals use ans had some good stuff there and we both did perfectly fine eating with chopsticks :-)! the place was amazing, it was bustling of people and so busy but at the same time you could really relax just watching all the people! i even had some sugarcane juice and it was really good! we went back to the hostel to take shwoers and get that mud off us and then we got dressed up a little and went out on the boat quay, thats a really nice area along the river where they have a ton of restaurants, bars, clubs and even an oktoberfest in the middle :-)! first we checked out the hedkandi bar, the coolest looking bar that i've ever been to! then we went to have some food we ate some satay and then we went to a bar that was called the clinic and really looked like a hospital, they had wheelchairs and hospital beds as chairs and served cocktails on drips :-) totally unique! then we went to a club and rocked to some 80s, indian music and dance music, the craziest mix i've ever heard but we had so much fun and met a couple people from england. then we had to take the cab home because the subway closes at 12a.m. and it was almost three :-)! the next day we went to the zoo but first we went to the city center to see orchard road which is a huge street that has only shopping centers along it. truly amazing. there's just mall after mall after mall. and every mall is like five stories tall! crazy! then we went on the long trip with the bus to go to the zoo. the zoo was amazing, it was truly the best zoo i've ever been to! they have the coolest animals there and it's surounded by rainforest, so it seems like you are in the rainforest seeing all these animals! i even pet a kangaroo :-)!! how cool is that?? after the zoo we went next door to the night safari were i had some ben&jerry's and then we went on the night safari that was a tram ride trough a huge forest full of the coolest anymals! and they're so close to the tram you can almost touch them! we also went on some short walks to see some leopards and then we watched the creatures of the nights show that was pretty cool and ended with a commercial for recycling :-)! well we went back to the hostel and met some more cool people that have arrived that day and sat outside with them some time chatted until i finally bet tonight a two in the morning :-). so now i just recently got up, alan left this morning, he's going to brisbane and i just got breakfast and will see what's going on now. i might head to one of the electronic shopping centers to get a new battery for my notebook, this one sucks! but yeah i'll see what every one else is doing :-)! oh and the irish guys just invited me to have some drinks with them tonight, gotta love those irish there's about ten of them :-) and they all have the coolelst accent in the world :-)! ok, i'm off! have a good one!

Uniquely Singapore!

bekky — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:00:00 GMT

So after having some trouble leaving germany, i'm finally here :-)! in the very diverse and fascinating city of singapore! when i got out of the MRT (which is by the way absolutely spotless) it felt like i was hitting a wall. the humidity over here is probably close to 90% or so, the first minutes it felt like i couldn't breath right and you immediately start sweating... i got to the hostel and didn't even get lost on the way :-)! now i'm living with 11 other males and females from all over the world in one room and i gotta say, i absolutely love it! on the first night, after i took the probably best shower of my life i went outside to sit with the other backpackers on the street and have some beers. it's the coolest thing, you sit there, it's a beautiful night and you watch all the indians bustling around on the streets ( i live in the district that's called little india, because all the indians of singapore live here, so it's really like you are in india!) and we're drinking the cheapest but best beer (i actually like it) in singapore while talking about everything and more all night long. i really love living in a hostel, you just meet people so fast and easy and they're from all over the world! how much better can it possibly get :-)? well i've already met a ton of people, two irish guys i could barely understand, two germans i could understand very well and tom from france as well as antoine, the brits alan, dave, matt and g the crazy spanish guy marc, tamer from egypt, jed from NZ and rune from danmark :-) i guess you can really tell that for some reasons there are a lot more guys here than girls, but they're all tons of fun and so easy to get along with! the first day, alan and me decided to go explore together because it was both our first day in singapore. so we kinda just started walking down the street we live in towards the beach. singapore is really interesting to look at, because in the little districts like little india it really looks like in india (or at least that's what i would picture india like) and then you get out and it's very modern, with lots of skyscrapers and new buildings, it's always spottless and humid :-)! so we walked a long way along hotels, churches, rugby fields towards the esplanage a huge theatre on the beach that looks like a giant hedgehog. there were massive amounts of people there, because it was a public holiday that all had a picnic really crazy i don't think i've ever seen so many people on so little space (that's when you know you're in asia). we had our first singaporean meal there (that was actually thai) and it was really delicious! then we walked towards the central business distict, because we wanted to go to sentosa island (a resort island with lots of attractions on it) but somehow we didn't realize how far it was and then the map we had didn't go all the way down to sentosa, so we didn't now where to go...it took us probably twenty minutes to admit that we were lost plus it started raining, so we took a cab to the cable car station (by the way it was still like a 15 minutes ride...) the cable car took us to sentosa, where we visited the pink dolphins, it was a really cool show (there were so many people on the island, you had to get in line for everything) and there were several thousand people watching. i've never seen pink dolphins before so that was real cool! next we went to the beach that was real nice and to the southermost point of continetal asia :-)! then we went to the underwaterworld, probably one of the coolest that i've ever been to just because they have all these animals that i've never seen! when we got back off the island, we took the MRT to chinatown to have dinner and we found this really cool night market where there were lots of food stands were we bought some food (i had chicken rolled up in pan leaves - delicious!) and sat on the street to eat, it was absolutely great! then we strolled around and found this indian temple in chinatown (how bizarre is that?!) and this little bar where they had the euro qualifications going on and england was playing, so we stopped for a beer there and watched the game with all these chinese that didn't know any english but never got tired of shouting rooney rooney and owen owen :-) it was great! then after a really long day we go back to the hostel and sat outside and talked to tom, darrah and marc for a little while before going to bed. i'm gonna right the next to days in the next entries so that this one doesn't get any longer and you guys can actually read the whole thing without falling asleep :-)!

Stuck in Germany

bekky — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:37:00 GMT

Im not in singapore. I havent even leeft the country yet. my plane from munich to frankfurt had a three hour delay so i didnt get my connection flight to singapore last night. so they brought me and three other people to a hotel in the middle of nowhere two and a half hours away from the airport. i got to bed at 4 and had to get up at 7 because the shuttle bus came at 7:30 to bring us back to the airport. fact is ivee been at the airport since 10:30 this morning and my flight doesnt leave until 23:55 tonight so all im doing now is killing tiime at the airport. i dont have much time and this internet is a rip off so ill give you guys some more details later...im gonna go check out the duty free for the millionth tims now :-)...

The see it all in one day Manhatten trip

bekky — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:56:00 GMT

good morning :-)! i just got done packing all my things together because i have to check out in an hour...i can't believe that i'm already leaving again! i mean, i just got here! crazy...well, i enjoyed my stay VERY much, the city is just amazing and my hostel is really great!

yesterday i got up at 8 am (yeah i know, amazing for me huh?) and left my hostel to go to the American Mueseum of Natural History! that was one huge museum! it has 4 floors and each floor is as big as one museum itself! it was incredibly interesting, especially after seeing "Night at the museum" :-) i spend three and a half hours walking around the museum and wondering how much work it would be to create the whole exhibition, it really is huge!

since the museum is right at central park, i left the museum and walked through central park to fifth avenue. i just love the park, it's so pretty and everyone is just realxing there from the hectic city life. plus the weather was amazing again, almost too hot :-)! on fifth avenue i looked at FAO Schwarz, which is a huge toy store and i wished that i was a kid again, it's really cool in there (only the toys r us at times square is better but that's because the toys r us has rides IN the store!!) then i walked along fifth avenue until i got to Rockefeller Center & Square where i got lunch from a street vender and ate it NYC style on the street. The i visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is the most european looking cathedral that i've ever seen in the US :-) but it's really nice (and especially cool) next i wanted to visit my personal highlight of New York, the UN. I took the bus to Grand Central Station (very pretty) walked passed the public library and was stopped by a policeman who asked for my ID (now you gotta know that the whole part of the street that leads to the UN was blocked by police, but i figured that i could still walk there) the policeman told me that since there is a world leaders meeting in the UN building right now, there would be no visitors allowed until NEXT TUESDAY! how stupid is that?!?! i mean, of course it makes sense, but couldn't those world leaders have their meeting some other time when i don't want to see the UN? highly dissapointed, I took two pictures of the outside and turned around :-(.

Instead of seeing the UN, i took the subway to the WTC site. I got off one stop early and so i was walking the streets not finding it, when all the sudden i saw a WTC memorial museum to my left. i thought that it really wouldn't make sense for anyone to open a museum when the site is not right next to it, so i looked around and realized, that the huge construction site that was to my right WAS the WTC...i felt pretty dumb, i guess i just figured that they'd be done by now, i mean it's six years ago but i didn't realize the size of this construction! i visited the memorial museum which made me sad. it was really good though which you could tell by the cleenex boxes in every corner.

i walked a few blocks to wall street where i looked at the stock market, trinity church and sat down at bowling green. then it was time for me to head back to times square.

at times square (which is probably one of my favourtie places in the city) i did some souvenir shopping and then i went to go see my broadway musical! It was amazing. that's all there is to say. I've always loved the lion king, from when i was a little kid but this was just the best of the best! the costumes, the acting, the whole theatre but most of all the music, it was perfect! i was taken in a different world for two and a half hours and i just have to say, broadway is worth all the money you pay for it!! i left with a huge smile on my face, that i couldn't get rid of until i was back at the hostel at 11:30p.m.

yeah, i truly tried it all! NYC in one very good & exhausting day :-)! now i gotta go catch a plane!

I met Jason in NYC...

bekky — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:59:00 GMT

So here i am in the big apple! I left Kansas this morning at 7:30a.m. and flew over Chicago to New York. Everything went really smooth, i didn't lose my luggage, i never got lost, it was great :-)! Since i'm trying to save money so i can spend more on souveniers and clothes i chose the cheapest airport transportation: the public bus! it was a regular public bus and I with my huge backpack and the equal sized duffle bag have to admit that it wasn't the most pleasant bus ride of all times...the bus was literally packed, so i stood for an hour with my 35lb backpack on my back between people and wasn't able to move. i think everyone can imagine the temperature on this bus :-)! the more entertaining thing was that i (of course) stood right at the exit, so everytime someone wanted to get off the bus, i had to get off as well, because otherwise i would've blocked the exit. I shared this hardship with two australian girls who also had a huge backpack and blocked the door with it. but through our suffering we got to know each other and talked the whole bus ride long, what made the ride a lot more enjoyable! and this is the weird part, even though it was hot and uncomfortable and long, i loved this bus ride...it's so much better than to take the fancy shuttle bus or a taxi and i saw a great deal of the city (harlem) we drove right by columbia university, that was pretty neat, since it has been in the news a lot ever since the iranian president visited there. i even found the right connection bus and found my hostel right away! i have to say i haven't been lost so far, i'm really proud of my navigation skills :-)! the hostel is really nice, i'm in a twelve bed room and the girls in there are really nice! the girl in the bed next to me is believe it or not from Posen in poland :-)! of course i told her in what street in germany i live and she thought it was the coolest thing!

of course i left the hostel after i checked in right away, since my time in NYC is super limited. I took the subway straight to Times Square where i spend the next four hours or so. What an amazing place, they have the coolest stores there and it's just so much fun to walk around! The first thing i did though was to buy tickets for the broadway show the lion king :-)! we tomorrow night i'm going to see the lion king on broadway!!! i'm majorly excited!! well afterwards i went store browsing and ate teh probably most expensive meal in my life...i didn't realize that it would be a good idea to get off times square to eat, instead i went to the same tgi Fridays we went to three years ago because i remembered that the food there had been good. well. the food was below average and the price for it definately above! and i've also noticed the difference to walking around alone in a big city compared to a group. i was sitting at the table and had just finished my average dinner, when this guy comes up to me and sits down on my table! he trys to talk to me but he already pissed me off by just sitting down on my table, so i was praying for teh super slow waitress to kick her speed up and finally bring me the check. when she finally did i gave her the biggest tip, not because the service was so amazing, but because i didn't want to wait for change :-)...

well i left the restaurant and headed back on times square, where a guy comes up to me and starts telling me about his comedy club. i was in the mood for some conversation so i talked to him a little bit. he was really nice and we ended up having a really fun conversation (especially after i told him that i didn't want to visit his club) and guess what his name was? Jason :-) i almost laughed out loud when he told me this!

it was getting dark so i decided to head to the empire state building for a view of NY in the night. total rip off! you have to pay $18(!) just to ride up to the observatory and look at NY! it was well worth it though! the view was absolutely stunning! i would only go there at night, it's so much better with all the lights!

since it was already nine thirty and NYC i decided to ride the subway back to the hostel as long as it was save :-). i got my good night starbucks and bought some water at the corner store and called it a night, all this walking is really exhausting! before i went to bed i planned my trip for tomorrow and i'll be getting up at eight, so i don't have to miss a thing of NY :-)!!

getting lost in the Ghetto...

bekky — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:49:00 GMT

today is september the 20th and i have been in the US for 3 months now. so i thought i'd celebrate the whole thing with a new entry :-)! great idea, huh?

I've made a major step in my life over here: i've finally started to work out again :-)! it was amazing! i miss playing sports so much and i just feel like i'm getting lazy and fat..at camp i ran around all day and believe me that was a ton of exercise each day, but here i'm just taking things slow (if i'm not moving furniture around or go for "a little" grocery shopping to walmart) and my condition is just disappearing :-(..so on monday i finally made it up to the YMCA and all i can say is god bless this amazing institution! it probably is one of my very favourite places to be in the US, no kidding! they just have it all & it's huge and of course air-conditioned! so i had an amazing 2 hour workout and being perfectly honest, i'm still incredibly sore as i'm sitting here, typing it all up two days later :-)...

so today i had a very "bekky" experience...after my host mom and me unpacked moving boxes all morning long in the blazing heat, i treated myself with a trip to the mall in the afternoon (this is probably the point where my poor dad needs CPR..) you gotta know, the mall is clear on the other side of town and since there's some big road construction going on on the highway by it, it's kinda complicated to get to..so me being not the greatest with orientation and all that i was pretty proud of myself that i got to the mall without any problems. and i was even able to leave the mall and get back on the right highway without any detours :-). so i'm driving on the highway happy with me and the world, when i realize how thirsty i am. and - oh perfect- there is a gas station coming up at the next exit. so i leave the highway, and as soon as i'm off, i realize that i landed in the ghetto...yeah like every big city in america, even wichita,ks has a ghetto...so i'm getting my drink and looking forward to getting back on the highway. but when i get back to the point where i exited the highway, i cannot find an on ramp..so there i am all by myself in the ghetto not finding any way back on the highway. the really tortourous part about this is that the highway is right there in front of you all the time but there's just no way to get on...so i'm driving around for 20 minutes in this rather interesting neighbourhood watching weird gangsta kids making weird gangsta signs to me until i finally find an on ramp...yeah, that was my adventure for the day and i have to say, there's really nothing more frustrating than not getting on a highway when it's right in front of you...

well i'll be going to get some brownies :-) yummy!!

Gallery: USA Trip 2007

bekky — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:33:00 GMT

Camp Spaulding NH & KS

Good old Kansas

bekky — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:55:00 GMT

so here i am again in my favourite state! i've been here now for quite some time, i left New Hampshire on the 30th of August and ever since then i'm in the sunflower state! i have been living with my host mom and on the weekends i live with my friends who are at college carly & shay. It's pretty weird to be "on vacation" when everyone around you has to go to school or work...but it's fun anyways. I ride a lot because we have friends with a lot of horses and we have horses ourselves so we take them out and ride them all the time. Last week i even competed in a rodeo :-)! That was incredibly much fun! We all got there with two big horsetrailers and Mandy, Zach, Madison, Darren, Ricky and me competed in the events! the cool thing was that we had probably around 20 people from our families watching us, so we had this great fancrowd that cheered for every one of us as if it was the world championships :-)! I competed in four different categories: Western Pleasure, Barrels, Poles and Flag Race. Western Pleasure is a lot like western dressage, the judges are standing in the middle of the arena and judge you while you have to ride a certain pattern that they announce over the speakers. I even made third in that category :-)! Barrel racing is definately one of my favourites! you have three barrels that stand on the corners of a triangle and you have to ride around them full speed as fast as you can! it's so much fun! my horse annie and me did it actually in 24 sec which was pretty awesome! then we did the poles, that's eight poles on the ground that you have to weave through as fast as possible, that was really hard. and last and also one of my favourites: the flag race. they put a barrel on the end of the arena with a flag on top of it. the goal is to race to the barrel, go around it and take the flag and then bring the flag back as fast as you can! we were super fast on that one and placed fifth wich is really good, because neither me or annie have done this before and there were like a ton of people competing :-)! so our first rodeo together was really successful, i was incredibly proud of her, she really did amazing and it was so much fun! carly picked me up from the rodeo and we went to her college. the rodeo wasn't over until like 11 at night so we didn't get to bed that night until like 12:30. at 1:30 though we were rudly awaken by nothing else but the fire alarm! we both had at first no idea what was going on until we realized that it was the fire alarm and that the chances that this is just a practice drill pretty slim are at 1:30 in the morning. so we streamed out of the dorms, together with all the other confused people and when we got to the first floor we could see a ton of smoke in the hallway and the smell was horrible. when we were outside they finally told us what had happened: a girl had made popcorn in the microwave and she had put the popcorn in for 7 minutes! crazy americans...after standing what felt like an hour in the cold outside they finally let us back in and we could finish out beauty sleep. That weekend was really fun, we went to the state fair, that had started that weekend and shaylin came down from macpherson to ride rides with us at the fair. we also watched a college football game and to a party :-) lots of fun! monday night carly drove me to shaylin's college and i stayed the night there and the next day shaylin drove me back to wichita.

oh and i've also become an assistant soccer coach :-). my little host brother phillip plays soccer now and when i went to one of his practices and susan told the coach that i'm from germany and used to play soccer he asked me if i would like to help him coach :-)...that's why i have spend the last weekend watching three soccer games and playing coach :-) lots of fun, except for the fact that we loose all the time...

well that was my update from the sunflower state! i'm not gonna be here much longer, i'll be leaving KS on the 25th for NYC! there i'll stay for two days until the 27th when i'll go on the long journey back to germany where i'll arrive on the 28th! I'll be arriving in Paf on Sep 28 at 12:23p.m.! i can't wait to see y'all again!!!

P.S.: I actually created a photo gallery now :-)! unfortunately i haven't managed to upload the pictures from my camera yet, so these are pictures from my friends and of poor qualitiy...but at least now you can see a little bit more of my life!

the kids are gone....

bekky — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:04:00 GMT

WOW....ok, so first of all a very big SORRY to all of you! i know i'm a very bad person for not writing anything on this for 2 (!) months...i can't believe that it really has been two months since my last entry...time is just flying by...i don't know if any of you, after this long time is still checking this site for new stories, but i thought i might as well give it a go and write on here again, because i really didn't plan on letting this site die..

ok so here we go. how have i spend the past two months? i surely was a very unique experience working with about 70 children 24/7 for 2 months straight. we were a team of about 25 councelors for all these children and a team of 2-3 councellors had one cabin with about 8 children in it. the cabins were divided by the age of the children and we had five girls cabins: Labwai (youngest girls), Papago (a little bit older), Chakwat(middle), Kiva (even older) and Nibuna (oldest girls). the youngest girls were 8 and the oldest 14. we also had four boys cabins: Ellacaya (youngest), Eagle (older), Abnaki (middle) and Kona (oldest)

since i was hired as a horse specialist, that means that i'm in charge of the horses, i lead the activity and look after the horses, i didn't have a cabin at first. but second session was so big, that we were short on staff, so i decided to step into the role of a councellor and worked in Lapwai together with Eli (she's from England). Let me tell you that sure was a challenge...looking after 9 girls aged 8 &9 23 hours a day really isn't as easy as it might appear to be. i learned a whole lot in that cabin and i have great stories to tell, but i better not get started, otherwise i'll never get to sleep tonight. third session i had chakwat together with Laura (from michigan) and that was by far my favourite cabin! i just love the middle old girls 12&13! i had tons of fun with that cabin, we even went on a field trip to the ben&jerry's factory in vermont! just go aheard and be jealous now :-)! fourth session, which is the last one, i had the oldest girls in Nibuna together with April (she's from Concord)probably by far the easiest cabin to handle but lots of drama going on...but i loved all of those girls, i had some awesome conversations with them in which i learned that i should be so greatful for everthing that i have in my life.

every day we got a schedule for the day, with all the activities listed on it. a typical day looked like this:

6.30am Polar Bear Swim (yes that's right it really does say 6.30 in the morning. this is a voluntary pool swim at the crack of dawn for all those crazy campers who find that pleasurable. but of course, if campers from your cabin sign up for it, which they always will, it means you have to get them out of bed at 5.45 and walk down to the pool with them)

7.00am Mocking out stalls & feeding the horses (this is the lovely task that comes with my job, i have to leave the cabin to my co-councellor and go down to the horses to feed them, water them and clean out there stalls, before i have even seen a bathroom a toothbrush or had breakfast. that really is nothing for a weak stomach)

7.45 am Breakfast (finally some food!)

8.30-9.30am Camp Jobs (every cabin has a different chore to do every day, this may be cleaning the bathroom, or collecting trash..of course the campers hate it and so it's not too enjoyable for us councellors to make them clean -> i think i hated camp jobs more than most of the campers..)

9.30-10.30am Activity A (frst activity of the day, this is a different thing every day, can be ropes course, horses, arts&crafts, a game, pool..the list is endless. here comes the tricky part: while your cabin is scheduled at a specific activity, you are sometimes scheduled at a different one, so you have to organize someone who goes with you cabin to their activities while you go to yours. the number one rule is that the councellor has to know at all times where their cabin is and whom they are with. it really is like having nine children, you are not only responsible for yourself but for nine other humans)

10.45-11.45 Activity B (the second activity of the day)

12.20 Lunch (more food!!)

1.30-2.30 Quiet hour (this has to be my very favourite hour of the day. everyone goes back to their cabin and just chills for an whole hour! trust me there's nothing better!

2.40-3.45 Activity C (third activity)

4.00-5.10 Activity D (fourth avtivity)

5.40 Dinner (FOOD!)

7.00-9.00 Activity D (this is an all camp activity which means that it is for example a huge game in which all the campers participate or a bonfire or a talent show or a dance..again, the list is endless)

after that back to the cabin and trying to get the campers to sleep. i usually got to bed around 11pm, doing this for 2 months you can imagine how the lack of sleep builds up :-)

we usually got an hour off every day and in one session (which lasts 2 weeks) we had one day off one night (from 6pm tp 12am) and one morning (from 6am to 12pm)off

ok, that was the big picture, in my next entry (that will be sooner than 2 months from now, promise!) i'll give you som emore detail :-)!

good night!

<3 bekky

Exitement, Fear and Exhaustion..

bekky — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:39:00 GMT

ok, it's 11:30 at night again and this is the first time today, that i have actually enough time to get on the computer for a long enough time to write an entry here...it is kind of surprising though, because we had a day off today. it was so hot today (acutally it still is) that we just couldn't do anything..so we started to have first aid lessons this morning but after like an hour or so we were allowed to stop and jump into the pool (there's nothing better!) so we all played in the pool and cooled of for some time, then we had lunch and then our lovely boss gave us the rest of the day (until dinner) off as well! so most of us went down in the basement (thanks to the air conditioning its nice cool down there) and took a nice nap. it gets really hot in the cabins as well and last night i woke up a few times sweating all over the place and unable to sleep, because it was so hot..so you don't really get a good nights sleep these days. so the nap in the cool basement was pretty amazing! then some of the others went to the pool again and i grabbed the lawn mower and took it on the golf cart over to the horse barn where i mowed the lawn for like an hour (the lawn is really high there so it wasnt the easiest thing to do) in the blazing heat which made me sweat like never before in my life...and michi - my whole back was completely wet i looked just like you after a nice conditioning practice :-)! by the way the lawn mower was teh heaviest thing in the world, so i actually got two very nice blisters on both my hands, just from pushing it around..well i finished right on time for dinner and after that we had the priveledge of continuing the first aid and CPR course that we started in the morning. just to give you a little taste of it - we started at like 6:30 and were done at 10:30 (yes without any break). our tight schedule just doesn't allow us to have one day off and then not make it up the same day...since i had mowed the lawn right before dinner and the first aid thing was right after dinner, i didn't have the chance to take a shower, so i had to do this incredibly boring thing while feeling absolutlely direty, sweaty and disgusting..but i got to take one now and i just got out (i've never been feeling better!)

well yesterday we had an open day, that was really exciting because we got to meet the parents and the kids that are coming to camp. it was really awesome because we all played together and altough it was really exhausting, we all had so incredibly much fun! oh, and earlier that day i met the horse lady, linda, she really is weird and very interesting but well see. and the horses are pretty nice, they're gonna come tomorrow if the weather is nice, i'm super excited for that!

oh, yeah and yesterday night,after the parents were gone we (of course) jumped imediately into the pool, because it has been really hot as well. but after that we all got a special treat. we have this amazing ropes course at camp, there's like a ton of cool stuff that you can climb and there is also a really long zipline, that goes downhill. well guess what! we got to go on the zipline and slide it down in the dark yesterday night! and yes. it's SO scary. this thing is on two trees and it's about 20 meters tall and really long and even faster! well the thing is, most of the guys had already been on there during the ropes course trainig, but since me and like three others got here so late, we hadn't done anything of the ropes course yet! so the first thing we ever did was the zipline in the complete dark! and i was so scared!! fist we had to climb up a tree and then stan on a platform where one other counsellor stood and hooked you onto the zipline. and this platform is freaking tiny! so anyway after some being scared to death, i managed to get up there and i actually did it! and it was such a blast!! sliding down trough the forest in complete darkness is really a unique experience!!

ok, those were my last adventures and there are soon to be more! i really have to take more pictures, i'm really dong bad at "capturing the moment" right now..the other problem that i have is that i can't get them on here, because i don't have the right cable and this really old PC doesn't have the right plug in..well i'll keep you updated and i want to hear some news as well! so please write me! i'm checking this every day (when i've time) and it brightens up my day to hear from you!!

good night (oh god, it's almost 12 now..)

~bekky

I'm (alomost) American

bekky — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:55:00 GMT

so there i am again, still doing fine and having a good time. This morning i couldn't find my watch and so when i woke up, i had no idea what time it was..this is really a big problem because everything at camp is very punctual and breakfast is exactly at 8:30 this morning. since my other two roomates were already gone, i freaked out, because i thought that i had overslept and was too late for breakfast..well so i go up to the dining hall and there are no people at all around and i'm just thinking that i've really overslept. but when i get to the dining hall and look at the big clock on the wall there i realize that it's 7:30 and the reason that there's no one around is because they're all still asleep! this really sucks because i could've slept for at least another half hour until i would really have to get up and now i'm already tired..but of course the good thing is, that i can do another entry in my journal now :-)!

yesterday was a pretty exhausting day...first all the internationals had to go and get a social security number, which took FOR EVER! but now i'll be getting a social security number in the mail in three weeks. this makes me almost american because a social security number is the most important thing to have over here :-)

after that we got home and just when we had eaten and sat down we got a call from the CEO that he's gonna come to camp in 40 minutes. so that means that we have to get camp spotless (we're talking about a VERY big area here) in less than an hour...so no sitting around for us, we all got different chores and went off. laura, erik and me first had to pick up all the trash on camp ( and remember it was really hot yesterday) and once we got done with that, about 10 of us had to load wood chips onto a truck and then spread it out on the playground. that took forever and was really really exhausting..so after pulling weed (which was the last thing to do) we ate (at five pm because we're all so hungry from working that hard) and then we thought that we'd have the rest of the day off. but no they just did the stuff that was scheduled for the afternoon in the evening so we're all incredibly sweaty and sticky and hot but there's no shower for us but four more hours of meetings until like half past eight. when we were all finally done, we all jumped into the pool and had tons of fun in there. afterwards we took a shower and the guys who work in the kitchen cooked us some amazing late night food. so i had the best scrambled eggs of my life at 11:00 at night while we were playing a game for 9 year olds because we didn't feel that we could do anything more challenging :-) we also had some hot amazing cookies in the middle of the night and i'm telling you: there's nothing better than that!

well and that is the reason why it's so retarded that i got up so early this morning, because i was so tired last night and i just wish i would've gotten more sleep. well today's gonna be pretty exciting, i'm gonna meet the lady whose horses we'll be getting and everyone who knows her tells me that she's kinda crazy :-) so i'm excited how it's gonna go. and plus i finally get to meet the horses! yay! well you can probably tell, that i had quite a lot of time to spend since this is probably the longest i've ever written but now i'm gonna go look for my watch, i really need to find that...ok, i'm off,i'll talk to you guys later! and keep commenting! i love to hear from ALL of you!!

<3 bekky

i'm still alive!

bekky — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:29:00 GMT

so there i am again...it's almost 11:30 p.m. here now and i'm incredibly tired, but i felt like i really need to write a short entry before i go to bed, since you guys haven't heard from me in far too long...well the reason for that (of course i have a very good one) is that we went on a camping trip yesterday morning :-)! we all left the camp and drove (yes this is still the US) to a nearby campground where we all camped together (this is still part of the staff training) and the purpose of the trip was to bond us all closer together. well we got there and first we cooked this amazing meal over the campfire and then (what a lovely coincidence) there was a dance party at the camp ground that night, so we ended up all going up there. of course it was our group that pumped all those people and made them dance. when we came, there was like no one on the dancefloor, but then they see us getting on there and just having a blast and dancing crazy and they all got in there, it was SO much fun!!we danced four hours non-stop until the DJ turned off the music, it was awesome! today we got back and had the afternoon and night off, which was really good, because if you are on this property (although it's really big) the whole time you just need to get off it sometimes..so most of us went to one of the counsellor's house (his name is kevin) and we played pool and ordered food out there, it was really nice to just get to see something else than trees and cabins but actual neighbourhoods and even a town (which was really really pretty, we went to manchester,NH). well now we just got done watching a movie that we started when we got back to camp. and now i'm on this super slow computer again and i really hope that this is going to work and this article is actually gonna appear on the journal, because i really don't have the energy to write all of this again...ok, well i'll go now otherwise i'll fall asleep on this computer..tomorrow we're having first aid training and i've gotta be wide awake for that one :-)!

lots of hugs from New Hampshire!

~bekky

At camp!

bekky — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:51:00 GMT

ok, so this is my first entry from camp! after a very long day of travelling i finally reach boston, and was picked up by my boss from the airport...it's only a one hour drive to camp, so i got there at about 2:30 p.m. EST. It's super nice here, the people are all really great and the camp is so pretty and everything's really new! i'll try to take some pictures tomorrow, right now i'm just way too tired...tomorrow staff training is going to start and i can't wait for that! well, i'll have to go now, sorry that this is so short, but i'm majorly tired (and by the way this is the slowest computer in the whole world..) and still have to take a shower & unpack everything...you'll hear from me as soon as i can get on here again! XOXOXOX

~bekky

The countdown has begun

bekky — Wed, 6 Jun 2007 21:09:00 GMT

ok, so i'm still at home in Germany right now, but in exactly 14 days from now, i'll be sitting on a plane on my way to the lovely Boston, MA, USA :-)! I should be studying right now, since i'll have my last exam next tuesday, but writing about my future travels is much more fun, obviously! so i'll work at a children's summer camp in new Hampshire for the next two months and i absolutely can't wait for it to start! Well so now my very first journal entry is alive and well and everything is ready for my departure! counting the days....