39 Days Till Sojourn Begins.

Where does one begin a newly created blog? I guess at the start. For arguments sake, lets define the start as the point at which I decided to come back for another summer at Camp Merrowvista ,located as most summer camps are next to a pristine of sorts lake (from my extensive viewing from such Summer camp classics as Ernest goes to Camp et la) for another Summer. The decision was later than you might expect, only seriously about a week ago. A number of things transpired/aligned/took shape to bring it to reality and in no particular order:

1) I’m currently unemployed (long story) (though looking for work (though not now))
2) The job prosects in Chemical Engineering or related field in the short to near future for a person of my credentials is not great (the job offers aren’t rolling in as it were)
3) I always planned to go back to Merrowvista and Miniwanca (Merrowvista’s sister Camp) just no this summer
4) They offered to forward pay for the plane ticket over (that kind of sealed the deal)
5) Gives me another excuse to catchup with friends I met last time again and go travelling to the parts of the LOFCF’s that I missed last time around.

I received the confirmation a couple of days ago from Merrowvista (more specifically the Director, Heather (champion that she is)), that my services were once again required. They must have been happy with my efforts last year as they agreed to forward pay me the cost of the airfare over!

So I guess that brings me to the subject of last summer (their summer, our winter). It would be fairly reasonable to postulate that I had a great time or else I wouldn’t be coming back in the first place, which was the case. There were just so many priceless moments. Which probably began with getting asked for the pitcher (to you Australians (and most other nationalities) that’s a jug) and not having a clue about what they were talking about. I though watching countless hours of The high production value end of LOFCF TV (Jerry Springer et la) programming had prepared fairly well but to no avail. I’m sure they were amused as much as I was confused. Einstein once explained the theory of relativity by staying something along the lines of let a man sit and talk to a pretty woman and a hour feels like a minute but let that same man place his hands on a stove and a minute feels like an hour. The summer certainly felt like a few minutes. It was indeed a great summer and learnt a lot about myself and others (cliché intended).

So the consensus (sample size of 1) was that I had a great summer, but what did I actually do?

I worked (officially) as bike mechanic, cricket coach logistics team member and token Aussie (I’m still trying to master the Aussie bit). As part of the bike mechanic role as well as maintaining a fleet of 80+ bikes, I gave both staff and campers instruction on bike maintenance & fitting, trained up an bike mechanic (Jack) and took campers on day rides (called shake downs) to prepare the campers for the longer rides. Speaking of Jack, a guy who singlehandedly introduced me every stlye of music running the whole gamet of country to regea to punk to ziggy star dust. Thanks Jack, Jonny Cash rocks! I also balanced/cooked (just kidding Heather) the Bike Shop accounts, inventoried the bike shop and created a data management system (had to come up with a swisho name with bling) from scratch (I've yet to really konw what that means), was on call for roadside repairs and generally helped out with the logistics team (basically just lifting/painting/building stuff and greeting concerned/happy/indifferent parents). This contiued for 3 months until

The last month of my summer was spent spent on a transcontinetal odyssey vistiting both new friends (from summer camp) & old friends (who I met whilst they were on their own journies in Australia), picking up a stuffed kangeroo that obsconded from Merrowvista and visiting some places I always wanted to see (i.e standard touristy stuff (except for all the universities))

Places I loved

Montauk, NY: The sunsets are unforgettably gorguous and I got to sit in the same chair as Kate Winslet did in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. If you stay at one place, make sure it is the Montauket Hotel. To find a dive bar of such renown is a rare thing indeed.

Figure P1.o Sunset taken from the Montauket Hotel

Pittsburgh, PA: The city reminds me alot of my home town of Geelong (apart from the massive Baseball staduim). Both are centres of industy and surronded by hill sides that light up and sparkle at night.

Figure P1.1 PNC Stadium Pittsburgh on a rainly night

Washington D.C If you love monuments, you'll love this place, as I did. Residents seemed to be playing a hell of alot of kick ball (either there was a national kick ball championship on or D.C people just love their kickball). it was serious kick ball middle aged poeple and nobody was taking any prisoners.

Figure P1.2 Civil War Memorial. Next to Capital Building

Boston, MA: Boston was just a great city that had a buzz to it. The Musemum of Science is great though a bit bummed I missed the starwars exibiton by a couple of months! Seeing MIT in the flesh was amazing it really blew me away compared to watching it in Good Will Hunting. It felt alot like Melbourne in more ways than just having trams (or Trolley's as they called them) The Boston accent is great I couldn't stop laughing anytime someone said the word barney (no not the pink oversized stuffed talking dinosaur) [or more correctly Barnnnnney. Example "hey that guy over there is a reall barnnnnney ]. The squirelles are also fearless in comparision to those of New York of New Hampshire. I saw one take a half empty Macdonalds bag out of the hand of a guy sitting to eat his meal. Crazy

Figure P1.3 View of Fenway Baseball Park taken from my window at YMCA accomidation

Chicargo, IL: I visited Chicago on four seperate occasion during my trip (it was a kind of hub)!: It feels a lot like New York, New York. The new Milenium Park is great and it's also a very flat city was much of Illinois is. Great home of Jazz as well.

Figure P1.4 Trump card, Sears Tower, Chicago

Camp Miniwanca, Shelby, MI: Miniwanca was great I'd heard A lot about but was yet to see it. It's just one of those places where you could live for the rest of your life in bliss. It was the sun, beach (with sand that makes coold grindig sounds) and a dive bar what more could anyone ask for. I got back Blue Roo and helped fix up some of the bike fleet whilst I was there and mangaed to catchup with some of the guys from summer camp Kris, Croc and Kyle!

Figure P1.5 Sunset into Lake Michigan from Miniwanca beach front

Philidelphia, PA: I lived at a friends house in West Philly (think Fresh Prince of Bel Air opening credits at least) it was great living in a more diverse neighbourhood not to mention great to meet up with Sam again. The Youth hostel in the CBD was great (if they didn't have a bunk spare you could sleep on the floor(at a reduced price of course)). Sorry don't have any photo of Philly.

Ann Arbor, MI: Most of the rest of Michigan looks like a ghost town with alot of urban decay since alot of industy closed up shop but Ann Arbor bucks the trend and would probly not be in existance if it was not for The University of Michigan. I learnt a very import lesson hear the day before a big Grid Iron match don't expect to find any vacancies in motels. I spend a good few hours sleeping at the train station. but had a good tour of the city. the Frat house are massive as well. it was party central everyone was decked out in blue luckely I had my navy JCH top on!

Figure P1.6 Entrance to Ann Arbor, Amtrak Station.

Now for something competyly philosophical (I mean different)......

I guess some general reflections upon my time in the LOFCF was that of always been surprised. I think when you go overseas you feel more Australian or at least try to differentiate yourself, if for no other reason. I kicked a more of the footy (Aussie rules that is) in 3 months than I had since the footy season in year 10(I doesn't help thata I was starting from a very low base though). I think that was part of the cultural exchange, letting other LOFCFians see and experience things that they have no and not just been a one-way genuflect street. There was a quote that I took over let the world change you and you can change the world (motor cycle diaries).

Urban poverty (or the quantity and quality of it) was shocking, confronting and saddening. A number of parks in major cites (Botson, Philly) were filled with homeless people something I had never experienced to such an extent in Australia. It could be due to the fact that the LOFCF has a larger population. So for a given per capita population you would expect to see more poverty, but it just seemed much more pervasive. There will always be a percentage of people who can’t look after themselves for whatever reason and it should be the role of that society to look after and support them (in every sense of the word). I'm not saying that Australia has a great record, perticuary Australia has a long way to go as well as far as indigenous Australia goes. It's just that the problem is much more visable in LOFCF and maybe that is actually a strength bacause if people can see that something is worng they are more likely to do something about it rather than if the problem is hidden.

Guns, you can’t talk about the LOFCF without giving it a mention. Basically guns scare me. People with guns who shouldn’t have guns scare me even more. I don’t have a problem with guns per se as there are ligament uses such as on farms and for sporting. It’s more so just the control of guns that has me worried. I guess this was highlighted when I visited the main library at Ohio State University. As with all libraries in Australia it had the standard signs No Food, No Drink. In addition was a No Weapons (guns, knifes) sign!

Food. I’m sure when citizens of the LOFCF come down under they either question how we could possibly eat this or that or alternatively ask why the heck can’t you by this and that? Or why it doesn’t taste the same as it does back home? As such I raised the same questions to my LOFCF colleagues. Why does the milk/cheese/ taste different? Why does the bread have sugar in it? How can you eat that stuff (referring to Marshmallow Fluff (just think liquid marshmallow and you won’t be far off) and Mac & Cheese)? Why does the Cheese not look right? All told the food proportions were larger than Australia. A medium size would be a small size and so on and so forth.

On the subject of size everything is bigger. The cars, the voices, gap between rich and poor, the bugs (don't even get me started. Thier numerous and of the industrail strength variety) the waistlines, trade deficit, the flags (Although the Australia flag above Parliment House is punching above its weight) even the toothpaste is bigger (refer to Experiment P1.0 and Figure P1.0).

Experiment P1.0 Which tooth paste tube is bigger?

Figure P1.7 Photo of toothpaste. Top LOFCF tooth paste. Bottom Australian tooth paste

The LOFCF is a melting pot of somewhat strange extremes (to say the least) and no hard and fast generalisation can be made about the place. Having said that, it’s a place and a people that continue to fascinate me.

So henceforth let the count down to Summer 2006 (thier summer/our winter) begin……………………..