To Thee Camp Fuller By-The-Sea

THESE EVENTS TOOK PLACE: Saturday, June 13, 2009 (USEDT)

To thee Camp Fuller By-The-Sea
We will always faithful be
Our motto true we will fulfill
Because we can and surely will
To thee Camp Fuller By-The-Sea
We will always faithful be
(From the official Camp Fuller Council Fire Song)

After the absolute epitome of a long and arduous journey, I finally arrived at YMCA Camp Fuller By-The-Sea on Point Judith Pond in Wakefield, Rhode Island, USA.

At least the ridiculously long (I'm talking 10-15 minutes here), bumpy, winding dirt road entry into camp gave me an insight into the true hilarity of Alex's personality. In addition to his sarcastic commentary of the dynamics of Camp Fuller Road, Alex let rip a verbal tirade about his relief in finally having a fraction of the early-arrival international staff grace him with their company.

In hindsight, his lighthearted jokes and jibes about being trapped on camp for over a week in a small cabin house alone with Head Counselor, Jessie Williams, are even more hysterical. Let's see if my narration of the rest of camp and its characters paints the picture of why. It shouldn't require a great deal of explanation.

Despite the main Administration Building obscuring the far left of my view upon rolling through the gates, it did nothing to take away from how completely awed I was by the beauty of Camp Fuller. Atop the far-western crest of the property, the gates of Camp Fuller overlook the entire 65 acres of the sweeping green and blue expanse of fields, buildings, roads and waterfronts. While you can't see everything, you can see enough.

My first focus was the glimmer of water smack in the centre of my vision made visible by the 'V' break in the trees that divide the central Soccer Field and one of the four docks on Point Judith Pond. The water literally sparkled in the sun and was in its finest form with sailboats and speedboats upon it.

We veered left downhill past the main buildings and a cute cottage Alex noted as Jaime's. The foot of this tree-lined road eventually revealed another spectacular sprawling view of camp, the northern half that contains another main field and three quarters of the cabins. Taking another left at a major crossroads and go in a more northerly direction, we passed another cottage that Alex claimed as his own shared home, we eventually parked in front of the Infirmary building perched high and overlooking the aforementioned field and cabin-dense section of the property.

I discover that this will be my first short-term residence at camp along with the other handful of international staff that had arrived early for Lifeguard and High Ropes training.

Alex lead me into a room packed to the rafters with rusty old bunk beds and scattered luggage. Apparently my new roomies were off touring the property and had asked that Alex come and notify them when I arrive. Alex disappeared to do as much and left me to settle in and rest. I'd barely had time to choose a bunk, thrust my stuff in a corner, do something resembling making my bed and get halfway through doing a wee when I heard the echoes of English voices merrily hollering "Nicole?! Niiiicoooooole?!".

I emerged from the bathroom to find five excitable British faces grinning at me from ear to ear. These faces were Heather, Franky, Charlie, Rachel and the lone male, Matt.... a motley crew they were, but a welcome one too.

Heather, 23, was thrilled to have another "granny" on board. Franky, 19, was the proud baby of the group. Charlie, 21, was the rambunctious but super-sincere token "blonde". Rachel, also 21, was the super cute Scottish contingent. And Matt, another 21 year old, was perfectly at home amongst a group of girls and did little to keep his Man Points up.

Matt also bore a striking resemblance to Robert Pattinson circa Cedric Diggory. I vowed to take sneaky photos of him for my girls back home to assess.


So, what do you think? Cedric double?

I also later met Kerrie, 22, another Brit and "Borts" (Alex Borts), 25, a Yankee who were both long time camp staff.

The Barmy Army, happy to have some fresh blood among them and especially such an elusively missing number as myself, asked an endless array of questions and listened with rapt attention and appropriate sentiments as I regaled them with my Stranded Story. I was deeply appreciative of the girls validating me by solemnly agreeing that they'd have all been in tears in my shoes and that they'd be horrified to be without their luggage. They were also quick to offer to share their belongings as well.

I was even more grateful when they didn't rib me for not coming along on their kayaking adventure and happily left me to shower and sleep.

Kayaked, well-slept and showered, we all ventured out for a short tour around the main buildings in the centre of camp. We put the crapola computers in the dingy staff room under the Dining Hall to good use, especially me (contacting concerned parties), then looked like a comedy act cleaning out and rearranging the entire room to look like something resembling a respectable place for staff to sit and chill.

I met an array of personalities upon my arrival and first meal at the Dining Hall and discovered the [slightly] wider population of people already on camp. With a small family group holidaying at camp, there were dribs and drabs of staff about, the directors, a few key staff, a few sailing instructors, a few kitchen staff, etc. Even so, we barely numbered two-dozen and were lucky to use even 10% of the hall.

We sauntered around doing all sorts after the meal and eventually joined Program Director Scott and the family group in the more luxurious of the cabin Divisions "Sherman" for a campfire.

The 8 year old son provided most of the entertainment. Between believing wholeheartedly in the myth of chanting "White Rabbit" to ward of smoke and taking one of the most almighty stacks I've ever seen a child take, never mind without crying or carrying on about it, this kid had some pluck.

Note: I also established at this point, once and for all, that my camera is definitely faulty. It just flat doesn't work in low light and no manner of settings helps. This has been seconded, thirded, fourthed and then some by a bunch of frustrated camp staff.



My British mates attempted unsuccessfully to teach me how to play a bizarre card game before my first day at Camp Fuller came to a close.


Apart from the fact that Matt is much prettier and doesn't have an odd nose-profile, you MUST see the resemblance?!

I don't know if it was because of the ordeal I'd been through or because I'm just not very princessy, but I had none of the gripes about the bunks being beyond uncomfortable to sleep in. I was out like a light and fresh as a daisy the next morning!

Now don't fret, please note that I will be doing a separate post solely dedicated to photography of camp.

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Sidenote: Change In My Life

So I was just having a massive D&M ("Deep & Meaningful") with my cabin full of teenage girls about everything from diversity to leadership to religion and, after a week of trying to get it out of my head, the song "Change In My Life" came gallavanting back into the sticky section of my brain as a result of Sonia unfortunately said those exact words.

Now, after an hour of having Hanson's awe-inspiring a capella version of it doing laps of my skull, I thought I'd give it some props since sometimes the brilliance of the lyrics and the depth of my affection for them can be forgotten amidst the overplaying it is involuntarily abused with.

Standing cold and scared
On top of Blue Hill
There came one moment
When I lost my will
I prayed for mercy
Please, Lord, take me away
Give me sunshine
When I only see gray

The past had a hold on me
It can't be denied
And the changes don't come easily
Don't you know

I've been lonely
I've been cheated
Been misunderstood
I've been washed up
Put down
And told I'm no good
But with you I belong
'Cause you help me be strong
There's a change in my life
Since you came along

Woah, woah...
Woah, woah, yeah

Now, I don't mind working
So hard everyday
And I don't pay no mind
To what people say, no, no
Because after all
The pain I've been through
I'd give up everything
Just to love only you

All my life, I've held my
Head bent in shame
But now I've found you
And with you I remain
Don't you know

I've been lonely
I've been cheated
Been misunderstood
I've been washed up
Put down
And told I'm no good
But with you I belong
'Cause you help me be strong
There's a change in my life
Since you came along

Now, a man gets crazy
When his life is all wrong
And a heart gets weary
Where it doesn't belong
When the road gets rocky, Lord
You've got to keep on
Let the new light come
Shining on through
Don't you know

I've been lonely
I've been cheated
Been misunderstood
I've been washed up
Put down
And told I'm no good
But with you I belong
'Cause you help me be strong
There's a change in my life
Since you came along

Woah, woah...
Woah, woah, yeah
Woah, woah...
Woah, woah, yeah...

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Day 4: Pedal To The Floor

THESE EVENTS TOOK PLACE: June 3, 2009 (USPDT)

Pedal to the floor
Thinkin' of you more
Gotta get us to the show
California here we come
Right back where we started from

So as y'all know, on my LA City Tour I made an Aussie friend, [Perth] Michael. Being that Michael and I were similarly (and childishly) excited by a lot of the same things along the tour, we found ourselves on the same page a lot of the time. Mike mentioned he was heading to The OC the next day in his rental car and invited me along for the ride.

Y'damn right I accepted.

After a decent sleep in on this Wednesday morning, we met downstairs, made ourselves a very necessary cup of tea each, then set off to take in some cliche.


I was constantly surprised by the up-market cars parked at the hostel, here's a Chrysler, which just seemed plain next to the yellow Jeep Wranglers and other flashy rental cars always around!

Mike's an odd personality to explain. While being super cool and completely uninhibited, he's also ruthlessly dorky and randomly strange. One minute he's Mr Tough McMuscles, then he's asking if it's alright if we swing by the supermarket to buy fruit and healthy snacks for the day... which we did.

The supermarket was an experience in and of itself: I LOVE American supermarkets.

They have everything from a full-scale deli/lunch area to a cafe/coffeehouse outlet. You can get everything from groceries, to greens, to fruit, all the way through to a hot cup of coffe, mix-your-own from the salad bar, freshly diced fruit at the fruit bar... you name it, it's all there in quality and quantity. I was thrilled Mike changed his mind and exchanged his bunch of bananas for a bag of apples instead.

The one thing they don't have, at that supermarket and in California in general, is decent spray-on deoderant. It's ridiculous! After having my good Mens Nivea one confiscated at the airport, I've discovered that roll-on truly is completely and utterly crap. I have never had to reapply deoderant throughout the day before, now I live in a constant state of paranoia to the point of reapplying at regular intervals.

(Rhode Island later sheds more light on this subject)

Knowing I was enthusiastic to see some studios but on a tight schedule, Mike surprised me by swinging by Paramount Pictures for a few quick snaps and to grab some tour information because our hostel doesn't offer one. He pretended to play dumb and drove up to the boomgate asking loads of ambiguous questions of the guard then eventually requesting to be let through so we could chuck a u-turn back out. We used the u-turn to take some photos, berry berry sneaky sir.







Our discussion after this revealed that we were both saving a trip to Universal to a later date when we knew our budgets and hopefully had some company, both being solo travellers. So Mike then pulled the same stunt at Universal. LOL!





















Mike was like a kid on Christmas wanting to visit Dodger Stadium. And that we did. It was a blast. A rather crappy rainy day, but we still got some great pics. There was a ticket sale that afternoon so there were stacks of fans lined up, despite there being no game on. Christmas Mike was hilarious to be with, he had me take photos of him with pretty much anything and everything.

The store was awesome. I don't doubt I'll get back there later in my travels to grab some sweet merchandise.










Downtown LA from Dodger Stadium


Christmas Mike







And then finally we were off to Orange County!

The drive was fairly long, relatively. I'd compare it almost to driving from the Sydney CBD to Penrith, really. LA traffic is as bad as it's notorious reputation and, let's face it, so is Sydney's. I learned all about Mike's career history, how he went from Army to Uni to Accountancy to Oil Rigs! Mike works in blocks of 3 weeks, earns wicked money, then funds his travels. Very cool. He's been everywhere and seen everything. I've been ordered to travel to more places than I can count on my two hands.

As we were being navigated by an electronic device, we had to input "Orange" as our destination being that "Orange County" is like inputting "North Sydney" into a GPS: not specific enough. The City Of Orange is a rather little and quaint town, pardon the repetitive cliche, but: like something out of a movie! Or a TV show... you might say (haha)... I felt almost like I was in Stars Hollow, it was so picturesque and perfect.

We parked behind their Civic Center in the hopes of getting our bearings on the sites to see and also finding a loo for Mike who had, by his own admission, begun to "walk a bit strange".

The place was dripping with money. Whether you were looking at the library, the council buldings or the streetsigns, everything screamed wealth in spite of the parvitude of the place. Just when you begin to feel like you're in this cute, sweet little town a Mustang drives by.

We had lunch at a Cuban cafe restaurant. Seriously great. It cost us $8 (plus tip!) each to have a dinner plate size worth of food, even Mike was so full he couldn't finish. I should mention though, he did "help" me put away some of mine. I can't really describe what I ate because I'm not even entirely sure what it was. I'd probably compare it to a beef casserole, stroganoff or goulash perhaps, with all kinds of beans and other random stuff too. The beef was so tasty and tender it literally melted and fell apart in my mouth.

Yum.

Funny story: We were sitting outside and during our meal a sales rep came up and started selling his random goods amongst the customers! While Mike turned him away from our table without pause, we did have to spend the rest of our lunch listening to this guy spruke his wares in both English and Spanish and demonstrating his tennis-racket-like fly swatter. Zap, zap, zap.

Which brings me to another point: Spanish! Spanish, Spanish everywhere! Both people but more pointedly the language. On most of the buses I was on, there were more Spanish advertisements than English! You go to the ATM and it asks you if you want Spanish or English.

Spinout.

It wasn't until Mike and I departed our lunch spot and headed for the centre of the Town Square that we realised the Starbucks next to our Cuban spot wasn't the only one, there was a second Starbucks across the Square! Now, this is worse than the craziness of having two Three Mobile shops at opposite ends of Penrith Plaza.... sure, Starbucks is a staple in The States, but this Town Square would be lucky to be the size of a basketball court!

Nutso.












Our waiter clearing our table at "Felix's" Cuban restaurant


The Town Square from "Felix's"


"Nicole Was Here 2009"








Icecream Truck! LOL.










Every street is just super pretty


I love that everywhere you go there are US flags galore

Photos really shed no light of justice on Orange, it was constant nose-sigh stunning.

We were hugely grateful to some kindly Orange locals who happily spent 20 minutes chatting to Mike and I about their home County and giving us explicit directions on what to see and exactly where. My reaction of delight when they mentioned Laguna was enough to convince Mike that was our next stop. So Laguna Beach it was!

This photo on the freeway through The OC definitely does no justice to beauty of The Valley:



The overcast and occasionally drizzly day did nothing to take away from our sightseeing. Even the car ride was stellar.

Laguna was no different to Orange, even the most basic of things was of the utmost quality and beauty. Laguna Beach too is quite a small and quaint place. You expect to see dozens of tarty clones of the bimbos on the reality show of the same name, but if anything it was one of the most family oriented towns I've ever seen. I couldn't help but take photos of the kids running and playing, they made my heart sing, just too cute.


Carpark: Fancy schmancy houses


Carpark: More fancy schmancy houses












Yet more fancy schmany houses


"Nicole Was Here 2009"














The icecreamery where Mike shouted me the Bubblegum Disaster Of 2009


Just your average fire station


Just your average city hall

Note: One sucky thing about America, they actually think putting tiny gumballs in their Bubblegum icecream is a good idea. Not at all. This used to be one of my favourite icecream flavours, now I think it was be permanently marred by the memory of the unenjoyable chewing and unncessary effort applied to attempting to eat around them eventuating in the cone breaking and the icecream soiling the spotless sidewalks of Laguna Beach.

Not happy, Jan.

Apologies if this tourist commentary hasn't been the most exciting and eventful yet. Unfortunately for you guys, most of the enjoyment of the day was in just walking and seeing and experiencing. We basically just meandered and took photos, chillaxed with drinks and sat in nice spots. It was totally lovely and peaceful for me.

Sorry folks.

I have to include this one lone pic I snapped of a Lakers supporter's car. It doesn't exactly reflect the enormity of the Lakers support in their home city, but man, it was great. Everywhere you went there was paraphernalia of some description. I've always heard people say that Australia is prevalent in passion for their sports, but frankly, I don't think we could hold a candle to the US.



For those that care: The Dream Center!



But no, I didn't visit yet. I wasn't really in full tourist mode during this time in LA as I was solo and new to the travel thang. By the time I get back there I'll be much more in swing with rental cars and getting about in general, etc.

The traffic on the way back into Hollywood was FUBAR. Mike had been trying to convince me to take a nana nap all day during the driving as I'd had a lack of sleep the night before with my [bloody rude selfish insensitive] Danish roomies coming in and out and making noise. I had resisted out of pride until the 5pm LA-inbound traffic. I nodded right off after that Dream Center pic!

One of the roomies I'd hardly seen was present when I got back to my room with Mike and gave him my laptop to borrow. Liz, 27 from Campbelltown, had a few of her fellow Canadian skifields workbuddies hanging with her and the ice was quickly broken when Liz overheard me watching the "New Moon" trailer.

Twi-Hards Unite!

After typical Team Edward bonding it didn't take her long to blurt out "So who's that guy you've been hanging out with?! He's hot!". Introductions were then necessary when Mike returned with my lappie and we officially had a little posse all set for Banana Bungalow's Karaoke Party Night. Shame I fartarsed around too long in the end and the girls went off to get the party started without me! LOL.

Free hamburgers and beer in the Tiki Garden when I eventually joined my crew in the [ridiculously long] queue. The burgers were so good I regretted not being piggy enough to get a second one the first time around. There was no getting any of us back in that line as the party is combined with residents of the other Banana Bungalow hostel in West Hollywood. We added a British couple to our posse during dinner time and we made for a pretty dynamic group by the time the party shifted to the lounge for music and karaoke.


Outside the party lounge during Karaoke Night

As most of you know, I'm no major party girl. I always have fun when I do drag my butt out, but half the time I opt for something a bit more lax and cozy. So I hadn't necessarily even planned to go to or stay at the party originally, probably thinking it would suck, but it really didn't. I had an absolute blast.

Now, at this point I will finally divulge the information you're all waiting for. The question you're all asking is "Umm, Michael?", right? OK, well, I'm not one to share personal details about my love life, let alone on the internet, but this can be explained:

Michael is just Michael. Nothing more, just a mate I made.

HOWEVER.

I can say that I was completely and utterly certain that our relationship was asexual. We had a really good time but I didn't really feel there was much interest in anything more on either end. Honestly, that's dead true. Sure, once a party gets going things can change and we were having a really great time with our posse as the night carried on...

... but he made no moves to change anything, at least not prior to my attention being "diverted elsewhere" *grin*

And that's probably as far as the details will go. Not only because I have no interest in commentating any information of this description online, ever, but also because I don't know who might be reading! *wink*

I'll say I met a few other guys and eventually spent the better part of the night talking to Melbourne video game designer extraordinaire Tony.


Tony and I: After several failed attempts (see Flickr for a few), a barely decent photo, with me looking awful at god knows what hour of the morning (I officially procalim my flash faulty!)

It was at this point that I began to majorly question my previously good judgment in that Mike started to behave like an alien. Other than giving me the stinkeye for a good long time, he eventually cozied up to at least three girls throughout the night and I'm fairly sure he left with one.

Shock and horror.

I can't explain my surprise in this medium, all I can say is that he had seemed like completely the opposite type of guy for the 48 hours I'd known him prior. The perfect gentleman must be bi-polar, I dunno.... and I don't really care either.

But hey, if you're interested then show it. Don't play it cool or play games and then turn into a wanker when things don't fly the way you want. So much for thinking you can have a simple and fun friendship with a member of the opposite sex.

Men!

LOL. Kidding. I'm not that stereotypical.

He had to leave bright and early the next morning, so after this cranky-wank behaviour I didn't get to speak to him again, say thanks or say goodbye. Weird. You spend 2 solid days with a person and have absolutely no way of ever contacting them again. Not my usual style, I feel like a bit of a bitch.

I hope that answers your (multitude!!!) of questions. If not, tough, I won't say anymore.

One of the reasons I fartarsed around too long before the Tiki Garden is because I had an email from Jaime O'Connor at Camp Fuller in Rhode Island expressing interest in offering me a position and requesting a phone interview the following day.

As a result of this and the fact that I didn't get to bed until 4am, I had no major plans the following day then loads to organise the day after that...

... so my next post will have an unusual quality: brevity!

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