3 weeks until Oregon bound!

This blog is a combination of a variety of things because I kept thinking I would have internet access to post a blog.... I didnt have much.

So the first camp is over.... I am sitting here at Danielle and Anna's family's place because mine left for the beach... Probably is for the best because my host sister wouldn't even talk to me at school today. haha. This camp was crazy!! The kids were so naughty, and some got better while others got worse... Either way I am glad its over.


I am headed to Lucca for a week.... Actually, by the time this blog gets posted I might already be done with Lucca. I don't have internet access here at this place, not sure if I will be able to connect tomorrow anywhere. Hope so! :) Lucca is an overnight camp. I am super excited about it. We get to do all sorts of fun stuff like ride horses, hike and camp, swim, all that jazz. :) It should be a super fun time! We will only have 8-10 campers so it will be VERY easy.

Only a month until I am back in Oregon.... Crazy how fast, and slow, time is going... I wish I could be home for Mosquito Festival, but I will barely miss it. Oh well.... BBQ party when I come home! :)




So now I am on the train in Florence waiting for it to leave toward Foligno.... We will be in Assisi for this week and I am not sure where for my final camp session.... Lucca was awesome!!! I absolutely love Carla and Mauro... They were so awesome. The kids were great and it was fun to work with Kim and Ted. We will only have between 10-15 kids for this week in Assisi and I think about five of them will be kids from Lucca... It should be another fairly easy week... I am excited to meet my host family. I hope they have internet that I can use to at least email and post this blog... It would be really nice if I could skype home at least once and chat with everyone... Carla gave us each a bottle of olive oil and a bottle of red wine... And I bought another bottle of wine and 2 of oil... I will be sharing those with the family at home...

My favorite story from Lucca was from our nature walk the second night. We went bird watching and we started walking toward the next small town over. It was a very easy walk and it was all downhill. The kids weren't really looking for new birds so Mauro told them that they must find 4 new species if they wanted ice cream in San Gennaro. So they got right to work listening and looking for new birds. We made it to San Gennaro and walked down to the ice cream shop... It was closed! Hahahahahaha! The lady only opens the shop when she feels like it, so we turned around and walked back up the hill to Petrognano. One of the little tykes was not very pleased with the fact that we didn't get ice cream. He said, "We did all of this for nothing!?" I couldn't help but laugh because it was such an easy walk down to town and even the walk back to Petrognano was fine. It was super hot, but swimming was after nature walk anyway. After dinner Carla gave us ice cream bars so we got our ice cream after all.

Camp here in Assisi is going well... We had 15 kids today, not sure if we will have more tomorrow or not. I am teaching the 10-11 year olds. It is fine. My family here is very nice. The daughter, Caterina, is 12 years old. She is very quiet but very polite. She goes to English Camp. Her brother, Ludovico, is 14 and he is very nice as well. The parents, Alessandra and Paulo are very nice. The mom knows some English, enough for us to communicate. The first dinner I had here she taught me the names of many fruits.... I don't remember many now, but it was interesting. :)

I can't believe how tired I am... I think it is interesting how much I take for granted... Like talking to my fmaily and friends. I have talked with mom for a total of like 30 miuntes this month that I havebeen away and hardly at all withmost of my friends. This has been a great experience both for my career and for me as a person. I think I am ready to come home. I think that I would love to do this same kind of thing next summer, but maybe not in Italy. I didn't realize how much of a home-body I was until this past week. I am going to keep my eyes open for different opportunities throughout the US and maybe even Canada for summer camps that I could work for.