One Tree Hill, Ohio and Home

Published by Johnny on January 31, 2010

After New York City, Philapdelhia, Vegas and California money was getting tight and we were still on the east coast. We got a cheap flight to North Carolina as Dan had been there previously and had a cracking time. So we flew, arrived in Wilmington – a nice beach town, and our first port-of-call?…

Dan and Me at the Riverside Court from One Tree Hill

So as much as we loved the OC through Uni, ultimately One Tree Hill pipped it, so here we were again gathering awesome pics from awesome TV shows We even made it to Karen’s Cafe…

Karen's cafe, North Carolina

We spent around a week i think in North Carolina and even managed time to get a permanent reminder of our good times together – through 4 years at Uni and now good times in America..

Our New tattoo

North Carolina came and went and next thing we knew we were on the computer searching for the best party town in America – credit card details dispatched and we were on our way to see Ohio state.

I have nothing but good things to say about Ohio state. Well actually that’s not strictly true – I met a crazy, crazy, crazzzzzzzzzy American chick who thought she loved me and stalked me until she had located the hotel I was staying in and was parked outside when I tried to leave the place one day :S I found international calling cards on her and it was time to make a quick escape! That and also Swede fell in love with some hippy yank chick and we didn’t see him for the best part of a week.. his loss as Dan and I went on to enjoy one of the greatest 24 hours of our lives!!

We went to a bar on a Friday night, we actually went to a few bars but we ended up at a funky place called Ugly Tuna’s. We had so much fun, made friends with all the bar staff, we were the only foreigners in the place – good times! Any we drunkenly noticed that they had promotions on booze in the mornings. We went home with a couple of new friends and stayed at their place, set our alarms for 5.00 am and tried to get some sleep. Alarm goes off, deliriously we staggered back to Ugly Tuna’s and the reason we were there was staring us at the face on entry…

Interesting promotions at Ugly Tuna

So beers were only 25 cents :S Today was the day that Ohio State Buckeyes were playing, we didn’t have tickets but everyone was saying how much fun it was when the Buckeyes were playing at home so we started early, maybe a little too early.

Naturally, we were the only people in the bar at 6.15 am on a Saturday morning, us and some chick serving breakfast. We sat down, tried to have a drink and it was tough thanks to the night before! We soldiered on until around 8am the owner of the bar came in to sort out their accounts. We was surprised to see people there and came and introduced himself, we bought him a beer – to cut a long story short, within 15 mins we locked the accounts in the safe and was drinking with us. Around 10am we were well on our way, he was loving us and insisted on showing us off to his other bar owning mates. We were in the irish bar across the street drinkin Irish Car Bombs (guiness with a shot of whiskey in one) with a group of people, things were getting blurry!!

Back to Ugly Tunas – he announced to everyone that Dan and I were not to open our wallets at Ugly Tuna’s for booze, food or anything else. He presented us with staff T-Shirts which I have to this day and has travelled around the world with me, you will see it feature heavily in my blog! We finally left, pretty drunk, around midday and scalped some tickets from the tallest guy in Ohio…

Ticket touting with the tallest man in Ohio

We managed to scalp a couple of tickets and we watched the Buckeyes beat some random college side with 105,000 in the stands… for a uni game – unbelievable!

Ohio stadium with 105000 peeps

The game was a cracking spectacle and we were very enthusiastic given our liquid breakfast and lunch. Dan fell asleep at half time which was very funny but we made it through:

Dan and I trying to hold it together at fulltime

We made our escape amongst the hordes of people and tried to make our way back home:

Our way home was a bit of a blur

What a day, never to be forgotten and represented everytime I wear my ugly tuna shirt! Ohio, like everything else, came and went and we embarked on the long drive to NYC for our flights back to UK, we did have one pitstop to make in Time Square with a certain flamboyant cowboy though…

One last glimpse at Times Square

The not entirely Naked cowboy

We were lucky to get some pretty special New York deals on our brief stopover in New York. Though the naked cowboy doesn’t take requests we still enjoyed seeing him and his crooning ways! I felt as if, considering our time frequenting more places associated with teen dramas than places with any cultural significance, the naked cowboy would be an appropriate sign-off pic!

Thanks Dan and Swede for an awesome summer-memories, memories, memories.

My next step was to return to the UK briefly before I bought my one-way ticket to Asia, that was 3 1/2 years ago and I’ve effectively been travelling ever since….

Tags: Backpacking, carolina, ohio, usa

California and the rest…

Published by Johnny on January 31, 2010

I would like to stress that my time in America was before I was a true global traveller and hence my spending habits, experiences and escapades are much different to how I travel now. Ok, so that’s my disclaimer finished I’m going to run through my last month or so before I flew back to the UK and truly began my life as the cheapest backpacker known to man.

We arrived late at night into California in our rented car after a fair drive for Vegas over night, although with so many cheap flights to LA now, that would have been a better option. Again (and this is where things havent changed, even with all my travel experience!) I had no plans, no where to sleep, not very much cash and our flight home was from the East coast yet we were on the west :S We lodged our selves in the cheapest, skankiest motel, 3 of us in one bed with a witch doctor staying in the room below us – very weird but then LA is a very weird place

First day had to be sightseeing:

The cliched Hollywood sign

We walked around LA all day and I was taken by it at all to be honest. For a start it was filthy, absolutely filthy – the people were fake and abrupt, the weather was oppressive and it was ridiculously overpriced too. Despite all that, seeing the hollywood sign was pretty cool. I wish we had gone up to the sign and got better pics, in the same way that I wish we had gone on a Beverley Hills tour but perhaps another time. We were young and spontaneous so partying took most of our time and money :S

In the evening we meandered over to Grayman’s Chinese Theatre (you will know this from all the new blockbuster premiers and the celebrities handprints in the concrete) and this was a real highlight of my trip:

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Don't Hassle the Hoff

: Arnie before we was running California

The Simpsons and I before I realised they would want $10 for a pic - novice!

After getting the movie star fix out the way we progressed onto pastures new. Before I tell you our next step I urge you not to judge haha! We went in hunt of the beach from the OC (TV show – very gay) After spending an entire day getting to the beach from the OC it transpired that it wasn’t in face Laguna beach but huntington beach! back to the drawing board and try again later, we did eventually find it though, with the Baitshop and cafeteria that Seth worked in too (so, so, so lame – what we we thinking?!):

The O.C pier

The OC Baitshop

The O.C Pier diner

The Swede and I continuing our gay OC tour

Ok ok, enough lameness for one blog posting. This is painful to recollect, lots of fun though and noone can deny the OC was a cracking show! Let’s leave it at: LA is disgusting but got some cool places to see and certainly worth a trip, we were moving onwards to an equally embarrassing destination… (does anyone watch One Tree Hill?)….

Tags: Backpacking, california, usa

Vegas Baby!

Published by Johnny on January 29, 2010

So I managed to make my flight to Las Vegas, Nevada, just! Met 2 of my best mates from Uni (Dan and Swede) who also had just completed summer camps and had amazing times. We landed at the airport and after exchanging war stories about obnoxious yank kids we got off, hit the 40 degree heat and went straight to the hotel. Dan had wangled us a deal at the Venetian Hotel with a suite – check out this hotel (we managed to get a suite for $199 a night – split 4 ways = $50pp, unbelievable i know!)

Outside the Venetian Hotel

The Venetian Lobby

So we picked our jaws up from the floor, checked in and began pretending we belonged there – this was the birth of us pretending to be the Kooks (a british band for those of you not from the UK) which ultimately led to an American wedding for one of us!! We got led to our suite, I’m afraid my pics won’t do it justice but here you go….

Our 20th floor suite

From the lounge!

The last pic is of our bathroom – very crazy:

Our bathroom

Ok, after throwing our bags in the small town which was our room we went downstairs to the 2nd floor – i want to stress that the next photos are indoors, from the 2nd floor!!:

The 2nd floor of the Venetian Hotel

Dan and I trying to look like we belong

The ceiling is painted as if you are outside and it changes colour/shade according to the time outside – mind-blowingly confusing but pretty cool all the same. Gondolas constantly are meandering through the fake canals throughout the hotel with crazy Italian guys singing “That’s Amooooooooooore”. This was all too much, we needed a drink

So we hit up the casino. 1st off $200 on roulette – success (it’s was destined to be a good night). We were all quite keen poker players throughout uni so we fancied our chances on the smaller tables here too. We paid $30 minimum buy-in and thats where the trouble started. We didn’t really know how Vegas worked, we were more than holding our own at the poker table but we kept getting asked did we want drinks. We sheepishly declined until an old Texan dude sitting beside me kindly whispered “There free ya know” and the mayhem commenced. Free drinks all night from scantily clad Vegas hostesses, winning money on the poker and clubbing on the strip to come – this was another moment when you need to sit back and appreciate what you have in life.

We only had 3 days in Vegas (probably a good thing) so on the second night things got even more interesting. After a web of lies about being importer/exporters we ended up with VIP access to an exclusive Vegas hotspot – Tryst nightclub, complete with 50 foot indoor waterfall. Our facade of being in a band had resorted in a flurry of photos and autographs and we thought we were rockstars. However, our true social status dawned upon us once again when we were chatting to 2 gorgeous ‘dancers’ at the bar. We were drinking vodka and cranberries for some strange, metrosexual reason and the girls asked could we get them a drink “Sure”, still living the dream for 30 more seconds until the $200 bill for the 4 drinks hit us… ouch!! live and learn lol.

The band lie continued until Dan met a cute girl on the dance floor, told her about our world tour, our new album, and suite in the Venetian etc. Things were going swimmingly but the end of the night came quickly and they went their separate ways with an exchange of phone numbers. She flew back home and Dan ran a huge phone bill over the next month or so calling her 5 times a day. Our lie about the Kooks came to haunt Dan as Tasia (the cute girl from Tryst) was still convinced of his popstar aspirations; we didn’t however legislate for Tasia googling the Kooks and discovering that they look absolutely nothing like us wotsoever. Hilarity ensued when Tasia called and quizzed Dan – “So Dan, which one are you?”. He wormed his way out of the lie and to cut a long story short within 12 months and a couple of transatlantic flights Tasia and Dan were married, they now have a mortgage and are expecting a little boys – good luck guys what was that about what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas mate?!!?

I do have a few more stories that I’m dying to tell but unlike Dan, I think it’s probably better for Swede and I to leave our stories in Vegas. If we ever meet I promise I’ll fill you in

After our 3 days we rented a car and headed to LA, California followed by North Carolina and finally Ohio – a few more good tales to tell but that’s for another day….

Tags: Backpacking, las vegas, usa

Traveling after summer camp – New York

Published by Johnny on January 12, 2010

Camp was over, we had our paychecks burning a hole in our pockets and we had just been dropped off (from a yellow school bus no less) in Central Station, New York City. I was due to meet my best friends from Uni in Vegas in 10 days or so – in the meantime we had a lot of fun in New York and Philadelphia.

Freedom right after camp

Leaving camp - NYC

So we searched for some new york accommodation, found a cheap motel and crammed 12 of us in there. We did all the standard NYC sights, climbing the empire state building, visiting liberty island, pretending to pick up the Statue of Liberty using the right angle of photo (you know what i mean, we all have done it, no matter how stupid you look in the process!), partied hard.

Doing the tourist thing at Madison Square Garden

Strawberry fields

the Statue of Liberty before I knew how to use a camera properly

Ultimate tourist

Now I have done a few camps in America and I have made some awesome American friends so excuse me for by sweeping generalisations when I say New Yorkers are an obnoxious bunch of peeps! In your face, swearing, sweating and swaggering – it all gets a little too much, thank God they have awesome Happy Hours in the states eh! Incidently, I remember a time when I went to a bar in NYC and it was 5 CENTS for a beer, honestly 5 CENTS – i literally ordered 40 beers, paid 2 bucks and set them all on a table for everyone to help themselves. I don’t remember even coming home.

Photographic evidence that, despite my chronic memory loss, we were in a bar

One of our co-counsellors at camp was heading back to in Philadelphia so we decided to go with her – turned out to be an interesting few days. Again we filled our boots with touristy stuff, running up the Rocky steps (what a movie) shouting AAAADRIAN and bouncing up and down at the top. NOTE – Rocky makes that look very easy. It’s not.

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight

Top of the rocky steps in Philly

That evening we were invited to a frat party – my first ever frat experience and it proved to be very memorable. So one of my good friends from Camp – Tez (Pakistani/English, Blackburn supporting, body popping, Islam following legend) and I decided the best way for us to pick up chicks would be to pretend we are professional footballers who got kicked out of the premier league due to excessive partying and we were know scouring American Universities to choose where we should take our scholarships for one year before we get drafted to the MLS. Our lie was apparently very convincing. We were with about 10 of the camp people and suddenly Tez and I were being treated a level above our mates – fine by us. We got taken down to play beer pong with the frat council:

Fraternity beer pong

Tez and I somehow won having never even played before :S I attribute that to the fact that American guys can’t drink and were all a little worse for wear very early! Free drinks were flowing my way, people were asking us about the Premier League, telling us we should choose their place to study and play etc, very funny. We got summoned up to the penthouse, were the frat leader and all his close friends lived, we were moving up in the world. On the way up we saw some naked guys getting whipped whilst fetchin senior frat guys beers – initiation year apparently :S

We got into the presidents suite – wow! This guy apparently lives here for free, fish tanks in the walls, mahogany desks, Hennessey bottles everywhere. We were caning the free whisky, telling the most outrageous lies and generally having the most awesome night. KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK. We looked around to see who was at the door….. 2 of our camp friends were there wondering where we had gone. Oh shit. Dont blow our cover. Frat pressie was asking who they were *us in the back ground, making faces, hand gestures, frantic signals to say shut up boys, you don’t know us*. To no avail – “hey guys, we are all singing camp songs down stairs – come down and join us and what time are we meeting the rest of the counsellors?”

ARRRRRRGH – cover well and truly blown. We got manhandled, bundled down the stairs, literally kicked out of the party in front of everyone and banned from ever returning.. public humiliation at its finest. Bloody hilarious though and no matter what they say to their “Frat bro’s” – they fell for it hook, line and sinker. If you are reading this guys – thanks for the hennessey, it was delicious.

A few days later we made our way back to New York, partied hard again, said goodbye to people as our new friends started to make their ways in different directions. I was due to leave the next day so the plan initially was to get an early night for my flight to vegas the next day, I had found some great cheap holiday deals, and was all set to go.Things didn’t quite transpire that way. We were on 2nd street wandering around, casually shopping when we saw a palm reader in a basement of a flat – we tried to open her door but it was locked. Although opposite her was a dingy bar, in a basement running some crazy promotions on booze. We were in within 10 seconds. Beers for $3, cocktails for $4 – it was 1pm but we had nothing to do that day. So dressed in shorts, t-shirts and bags we began an all day drinking session in this dodgy basement bar – so much fun. 1pm became 2pm became 5pm – you get the picture. I remember chanting camp songs around midnight on top the table, trying to teach equally drunk middle aged americans the lyrics.

7 AM the next morning – my alarm is ringing by my head – SHIT, im flying to Vegas at 11.45 to meet the boys. I stood up from my dorm bed, still wearing the clothes from last night and the room had decided to spin around my head at 500 mph for some reason. I shook it off and I realised I had managed to come home without my flip-flops, shit! Oh well, but then I saw I didnt have my ipod either – shit! That’s quite bad actually. What about my book, my phone, my wallet and my f*ckin passport?! I left everything in the bloody pub last night – absolute shocker! Our hostel was on 112th St or something, all my sh*t is on 2nd St and i’ve got a flight to vegas in just over 4 hours. Pete woke up beside me and he had got a wrist piercing last night – a metal bar through the flesh on his wrist, crazy night lol. Jumped on the subway, running through the scenarios of me not finding anything, what happend if you lose your passport?! I was sure I was about to find out. I got to 2nd St an hour later and naturally the bar was closed (it was only about 8 am afterall). I was banging on the door relentlessly, nothing. So I got my spiderman suit on and climbed over the security fence, prized open a window and clambered into the bar – i saw some crazy mother-hubbard type chick looking at me like I was breaking in! I quickly explained my situation before she called the police and she checked the office. Please God let it be there. Please God let it be there. Please God let it be there. Please God let it be there. NOTHING nooooooooooooo. She called her boss and disappeared again – she came back out and said “what colour was your bag” My heart was pumping now, did they have it?!?! Brown leather love! She grabbed it, checked my passport photo and handed it to me!! I gave her 20 bucks and a fat kiss on the cheek, ran outside, spidermanned back over the security fence, rushed back to 112th street with a huge smile on my face, grabbed my bag, headed to the airport, so tired, so hot, so hungover and so happy! I made my flight with 10 mins to spare and I was on my way to Vegas Baby…….

My Time At Camp Top of the Pines

Published by Johnny on January 09, 2010

So I had my bunk, I had my kids, I had my co-counsellor assigned and we were off. Camp life is very structured:

get up at 7 am

get the kids showered and dressed (harder than u think to coordinate 8 rowdy kids at 7am!)

brekky at 8 then a FULL day of activities altho where previously at the last camp that would entail horse-back riding and rock-climbing now I was spending time trying to fashion a fishing rod out of some string and a broken branch, or convincing the kids that it’s normal to play baseball at camp with an iron bar and a tennis ball!

Lunch and dinner squeezed in along the way

8pm – try to get another counsellor to cover your evening shift so you can hitch a ride into the ‘town’ (by town i mean population 50, of which they all share the same surname and most have missing/extra fingers and toes) so you can get a bit loose at the local crack bar and smash too many beers – so much fun!

Evening booze at the local crack bar

7am next morning, wake up feeling a little dusty and start again! *queue accumulative fatigue and confusion at how you stole an alcohol sign and brought it back to your cabin :S*

Coors Light Goin For A New Market Share

You meet life longs friends when you work at camp – I cant stress that enough. Fair enough, 10 weeks is 10 weeks so its understandable to think that you can’t get that close but you are with these ppl from 7 am to 2 am EVERY day in a really stressful situation so (sorry for my americanism here) you really form a tight bond. Every year people have reunions all over the world and recently I met up with some of the peeps in Sydney, Australia!

So during camp, we organise loads of campwide activities like colour war, olympics and whatnot. The camp gets divided into 3 or 4 big groups and we compete over a couple of days – the kids absolutely love it! For the Olympics that year the team took a slightly different spin and became the greatest country in the world:

Our Hand Painted flag!!

Tyrel Turning His Back On USA

A.J and Shakim

Needless to say Northern Ireland were victorious Camp went on, the food was good, friendships were formed, the kids fought and made up countless times and we all were having the time of our lives. I’ve probably never been more tired in my life though but everytime one of the kids comes to you and says “I dont wanna leave camp johnny” or ” promise you’ll come back next year johnny” you never wanna leave! Here are a few of the pics which sum up the camp experience:

Kt Took A Liking To My Sunglasses!

Jehsiah and Me at Carnival

The Kids Not Listening to My Smile For the Camera Plea

It’s hard to tell you how quick those 8 or 9 weeks go! To think I didn’t even wanna stay when I first came here. I learned a lot, not least to not judge a book by its cover and I met people I would never have had the opportunity to meet otherwise and even got offered a full time job in New York City to deal with underprivileged kids for the year – these are the sort of opportunities that getting out and about can bring you! I wanna really stress this – if you fancy doing camp, get on campamerica.co.uk, and get the application – you won’t regret it!!.

There were ups and down and a million stories that I shouldn’t repeat on here (like one of the 21 year old counsellors getting the 42 year old nurse pregnant!!)

One word of warning to any wannabe counsellors out there – the kids have the summer of their lives, as will you. Leaving camp is soooo difficult and there won’t be a dry eye in the camp when time for leaving finally comes. There is, however, a huge consolation when you do leave. You and your new found friends get paid (not loads but in and around $1000), you have 2 months left on your visa, you have a flexi flight home so you can stay until you run out of cash and America is full of cool places to go! That will be my next installment – Vegas Baby!!

Camp Top of the Pines AKA Camp Ghetto

Published by Johnny on January 04, 2010

Ok so I arrived on public bus and got picked up from the bus station by an older lady, very American and very Jewish who turned out to be the camp director, Sandra. She was in your face to say the least, although little did i know I would end up loving her and she would offer me a full time job in NYC however, in the beginning this wasn’t the case!

She drove me for an hour or so to the camp, during that hour the reality of what I was letting myself in for really hit home! I was worried that because I had been fired from my last camp that perhaps they wouldn’t be so keen to have me working there – this turned out to be quite a joke when, midway through the camp, one of the other American counsellors ( a 6″3 black dude) got picked up by the police because working at camp was breaking his probation regulations haha!!

During that journey I was breaking out in a cold sweat! Sandy kept stressin to me that this camp was very different to other camps I have been at and that these kids are sent here to escape the gang warfare in inner city New York. The only times these kids get out of Harlem is for camp in the summer. She was telling me that various kids has brother, uncles and fathers in jail or dead and that there will literally not be one white kid the entire summer – coming from a local town in Ireland that was a shock to the system, dont get me wrong I’m an open minded dude but suddenly being faced with trying to gain the respect of 400 kids from Harlem so they will listen to me when I tell them to go to bed at 9pm was a daunting prospect!!

I arrived and got shown to my accommodation for the next 9 weeks

Bunk 9 - my luxury accommodation

Bit of a change from the air-conditioned dorms from my last camps :S Ok, so I dumped my bag and met the other counsellors at camp – I guess there were maybe 70 in total. About 10 white Europeans and 40 Black Americans – I dont mean Barack Obama black, i mean freestyling, do-rag wearing, 50 cent, white-vest wearing black… i was intimidated!! 2 of the kitchen staff were actually in the crips, blue bandanas in the back pocket and everything. By the end of my time there we were good mates and they turned out to be top, top dudes (still gun wielding gang members, but cool nonetheless!)

Me and the kitchen crips

I’m from a pretty bad area in Northern Ireland and we certainly have our own problems with the whole protestant/catholic things, fights every weekend, single religion schools, bars etc but this was a very different scenario altogether. I went back to my bunk, the kids were coming the next day “oh shit, how the hell am I gonna last over 2 months here?!”. I was so certain that I was going to leave that I didn’t even unpack my bag for the first 6 days. And then came the kids…

: Bunk 9 kids and me

: Bunk 9 Representing

: Shakim and Tamique

: Me and the kitchen crips

: Bunk 9 – my luxury accommodation

I was assigned a co-counsellor (J from Brooklyn – a beatboxing, body popping legend!) and 8 kids in the middle aged group. As I was apparently a camp veteran I was assigned the toughest group of kids haha! They were a little shocked to see some white dude telling them what to do and they were initially reluctant to listen to anyone – meeting all the other kids for the first time, showing off, having to take their do-rags off (camp rule – and they hated it!). At the end of the day though they are still 12 year old kids and being away from home for maybe the first time was tough for them, having none of their friends and trying to re-establish themselves is difficult, especially considering where they’re from. So that’s a bit of an intro into my time at Camp Top of the Pines (Vacamas) – I’ll go into it in more detail over the next week or so but i gotta go to bed – work tomorrow…

Summer Camps in America

Published by Johnny on January 02, 2010

I was struggling with where to begin my blog and I was very tempted to start on my move to Asia but after listening to my housemates advice then it’s true that it’s better to start at the start! So, my journey truly begins after graduating from Uni in June 2006 where I moved to America to work as a general counsellor at a kids camp – good good times!

About Summer Camps: I’ll just spend a second or two explaining what a summer camp is and the opportunities they provide for people like us! Basically, every summer hundreds of thousands of American kids get kicked out of their family homes and sent to the middle of nowhere, normally near some forest and a lake, and get look after by a group of international ‘counsellors’ (used in the loosest sense possible considering the distinct lack of experience working as a counsellor that most of the employees do but heh – you pay peanuts, u get monkeys!).

: Colour War at Camp

: Olympics at Round Lake camp

In a nutshell, working at a summer camp in America is not something you do for the money – you do it for the experience, and I promise you – it will be one of the best summers of your life!!

You will be surrounded with cool, like-minded people, generally aged between 19-26 from across Europe, North America and Australia
Most ‘counsellors’ have no experience with kids so dont worry!(despite what the camp brochures tell the parents!)
Camps run for around 8 weeks
Pay depends on if you have worked with camps before: 1st timers get around $800 and returners get around $1200 – for 8 weeks this is nothing BUT you do get a J1 visa which allows you to work for 8 weeks and then TRAVEL around America with your new found friends for a couple of months. It’s normal for you to make life long friends and travel around America in groups of 4-10 people… very very cool!
In terms of getting a job, a visa, travel/flights arranged etc it is MUCH EASIER to go through an agency such as Camp America (www.campamerica.co.uk). I would definitely recommend a first timer to go through them. They charge around 350 GBP and you get your flights, accommodation, visas etc all sorted out for you – pain free! True they make a lot of money from us but they are easy to deal with, very patient and understand and make it very easy for us
All-in-all you pretty much break even with cost vrs pay but I guarantee you will have some of the best times of your life, meet people from around the world and you will probably end up going back the next year!
Keep it on the down low (!!) but camp is famous for the parties, hook-ups, booze, late nights cheating curfew, tips from parents and all round good times + a lot of American cheese!

A couple of summers back I worked as a general counsellor at Round Lake Camp (http://roundlakecamp.org/) which is a special needs camp in Pennsylvania. I had a really great time and it taught me to grow up a lot, dealing with kids with Aspergers, Autism, Social Communication disorders, ADHD – certainly makes you realise what you have and how lucky you are! Not to mention that I still visit my coworkers years on and I know I’ll always have a bed to stay on in various cities around the world.

My (Second) Time at Summer Camp: Now you get an idea about the general ideas behind camp I’m going to get all nostalgic and talk about my last summer in America. Just to preface my stories so you dont think i’m an moron!! – I’m a pretty impulsive dude, I can be a lil impatient, I should think about consequences more often, I get myself into crazy situations which you almost wont believe but I promise you, they are always very much true (much to my dismay) but that’s life and that’s why it’s fun eh!

I had already completed my rookie Camp America experience a couple of years previously so now I knew a bit more about what was going on i thought I could wangle a better pay packet if I applied through Camp America again but with the story that I had already been offered a job by a camp (which was a lie!). In the mean time, I was contacting all the richest camps across America telling them that I had been accepted by Camp America and would like to work at their camp, I have loads of experience, I’m awesome blah blah blah. Soon after this, I got offered a general counsellor position at arguably the wealthiest (jewish) camp in the country. The parents were paying $10000 for each kid to attend – i mean jetskis, banana boats, rock climbing, everything.. awesome! should have been a great summer lol! HOWEVER, I went to camp, met a cracking group of people, met a hot aussie chick, things were going swimmingly then….. I GOT SACKED!!! bastards!! I let a kid go to the bathroom on his own, i was all of about 30 feet away but they said I should have gone into the bunk with him – it soon transpired that the camp was overstaffed and they were waiting to get rid of people and I was unfortunate enough to commit the first minor transgression!

Heartbroken and angry i was shipped to the bus station in the middle of Pennsylvania at 11pm and told thanks for your effort, c ya later! WOW, i was screwed lol. No phone, no job, a JI visa which expires if im unemployed for 7 days and no ticket back home :S I slept in the station with my backpack and got the 1st bus to New York City Central Station. Found the cheapest hostel I could find and booked in, called home to explain my not-so-awesome situation and got in contact with CAMP AMERICA. They were easy to deal with and told me that other people get fired for genuine misdemeanors so I should be grand, I gotta sit tight and wait for someone to get fired elsewhere and they’ll try to get me a job in their camp! All with the knowledge that sitting tight is all well and good but when day 7 comes, my visa expires and I become an illegal immigrant in America haha! not good!

So I sat tight, and sat tight, and sat tight and on day 5 of wondering around NYC on my own, wondering what’s going to happen to me, Camp America called me to tell me they had found a vacancy for me. Working in up state New York – sounds good! They went on to stress that they could see from their records that I had come from a very wealthy camp and that this camp was not quite as wealthy “no probs love, I’m just happy im not gettin deported – just give me the directions and I’ll be on my way”. So I did just that… well she was right, the next camp wasn’t ‘quite as wealthy’. That was a euphemism apparently, and I had been posted in a camp for disadvantaged kids from Brooklyn, Harlem and Queen’s, most of whose parents had been shot, stabbed, put in prison – soooo this should be interesting……

The premise behind the blog

Published by Johnny on January 01, 2010

Having never kept a diary before in my life – under my mother and grand mother’s insistence, I kept a diary of my travels since I left the UK (effectively in 2006 after graduating from Uni).

I have always wanted to see the world and since being talked out of a ‘gap year’ at 18 I left Ireland, moved to England to study International Economics at Loughborough University. Anyway, I graduated in 2006 and throughout my uni holidays and immediately after finishing my degree I worked a few summers as a counsellor on kids camps in America – Jewish camps, special needs camps, disadvantaged kids camps – im sure u get the picture, and anyone who has ever seen the show ‘bug juice’ will have a pretty good idea what the job entails! Namely, lots of crazy yank kids, not much sleep and too much booze!

So after that I moved to Thailand, studied my CELTA diploma (i’ll go into that further in future blogs but basically it’s a Cambridge Uni qualification to teach English abroad as a foreign language-i figure loads of ppl may be considering that as a means to travel so I’ll blog in depth about the practicalities and lifestyle associated with it). I literally bought a one-way ticket to Chiang Mai, Thailand and that was me – I have been on the road ever since, and my initial grand plans of teaching English for a year and returning to a career in finance in London have long since gone!! I think my life is goin in a very different (and a lot more fulfilling) direction now!

So I taught in Thailand, then I had a teaching stint in Korea and then I travelled, and travelled and travelled for well over a year – for around $5000 total (Australian Dollars, where I am now) which was very cheap and very very awesome!! I will go into explicit detail how I spent so little in around 60 weeks and 20 odd countries across Asia, but the lack of cash created so many amazing experiences that now – if i ever do have enough money – I’ll travel the same, broke, destitute way I did the first time!!!

The blog is going to recollect my time as an English teacher abroad (both in Thailand and Korea), my travels and tips on how I manage to travel on around $90 (AUD) for food, accommodation and travel over a long, long time lol!

I now have a one way ticket to Zambia booked for May so I’m planning my Africa trip at the moment so I’m tryin to get my blog up to speed over the next couple of months with my 3 years of working and traveling abroad and then I’ll continue with my tales of my time in Africa – hopefully with no mention of machetes or AIDS :S

Also, a bit of a hash job I know but I dont have a working copy of photoshop anymore so here is my (messy!) route around asia for a couple of years