Why I Loved Camp

I know, my posts are all getting out of order!  I've not finished writing about camp and I finished there about a week ago, and I've not finished writing about my travels yet which are also almost over!  I'm sure no-one minds too terribly though.

When I made the decision to apply for summer camp, I wasn't in a particularly "good" place mentally.  That's why I applied.  I needed something to look forward to, something I've always wanted to do, and something "bigger" than myself.  I can now say, with absolute certainty, that it was the right decision.

I spent my summer in the blistering heat, corralling a group of crazy, funny, frustrating little children.  It was like herding cats trying to get those beautiful little monsters to go anywhere.  It was full of late nights and early mornings.  I've never worked so hard in my life and my body is still punishing me for it.  It was mentally, physically and emotionally exhausting.

And I loved it.

I left a job which was pretty good, as far as office jobs go.  The pay was decent, the people were great, my bosses were wonderfully understanding.  It's just...it was all a little meaningless.  I'm sure it meant a lot to the people who we were paying money to, but in the grand scheme of things it was just a little...flat.

Sure the money was considerably better, the hours were significantly shorter and it wasn't as draining.  But it also wasn't as fun, it wasn't as rewarding, and it wasn't as life changing.

For the first time in months, I feel like a whole, confident, happy young woman.

For the first time in years, I feel like myself.

All of that is absolutely down to the friends I made and the children I worked with.  There's something magical about the sweet respect (most of) the children gave to me without question, and the absolute acceptance I found in the mish-mash of people I found myself working with.  Children and counsellors from all walks of life, from a hundred different kinds of backgrounds, we all found a place to call home at camp.

I came to camp hoping to make a difference in the lives of the children.

My confession for this post?  The biggest difference that was made...was in my life.  I never expected how much of a impact they would make on me.  I hope that I made even half as much of an impression on them, as they did on me.

Some days were hard, I'll admit that freely.  I won't pretend it was all fun and games.  Some days, some weeks even, they were such a big handful that they'd reduce me to tears.  Some days the only thing that would get me through would be hugs from understanding counsellors and candy.  Lots of candy.  But the wonderful days made it all worthwhile.  The ones where I really connected with a child.  Where they'd give me a huge hug and ask me why I looked sad.  Where they'd run across the field to say goodbye to me.  Where they'd come back to drop off a sibling and they'd remember me, though I never had them in my class or cabin.  Those days are why I went to camp.  Those are the days that I'll always remember.

Those are the reason I'll come back as many times as I can.

Fail!

I wasn't going to update my blog until my train journey, to keep me entertained during the many, many hours.  However, the epic fail that is my attempts to leave New Orleans needs writing about!

I came here on August 8th for 3 nights, with the intention of leaving at 7am on August 11th.  Simple enough, right?  Well, August 10th came around, and I heard about the Red Dress Run and an art gallery show going on the next day.  This all sounded very interesting, so I stayed another day.

I never did make it to either event, but still enjoyed the day.  Then I tried to book my train out of New Orleans, and found every single train was booked up.  In every direction.  I literally could not leave.

I stayed another night and booked myself onto the train for the next day (13th).  All was good. I was going to go to Baltimore, then Philadelphia, then on to my job in Vermont on the 16th.

I went to bed on the night of the 12th, was checked out, had my taxi booked, and my alarm was set.  All was good.

I woke up at 7.30am in utter horror.  My train had left New Orleans half an hour ago and I was still in bed.  My alarm was set for 5.40PM.  Nooooooooo!

I sheepishly went downstairs and booked myself in another night, and borrowed one of the staff member's phones to ring Amtrak.  They were very nice about it and booked me onto the next train, leaving on the 14th.

Given my multiple failed attempts to go to Baltimore, I decided to take the "hint" and am going straight to Philly.  I'm a little superstitious and am not willing to ignore the potential warning!  Plus then all the rest of my trains and hostels continue to link up.

So here I am, still in New Orleans 5 days after arriving!  I think I'm just not allowed to leave...!

Dreams Do Come True in New Orleans...

I've been in New Orleans for about a day and a half, and I'm absolutely in love with it.

I'm staying in the AAE Bourbon House Hostel, which offers a free shuttle from the airport and train station.  Naturally, that's the point that sold it for me!  I'm paying $19 per night, booked through Hostel World, for a 6 bed, female dorm.  It's in the Garden District and has plenty of bars and places to eat nearby.  The staff are wonderfully friendly and it's overall a really nice hostel.  There's a full kitchen, with a pancake station in the mornings, and a common room with free wifi.  Laundry is $4, once the hostel laundry has been done.  Walmart is a short walk down the street, and there's two fridges (one in the kitchen, which shuts at midnight I think, and one on the patio).  It's also full of British people!  I'd definitely stay here again.

I didn't do much exploring on my first day, as it was about 5pm by the time I was checked in and changed into clean clothes.  Instead I went out for some dinner at a nearby pub (Down the Hatch), recommended by the hostel staff.  It was a pretty dingy looking place outside, but the food was deeeeeelicious.  I had a grilled chicken and mozzarella cheese sandwich (po-boy?) with fries.  They were soooo good!

After that I went back to the hostel, stopping to take photos along the way, and played around on my laptop.  I was exhausted after the long train ride, and ended up in bed by 10.30pm!  Living the high life here in New Orleans...

It wasn't a completely wasted evening, as I did get some planning done for the next day.  I booked myself onto a free walking tour of the Garden District with Free Tours By Foot.  It met at the corner of Washington Avenue and Prytania Street, outside the Lafayette Cemetery.  That was about 20 minutes away from the hostel, but I gave myself about 45 minutes as I have a tendency to get lost.  Not sure how much trouble I could have with the directions "Turn right on Felicity, follow it for 0.5 miles.  Turn left onto Prytania, follow it for 0.5 miles", but I would rather be safe than sorry!  It was a hot day, so I recommend taking a drink.  I also recommend a waterproof jacket...

The tour was about 2 hours long (approximately a mile of walking), and took us around the cemetery to begin with...

...and then along some of the streets (I forget which, sorry!) to show us some of the fancy houses.  The houses were spectacular, and the history involved in them were fascinating.

Side note, the tour guide told us that the house in the final photo above is thought to have been Walt Disney's inspiration for the "look" of the Haunted Mansion ride.  The Disney geek in me loved that!

Not long after these photos were taken, it began to rain.  The tour guide gave us an abridged version of the remainder of the tour as we all got quite wet.  One of the other people on the tour, a lady from The Netherlands, kindly shared her umbrella with me - thank you!  The tour was very much worth it, with a lot of interesting information given...for free!  I wanted to go on the French Quarter tour tomorrow but it's sold out already.

Once it was done, we sheltered under an awning, waiting for the rain to let up a little.

After the rain subsided a little, I headed down the street a few blocks until I reached Magazine Street.  I walked down a ways, stopping to snap a couple of photos of the fire station.

I found a nice looking cafe, Joey K's, and went in for some lunch.  I went for 2 pieces of fried chicken and fries.  The service was fabulous!  They accidentally cooked me chicken tenders, so the waitress brought it out to me, apologised for the mistake and explained that they were cooking my fried chicken but thought I'd probably be hungry, so let me have the hot chicken tenders anyway (wasn't charged for them).  I got french bread while I waited, and free refills of my soda.  The food was lovely, and I definitely recommend them.  They also offered to give me a trash bag for when I was about to go back outside into the rain!  I used my styrofoam take-out box as a rain shelter most of my way home.  Luckily my fried chicken stayed dry!

I was about 20 minutes way from the hostel, and the rain was really coming down.  The closer I got, the worse it was!  I stopped in a petrol station for a few minutes, where I had the full sympathy of the staff and customers.  I also stopped in the doorway of a nice shop, where the sales assistant was busy "documenting this crazy weather" with her rather fancy looking camera. The streets started to flood, with the water coming up level with the sidewalk.  Each time I crossed the road my flip flops were sucked off my feet (leaving me running back to grab them before they floated away!) and the water came up to my ankle and above.  Trash cans were floating away, but the water was too deep for me to want to go and rescue them.  By the time I reached the hostel, I was soaked to the bone and was carrying my flip flops.  They took one look at me and just handed me a towel!  I couldn't have got more wet if I'd jumped in a pool!  It's almost 3 hours later and my hair is still damp.  I'm now curled up on the sofa in my sweat-pants and camp hoodie, not wanting to risk going back outside for a while.  Apparently some places in the area are without power, so I guess we didn't get hit too badly...

There's a hostel bar crawl later tonight that I might go along on, and then tomorrow I'm planning on going to explore the French Quarter.

All in all, I absolutely adore New Orleans and already plan on coming back for Mardi Gras sometime!  It's full of the friendliest, most helpful people I've ever met.  I know there's a high crime rate, but I've seen nothing but good things so far.  Touch wood it stays that way.

Also, I love the fact that there are beads everywhere!  It's like a treasure hunt...

Venturing into the Big Wide Somewhere!

Throughout this summer I've been toying with different travel ideas for when I finished at camp. The destinations changed almost every time, but one thing stayed constant – I wanted to travel by train.

Five years ago, the summer after I turned 18, I travelled around Europe with friends by train. I travel that way a lot in England, but suddenly it took on a whole new romanticism. It was convenient; cheap with a hint of nostalgia. I was hooked.

A week before I was due to leave camp, I applied for further work at a Family Resort in Vermont. Three days before I left Indianapolis, I was hired. This changed my plans slightly, but I hadn't booked anything yet anyway. I would still be given the month to travel after this new contract ended, but I decided to fly straight home. I had always planned to go home at the beginning of September and I didn't want to change that part.

As I had 9 days between camp ending and my new job beginning, I was able to get the best of both worlds. I could meander across the country for those 9 days, then work for the 3 weeks before going home. That way I wouldn't go home utterly penniless but would still get the chance to travel. My intended route was Indianapolis to New Orleans, New Orleans to Charlotte, Charlotte to New York, New York to St Albans.

The day before I left camp, I finally booked my rail pass (15 days, 8 segments), and reserved my first leg of the journey. A bus from Indianapolis to Champaign, then a train from Champaign to New Orleans. Half an hour before I had to leave for the station, I booked my hostel in New Orleans. Nothing like leaving it until the last minute...!

I finally said my reluctant goodbyes. With well wishes, farewells and “stay in touch”s ringing in my ears, we pulled away from The Bubble. Camp has been my home, my life and my comfort blanket for three months now. It was terrifying to be leaving the safety of it's grounds for the Great Wide Somewhere...alone.

One of the staff dropped me at the bus station, and suddenly I was by myself. The thought that the children might have finally driven me mad crossed my mind once or twice. What was I doing?! I'm a 23 year old, tiny young woman, with a suitcase almost as big as me, and a backpack that isn't much smaller. I have no sense of direction, no useable phone (well, I do, but it's extortionate to use abroad), and no real street sense. Why was I about to go on this crazy adventure?

It was too late to turn back now. That's partly why I left everything so late when I booked it all, then I couldn't talk myself out of it and change my mind! Staggering under the weight of my belongings, I headed to the Amtrak ticket office. The woman was very sweet, asking where I was heading, checking I intended to fully use my ticket (I'll use as many segments as I have time for!) and made sure I knew not to lose my rail pass.  (Apologies for it being on it's side, I can't figure out how to rotate the photo!)

Next it was time to board my bus to Champaign. While checking my ticket, the bus driver asked if Champaign was my final destination. When I told him I'd be catching a train to New Orleans, he gave me directions to the train station (get off the bus, go into the terminal, go upstairs). I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe this wouldn't be so terrifying? Americans are renowned for their open, friendly and helpful manner. I started to relax. I wasn't really alone, not in America!

It was slightly surreal to be sat on a coach watching Indiana roll by. As it was a 2 hour, 20 minute journey, I grabbed my blanket and had a much needed nap. Suddenly we were in Champaign and it was time to go. The driver helped me with my suitcase, and reiterated the directions to the train.

As I was about the enter the elevator, I was stopped by a little boy who wanted to know if I was British. This surprised me, until I remembered that my bag has a Union Jack on it. Him and his brother asked me several questions about England, including asking if we used horses instead of cars. I finally excused myself, as their mom was calling them. With many shouted good wishes, and secret smiles from bystanders, they left. Their exuberant, innocent questions brightened my day no end. Definitely a good welcome to Champaign! It's a good job I'm a camp counsellor and am used to being accosted with endless questions from random children!

I found the Amtrak desk and was greeted by wonderfully friendly staff. They offered to check in my luggage (though I had to throw out some toiletries so it fitted the weight limit). Teasingly, they told me that I won that day's Early Bird Award. It was 8 hours until my train! When I mentioned that I was going to find some lunch, they recommended the Seven Saints pub. I've decided to not pass up a recommendation, without good reason. The best way to see a place is through the eyes of its locals. The Seven Saints looked a little seedy on the outside, but inside it was a nice little pub. I chose an unadventurous grilled cheese sandwich and onion rings, but it was utterly delicious. Definitely worth going to and watching the world drive by.

Next I went on the hunt for a book store. The bartender recommended that I go to Jane Addams Book Store, a few blocks away. On my way I found a Fair Trade shop called Ten Thousand Villages. I love Fair Trade shops and couldn't resist going in to browse. I would have bought it all if I could! I settled for a Nepalese bracelet and a Bangladeshi notebook. Sadly, the tiny wooden nativity was out of my budget, and the recycled paper photo-frame wasn't practical enough. Maybe when I'm rich and famous! Or at least when I have more luggage space...

Jane Addams Book Store was a literary heaven. Rows and rows of tall bookshelves. It was a maze of knowledge. Sadly I had to restrain myself here too, and left with empty hands and a heavy heart. I'll have to console myself by adding more books to my Kindle instead.

I was excited to check my watch and see it said 5pm. Only 5 and a half more hours to go! I later realised that my watch was still on Indianapolis time, which was an hour ahead. Alas!

After stopping to admire some city artwork, and having a quick rest on the bench in front of it, I headed back to the station.

Time to regroup and decide what to do next. I googled Downtown Champaign and was a little disappointed to see there was mostly only shopping and eating available. Two things I didn't need to do! It's a lovely, quiet, friendly place but not a sightseeing destination. At least, not downtown.

I sat for a while, writing in my new notebook, then decided to go for another wander around Champaign. While flicking through a magazine in the station I found out there was an art gallery nearby. Despite their website telling me they were open until 7pm, it was closed when I got there at 6pm. Slightly irritated, I walked down a few streets I hadn't been down yet. There were a lot of art related places there, but all were closed. I ended up in a coffee shop, having a chocolate overdose. Chocolate pancakes and chocolate milkshake to eat in, with a chocolate mudslide cookie and pain au chocolat to take away! Feeling slightly sick and already crashing off the sugar high, I went back to the station again.

Feeling bored, and not wanting to play on my laptop because I couldn't find a power outlet, I snuggled down in a corner and had another nap. It had been a long last week at camp and I was very tired. A kind passenger woke me up when they were all leaving for their train. I appreciated them making sure I didn't miss what they thought was my train (nope, three more hours left!). Thank you, whoever you are!

Finally 10.30pm rolled around and it was time to board. The train pulled in and it was, without a doubt, the biggest train I have ever seen. It had an upstairs! I've never seen a train with an upstairs before.

The stairs were very narrow, which I didn't like too much, but upstairs was huge. Our carriage looked like First Class. The seat were huge, with a lot of space in between each row. It was much more comfortable and spacious than I expected. This was a good thing, since to have booked a bed would have cost me an extra $300. The one big negative point for me was the fact there was no WiFi. The bus had it, so why didn't the train? Sulking slightly, I snuggled into my seat and went to sleep.

It wasn't the best night's sleep ever. I woke up a lot, but it wasn't too terrible. After camp, with the camp-outs on a tarp and the tiny bunkbeds in the cabins, I can probably sleep anywhere! I slept on and off for about 12 hours. The final five hours of my trip I alternated between dozing, watching the world fly by, and playing on my laptop. The south is a very pretty place, from what I've seen so far. Quite different to what I'd seen of America before. Other than Florida, which doesn't count, I've never been this far south.

My trip so far has been a wide range of emotions (boredom included) but always exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing New Orleans, even though I don't know what I'll be doing there yet. I was hoping to do some planning on the train, but that was not meant to be. I'm still questioning my sanity, but I'm glad I decided to throw caution to the wind and do it anyway.

Story Time

My posts will be a little out of chronological order here as I still need to post about the end of last session, but I want to take a lot of time to get that post absolutely right before I publish it.  Therefore, I thought I'd jump right into posting about the beginning of Wellness Week!

This session at camp is referred to as Wellness Week.  It is basically what it says on the tin.  We focus on an active lifestyle, healthy eating and all those other "not me" kind of things!  The campers this week are required to have two active/outdoor activities, and only one indoor one.  Journalism, Art Expressions and Culinary Arts are all considered "indoor", but I'm more popular this week than last week at least.  I have a total of five campers!  Yay!

I'm back with second youngest girls, so they're all about 11 years old.  There are eight of them this week, so it's a pretty full cabin.  We also have two "C.I.T.'s" (Counsellors In Training) with us, who are doing an amazing job.  Since there are only ten beds in our cabin, we have a roll-out bed for one CIT, and us two counsellors trade off each night who sleeps in the main bedroom with the kids, and who is in the cabin's staff room.

The girls this week are all very strong minded, so it will take a lot of tact and supervision to stop them imploding on each other.  Other than that, they're a sweet, talkative bunch and I'm enjoying working with them.

One of the girls is very afraid of the dark and because of this she didn't sleep very well on the first night.  Due to this one of the CIT's and I came up with a plan.  She had a necklace from work that when you connect the two sides of the chain together one way it lights up the pendant.  She gave it to the little girl last night to help her sleep, since she'd also lost her flashlight.

I then jumped in and told her that "This is a talisman.  That means that it's something to protect you.  It will keep you safe".  We agreed that it would keep her safe even if it wasn't lit up.  I also told her "it's full of Camp Magic".  This unfortunately left me open to the question - "Can you tell us the story about Camp Magic?".  (She also asked if we could tell her the story about "the man, the talis-man".  The CIT rose finely to the occasion and told them all a fabulous story about the man who "gave this ancient talisman to the boys and girls of camp").

I agreed that once everyone was in bed, silent with lights out, I would tell the Camp Magic story.  That gave me a few minutes to make one up!  They all dutifully settled down into bed, with only a little arguing and I told them all about Camp Magic.  It was a daft little tale about the woman who founded the camp, and how she chose this plot of land because she could feel the magic flowing through the trees.  I told them how Camp Magic keeps all the children safe, and that's why bears and other dangerous animals aren't here - they're kept away by the magic.  Each year, with every smile and every laugh, the camp magic grows stronger, and that's what brings us all the way to this camp from as far away as New Zealand and England!

She then asked "was that a true story?".  I told her "it was a story with many truths".

Now we just have to hope that she can hold onto her belief in Camp Magic long enough to get through camp-out in the woods tonight!

Session 4 so far!

I'm a day into the next session and it's already looking pretty good! Not quite what I expected though, which is definitely keeping me on my toes.

I've been placed with the second oldest girls this week, so I have ages 14 and 15.  I'm also doing both Journalism AND Archery for the week.

I only had 2 campers sign up for Journalism, so for the second activity I'm helping out at Archery for 45 minutes, and then getting planning work done for the last 45 minutes.  It's hectic but I'm enjoying the change in scenery.  I'm also liking having only two campers, despite it throwing off my entire lesson plan (!), since I can focus much more on their development.  One of them has so many amazing ideas for what we can put in the newspaper, I can't possible fit it all in!  Plus I had her brother earlier in the summer, so it's great to see her and know that she joined Journalism because her brother loved it so much.

My girls this week are absolutely wonderful (well, my girls are wonderful every week, obviously).  I feel like we can have such deeper conversations which is lovely, even if I am having trouble adjusting to all the conversations about boyfriends.  My 8 year olds didn't really have boyfriends!  Some of the conversations are a little difficult to deal with, since some of these girls have been through things I can never even imagine, so that's definitely pushing me out of my comfort zone.  At the moment I'm just facilitating these conversations, letting them talk and hoping they know they can come to me.  Not sure what else to do!  I'll post more on this at the end of the week, by which point I hope I'll have figured it out...

There are a few issues with cattiness and other things that you find much more with teenagers, but I had a taste of that last session with the 13 year olds at least.  My approach is that I simply won't tolerate it.  I don't care if it was "just jokes, J.K! J.K!", it's not acceptable to say those things.

I had the lovely experience today of giving one of my campers her first Orange Bead (Social Competencies - only bead she didn't have).  She's been to camp several times, and is part of our youth leadership programme, but has never in that time been given a bead for her Social Competencies!  After we awarded all of today's beads she came running over to tell me.  I'm so pleased to have been able to give her the joy she felt at finally completing the "set".

A few funny moments from the day -

Youth Leader : "Oh, you're from the UK?  I thought you were from England?"

Camper : "You are so cool because you were born in England!  Do you know how cool it is to be born in England?!"

Camper : "When the super-bowl was on, I supported England."

Also, there is now another counsellor from England, so there's three of us!  Yay!  So good to hear another English accent around the place.

All the best,
Charli

Exploring Indianapolis

As promised in my 4th July post, here is the tale of what the two English counsellors did during the day of 4th July.

I'm 23, and my English co-worker is 22, so have both been able to drive for about 5 years, and are both relatively independent.  Now we're at a summer camp in a foreign country, with no car.  The shops are within walking distance, but the "internationals" get yelled at every time we dare venture out to them.  I understand why - there is a heat advisory out, and none of us have phones with us, but still...we were starting to feel a little claustrophobic.

Therefore, while sat on the porch on a warm, muggy Tuesday night, we hatched a plan.

We decided that it would be a shame to live here for 3 months, and only have seen Walmart and a few bars.  Other counsellors assured us that downtown Indianapolis was easy to get to on the bus.  It was settled - we were going downtown on the bus tomorrow!

We got up early the next morning (well, 8.30am), with the intention of leaving camp by 9am.  It was more like 9.30 when we actually left, and it was already stifling outside.  The bus stop was only a 10 minute walk away, though there was no pavement the whole way, so we had to walk along the edge of the road.  Much to the horror of all passing cars, I'm sure!

The bus stop was exactly where we'd been told it was (a sign depicting a bus and number 8 fastened to a telegraph pole), and we settled down to wait.  After a while we started to wonder...were the buses running on 4th July...?  Luckily a bus almost immediately arrived.  We bought an all day ticket, which was an experience in itself.  In the UK, you give the money to the bus driver.  In the USA, it turns out they have little machines next to the driver, and you put the money into there - exact change only.  We put our $4 in, received our all day pass, and sat down.

The bus announced each stop as we approached it, which was novel.  They don't have anything so fancy on the rural, village buses where I'm from.  Finally we reached downtown, and we realised...we don't know where to get off!  We saw the Indiana State Museum ahead of us, which was one of the places we wanted to go, so we decided that was as good a place as any to stop.

The night before, we had decided on our Plan of Action.  To start with, we were going to visit the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument.  Apparently it's only 21 feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty, and gives a panoramic view of Indianapolis.  We reasoned that it would be best to climb this first, before the midday sun made it too unbearable.

We set off down the street, not knowing where we were going and getting a "Chicago feeling coming on".  Eventually, we figured it would be best to ask for directions before we got too lost.  We stopped a random woman on the street, and tried to ask how to get to "the soldiers' memorial".  She didn't know what we were talking about, and we ended up having to describe it "that tall memorial...you can climb it...?".  She finally understood, and gave us directions in a slow, loud voice.  Is this how everyone feels when the British try to talk to people when we're abroad?!

The directions were quite simple, and we do sometimes have difficulty understanding people's accents, so I suppose it wasn't too bad that she talked to us as though we don't speak English!  The route took us past the lovely State Capitol Building.  It took us a while to figure out that's what it was, but it was beautiful all the same!  I'd have liked to have looked around inside, but we weren't sure if we were allowed so we kept walking.

In the UK there is a memorial in every village, town and city to the brave soldiers who died in the World Wars.  For this reason, we were intrigued to see an American memorial, although this monument is to commemorate a different time period.

Now, I'll hope you can forgive me for saying this, as I truly respect the men and women who give their lives in the service of their country but...I'm not a big fan of the monument.  Not because of what it represents, just...aesthetically.

It's spectacular, there's no doubt about that.  It towered above me as I stood, staring up at it.  It was beautiful but...where were the names of the soldiers and sailors it was representing?  Apparently there is a box with all the names in the corner-stone but...that's not quite the same.  I know that shouldn't have bothered me, but in a strange way it did.  It seemed to make the entire monument less about the people themselves, and more about "look at what a big, huge tower we built!".  I'm sure this is a terribly unpopular opinion, and it didn't stop me from paying $2 and going up in the elevator to enjoy the view, but...I don't know.  It just seemed too...brash?  I might be biased, but I think I prefer the small, simple memorials we have in the UK, where the main part of the memorial is the long list of names carved into it.  Anyway, I'll get back off my soap-box now!

We walked around the memorial, and admired the different statues before going inside.

When we went in we learned that we could either climb the 331 stairs for free, or we could pay $2 to go in the elevator.  I decided that, despite not being too fond of lifts, I was too lazy to go up all of those stairs and would happily pay $2 to not have to!  My co decided that she would rather walk up 331 stairs than go in the lift.  More power to her for it!

To give her a head start, I looked around the gift shop for a minute before buying my ticket.  The man at the desk was laughing at our quick discussion, and agreed that he'd pay $2 to go up the "lift" too.  (I later realised he was also teasing me for not calling it an elevator).  I asked if he'd ever climbed the stairs, and he told me that he used to.  Apparently he'd been in a big accident and had broken several bones (I forget which, but I think his hip was involved..?) and it was too hard on his body to climb them anymore.  He told me that he still climbs down the stairs every day, since gravity helps him in that direction.  I have to say, I was very impressed.  To still climb down 32 flights of stairs, every single day...?! Wow.  That's dedication!  I feel tired just thinking about it...!

The elevator was very small, but luckily I was able to ride it by myself.  Three people got into it and smiled at me in understanding when I panicked and told them "I'll wait 'til the next one!".  Once I got off the lift I still had to climb 30 extremely steep, narrow steps in a tiny stairwell.  I stumbled and hyperventilated my way up them, and was very pleased to reach the top!  I have relatively poor balance and don't like small spaces, so that wasn't very much fun for me.

The view from the top was worth it.  The top of the monument was a glass room, which I imagine got suffocatingly hot later in the day.  We got a full 360 view of downtown Indianapolis, which was really cool.  In comparison to Chicago, Indianapolis felt spacious and bright.  It also had a much more relaxed feel. There were barely any people around, so it was very quiet, but we think that might have been due to it being 4th July.  I think Indianapolis is the 12th biggest city in the USA, but...it didn't feel like it.

We saw the nearby Indiana War Memorial, which we learned was also a museum.  We decided that would be a good place to go next as it seemed to be an interesting building.  We also wanted to see how an American World War museum would be different to the ones in the UK.  Our displays World War displays are heavily focused on ration books, gas masks and items relating to children being evacuated.  Obviously a lot of this wasn't relevant in America.

The memorial was a few blocks away, and the sun was getting hotter almost by the minute.  We stopped to rest in the small park next to the building and admired the wildlife.

Squirrels happen to be my favourite animal, so I have a tendency to take a lot of photos of them!  This one was just too cute to not photograph though.

We walked around to the front of the memorial, only to discover that it was closed for 4th July!  Oh, no!  Ah well, maybe next time.

This seemed as good a time as any to head back to the Indiana State Museum.  We went back the way we came, and stopped at a Subway for so I could have lunch and a drink.

The Indiana State Museum was so cool - literally!  The air-conditioning was a welcome relief after the hot sun outside.  We sat on a bench in the foyer for a while as my co ate her sandwiches (I didn't want to bring a packed lunch; warm cheese sandwiches didn't sound worth saving a few dollars!).

After a bit of discussion, we decided we'd pay the $7 entrance fee (usually $9.50, not sure why it was discounted).  It was an interesting museum. I really enjoyed learning more about Indiana's varied history.  It's not a state I knew much about, other than it having the Indy 500.  I hadn't paid much attention to Indiana's existence before I was accepted at the summer camp, if I'm honest!

One of the things I enjoyed the most about the museum had to be the "yarn bombing".  I'd heard yarn bombing mentioned a few weeks earlier, as a possible art project at camp, but I thought it was simply throwing a ball of wool at buildings, similar to teepee-ing a house!  How wrong was I?!

Yarn bombing is much more interesting than that.  There were random knitted additions to displays all over the museum, and I was like a child on a treasure hunt trying to find them!  I was fascinated and more than a little delighted by it.  It gave the museum a sense of light heartedness that appealed to me.  Here's a few of the ones I found...

We finished at the museum at about 3.30pm.  We decided this was probably a good time to head back to camp, so we could shower and change ready to head back downtown for the 4th July fireworks.  We figured that we'd probably get back to camp for 4pm, maybe 4.30 at the latest.

Oh no, nothing's that simple for us...

First we had to try and find a bus stop.  We reasoned that if we went back to where we got off the bus, then crossed the road, there would surely be a bus stop to take us home.  We retraced our steps...crossed the road...and lo...no bus stop!  We walked a way down the street, and still could not find one.  We went into a nearby hotel and asked them for help.  They gave us directions which we dutifully followed.

By this time my co was having serious problems with her shoes.  They were new and were causing her no end of pain, after all the walking we'd done that day.  She ended up taking them off and walking through Indy in her socks.  Every time we stopped and waited to cross the road she hopped from foot to foot, squeaking that the pavement was burning her.  So you can see, we hoped we'd find a bus soon.

We eventually reached the bus stop the hotel had directed us to...and discovered it was a greyhound bus station. There were several buses...but not the one we wanted.  We found a police officer and asked him to help us. He found a number 8 bus schedule for us, and directed us to a street where we should find a bus stop.

Wearily we headed back the way we came, and wandered around the street he suggested, to no avail.  We went back into the Subway from earlier and asked one of the staff for help.  She directed us down another street.

Finally!  A bus stop!  Unfortunately it wasn't the right bus stop, but the one we wanted was only a few yards further down.

With no end of relief we sank down onto the seats in the bus shelter.  My co had to throw her socks away and put her shoes back on, but we were at a number 8 bus stop.  We were almost home!  Right?

Wrong!

After sitting chatting to some friendly locals for a while, a number 8 bus pulled up.  We jumped on and asked the bus driver if he went to where we needed to go (note to self: have more knowledge of the area around camp, not just the street camp is on!).  He told us no, he only went to the airport, we'd have to walk the rest of the way.  This didn't sound right, so we thought we should be on the bus going the other way, which was about to pull away from the stop across the road.

We leaped off the bus, flagged down the driver and ran across the road.  The driver laughingly told us he wouldn't have left without us, and we settled down on the bus, happy to be heading back to camp.

After being on the bus for a while, we started to realise that we didn't recognise the area.  We silently hoped that was just due to us being foreign.  The driver pulled up at the last stop, a Meijers store.  With some trepidation, my co whispered that this wasn't the Meijers near camp.

Oh...

We ran to the front of the bus, panic stricken, and asked the bus driver if we'd gone the wrong way.  Once he finally figured out where we were trying to go, he told us that yes...we had gone in totally the opposite direction.

Argh!

Luckily he was a very sweet, kind man, and told us that he was going in Meijers for 20 minutes, then he'd be turning around.  We could go get a drink and get back on the bus, and then we'd be going the right way.  He  told us not to follow him around the store - he wouldn't go without us!

We got ourselves a drink and some ice cream, feeling silly but reassured that we would get home.  We accidentally got back to the bus 10 minutes late, but as promised, he didn't leave without us.  I am so thankful for that man.  Not many people would make their entire bus route 10 minutes late for the sake of two daft travellers!

With a slight sense of deja vu we headed back the way we came.  We drove back through the neighbourhoods, and back downtown.  We were slightly chagrined to learn that there had been several bus stops next to the museum - if only we had turned left instead of right! But if we had done that, then we wouldn't have ended up on the bus with the kind driver.

Half way back to camp we had to change buses since the air-con stopped working (it was one of those days!), but finally we made it to familiar ground.

We're not sure if you can tip bus drivers, but here in America it seems customary to tip every man and his dog, and this was someone who genuinely deserved it.  So, when we gleefully left the bus we pressed a small sum of money into his hand and gave him a huge hug.

We staggered along the walk back to camp, laughing and joking about our adventure.  We agreed that we wouldn't tell the other counsellors about it - it'd just be further proof that we shouldn't be allowed off camp alone!

It was 7pm by the time we reached the staff quarters.  It had taken us 3 and a half hours to get back.

I'm not sure we've ever been so delighted to be back in "The Bubble"!

It was a long, hot, tiring day with a little too much worry, but it was a fabulous adventure and we got to see a lot of Indianapolis.  More than we would have if we'd not got lost at all!  We got to meet the sweetest, kindest and most helpful people who all made our day so much brighter.

I highly recommend Indianapolis to anyone who wants to visit, and I look forward to exploring it some more before I leave.

And this time, we know were the bus stops are, and which direction we're meant to be travelling!