Red Sox

Good evening ya’ll

Its Thursday night here and I have so much to write!
Ha I have written Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and now its Thursday and I’m finally trying to finish writing this for the week.

Firstly THANKYOU so much to my FOUB and FAM the Sussex Crew and Gabbi & Charlotte for my surprise package it was so nice to receive mail from home and exciting to see what it was ….. Tim Tams yess they will be so good chilled in the fridge, only problem is there is in no way, shape or form anything remotely like a good cuppa or a nice coffee that we could use to bite the ends of the Tim Tam’s and dunk it in! But none the less we will still enjoy them.

So back to Halloween night…. Getting ready was lots of fun putting on our face paint and then it was time to scary the little terrors!! Hollie and I (the witch and her black cat ) were the tour guides, telling them stories and jumping out of the bushes and grabbing them and dragging them back into the woods haha they all said they weren’t scared but they where white as ghosts in some parts of the tour, a couple of them didn’t even go into the cabins that we had set up. The only thing was that it was extremely hot so running around trying to be spooky was so sweaty, Hollie the witch had painted her face green and I had made her a sticky felt nose and I lovely big brown mole but half way through the tour they had slipped off with sweat.

At the end of the tour we had a big camp fire and toasted s’mores and all the kids a really good time. Suzanne the camp director was extremely impressed saying how much of a good job we had done and ‘Sister Lydia’ one of the nuns said to Suzanne that she should buy as all a ‘Colada’ ‘Yes were in for a free drink here girls!’

Back to the doll house and thank god it is my last night in here, its so hot that for the entire week the minimum temp was 27.5 degrees and that was in the middle of the night when I would wake up and check the time (my clock has a little temperature gauge)

Friday morning whoo hoo only 12 more hours till we get our freedom!! The day couldn’t have gone any slower, I mean it dragged like there was no tomorrow, but that was because we were so excited and eager to get away especially coz I had spent a week in the dorm which was quite enough for me thankyou very much. So during rest hour I moved all my stuff from the dolls house back to the counsellor cabin and set up bed on the lounge again.

So we asked Suzanne if we could leave camp early as the last train from Kingston is at 7.30pm and we normally don’t finish till 8pm. She said yes which was really nice so we got dolled up and off we went got dropped at the train station and while waiting we decided that seeing as though there were 6 of us we should just pay for a taxi to take us directly to the hostels (2 of the girls tried booking at the YMCA but had no luck it was booked out, so they booked another one not far from the Y) So we phoned our friend – Borat. “First stop the liquor store for some roadies, then onto Boston please”

Right on the road to Boston whoo hoo! Ash the radio was playing Milli Vanilli “Don’t forget my number” Turned it up an sang it loud and proud ha-ha thinking of you. So just as we got into Boston it started to pour rain, great just what we need on our night out when we were planning on walking to the clubs. So Borat has out his little GPS trying to find 316 Huntington Ave, I think he was a little nervous seeing as though it was raining, he didn’t know where he was going and I think the fact that we had our drinks open in the car (which is apparently illegal in the states). So we pull up out the front of the YMCA, there is one entrance with no number but has a bunch of middle aged men loitering around mmmhhh “drive a little further Borat – please” ok next entrance looked promising so out I jumped in the pouring rain and up the stairs – “Bugger 312” Back to the taxi and called the hostel describing where we were and if we were close “yes sweetie your right out the front” God help us back to the last entrance with the loitering old men.

Checked in…didn’t look to bad very old skool looking but cool old skool. Up the lift to level 6 room 649. Stopped of to check the shared bathroom nice blue tiles with 2 showers with bright yellow shower curtains and no dividing wall just another shower curtain that was about 5cm to short on either side. Into the room and what a surprise it’s the smallest room ever with a door leading into another small room looks like a converted wardrobe of a prison cell. Fantastic we leave our camp cabin “Swamp View’ and pay money to stay at the YMC-Death. Quick dump our stuff and head out ASAP.

Borat and the other girls are out the front waiting, jumped in and headed to the Fenway Way park area which we heard was good for bars. Borat asked us if we were going to the ball game the next night but we told him we where unable to get tickets, he then pipes up that he has a customer called Timmy that he drives to and from the games who is from Plymouth and that he usually has spare tickets to sell, we got his number, gave him a ring and low and behold he had 6 tickets for 50 bucks each – yes were going to the baseball. The total taxi fare was $170 but good ol’ Borat charged us $120. We got out and we where in heaven ahhhhhhhh one whole street dedicated to clubs, bars & neon lights. There was a game of baseball still on so we walked down the street asked a few people who all recommended the “Lansdown” which was an Irish bar. It was really good not so busy at first but when the game ended it got packed it had dancing and live band. We all had a good time and much needed drinks! Meet some guy from the ‘Rif’ (Penrith) and a guy from Bondi, lots of Aussies about.

Club closed at 2 so we hung around out thw front for a while then Hol, Kel, Sar and I plus 2 random blokes started walking back (mind you we had no idea where we were going, but these 2 guys seemed too) So we followed them to this late night pizza shop and got a slice and then stood outside chatting for ages, watched 2 guys have a fight for 45 mins without throwing a punch, the most physical it got was the black guy knocking off the hat of the guy who looked like he was Borat’s cousin. Then got chatting to some homeless guy on a bike from NYC he was about 60 with no teeth – attractive! More walking and we finally guessed our way home, arrived at 5/5.30am got into our prison cell room and tried sleeping, we had no air con only an open window with no breeze. Imagine all that combined with the start of a seedy hang over, lying on a mattress that was covered entirely in plastic and sweating just because you are breathing. Ohhh we felt like death so we rolled out of bed 9ish, showered, checked out and went on the search for some tucker. Went across the street to a café and had the best panini (its like a sandwich but comes with 2 pieces of flat bread which is a bit thicker than leb bread) all washed down with the ‘black doctor’.

Boston has a great rail system called the T and its well sign posted, runs regularly, is air conditioned, cheap and is nice and clean (FOUB you would be impressed) So we hoped on and headed for central Boston. Meet up with Leigh and Nicky who stayed in the other hostel, which by the way was so much closer to the bars and was so much nicer and it had air con. They stayed up drinking till 5am in their dorm and when we meet them in the park Leigh was still happy as Larry! It was extremely hot and Leigh parked herself under a tree and had already started chatting to some young guy called Ash that was selling sunglasses at a little stall in the park. She decided it was too hot and she wasn’t feeling up to walking the freedom trail, so instead the rest of us grabbed a guide book and started walking along the famous red line that is painted all over the city and is known as the freedom trail. You could join a guided tour group but Kelly was our tour guide reading to us from the book about the different stops along the way. I’m not to sure why they call it the freedom trail she probably did say but ill get back to you about way its called that.

We got about ¼ to ½ of the way through and decided we had had enough, it was too hot and we needed another drink so off too look through the famous ‘Quincy market’ which is a really big area with shops and a huge food hall with all different types of cuisine. Into a little air conditioned pub for another round and some chips. Meanwhile we get a text from Timmy, who it turns out his real name is Jimmy, telling us that the demand for tickets are high and the price has gone up to $75 each. It was more than we were planning to pay but we really wanted to go so we said we’d get back to him.

Left the bar and headed back to find Leigh, who was still in the park. We got back and she had perked up quite a bit, she was busy selling glasses for the young guy Ash who owed the sun glasses cart. What a hoot, she was also bust selling Boston hats and t-shirts on another cart that was owed by Ash’s brother; she reckons she made them over $100 – good on her. She had also befriended Ralph a hobo who was friends with the 2 cart owners. Leigh was saying that a van pulled up near the park and Ralph being the gentleman that he was took Leigh over and got her a free sandwich lunch whilst some American woman touched her arm and sad “God Bless You” turns out she’d just scored lunch from the homeless shelter bus – Sweet, what an experience.

So all together we jumped back on the T and headed to “Riverside” (You can guess what Hollie and I where singing to one another each time they announced “This train stops at ‘Riverside’”. Got out at the station and we were hit up straight away by the scalpers trying to sell us tix for the game, they only seemed to have 2 or 3 seats together not six but we asked and they all jumped on their mobiles calling their ‘contacts’ checking for 6 tickets together. In the meantime Nicky was busy on the phone to Timmy AKA Jimmy telling that we might not need his tickets any more as we had just been offered 6 at a lower price. He came back with an offer of $65 – Deal, so like some kind of secret drug deal we arranged a meeting place for the drop off to happen “My usual spot, out the front on Uno’s” which is a restaurant right near the stadium. I was expecting some shady looking 30 year old with shades and a trench coat type jacket, very cliché I know but this is America after all. Timmy AKA Jimmy was actually a really nice, tall, 50 something man with a beer belly. Gave us our printed tickets off the internet, paid our money and off we went to celebrate with another drink and dinner at Uno’s.

After dinner we headed for the game but not before stopping and picking up some Red Sox T-shirts, touristy-yes but everyone wears them, its like the dress code to get in. We all picked different numbers not knowing who each of them were. Got into the game “phew the tickets did work” I was a little worried to be honest but once we were in it was all good. Got to our seats, we were sitting in the grandstand on right field, not bad seats had a pretty good view however a couple of the girls who were on the end had to lean to see the game due to a big pillar that was in the way! To be honest the game was actually pretty boring, they were playing the Texas Rangers and they would keep getting the other team out before any one could score a run it was 1 all by the end of the 9th inning and that’s when it started to get a bit more exciting as everyone was cheering the Sox on and they were pumping the music. We were belting out “sweet Caroline” and clapping “Lets go Red Sox, Lets go”!! Each time the player with the number on the back of our shirts got up to bat we would all cheer, I had number 34 David Ortiz – Some big black guy with a beard who makes millions. Eventually the game went into golden point and Boston Won!!!! Whoo Hoo all worth it in the end.

Back to the street right out side the stadium where we had been the previous night. Lining up in the girls que we where right behind some girls that where dressed for a hens party, they were taking photos at the door and we were right behind them and it must have looked like we were part of their group as the bouncer ushered us in and told the girl on the front desk that we were on the guest list and therefore didn’t have to pay the cover charge. How dumb was he, they were all dressed so nicely and in comes us scruffs with jeans and baseball T-shirts!! Had a few more drinks there and a little dancing but by this stage we were all so knackered we decided to call trusty Borat for a lift home, in he comes at 2am and picks us up for for $100 bucks and drives us back the hour to camp.

Sunday morning we still have to get up and go to breakfast at 9 and because most of the kids go home for the weekend we only have the international campers – a grand total of 4 kids 2 Canadians and 2 Mexicans, this week there were no new kids coming to stay in the dorms so we didn’t even have meet and greet for new campers so after breakfast we basically could do whatever we wanted. Down to the swap we went, it was so hot 90 degrees plus so I took the plunge, quite literally, and went in the swamp, didn’t go under but it was so nice and much appreciated then went back to our swamp view cabin had a rest and then did nothing until 2pm when we had a snack and then at 5.30pm we had dinner, what relaxing day.

Sunday was also Ola’s birthday and seeing as though she had to work over the weekend she wasn’t able to come to Boston so we went into Plymouth and had drinks at the ‘Cabby shack’, it was good but no music, then we discovered ‘Eastern bay Grille’ which is a nice posh type restaurant with a big out door area with tables and chairs, a classy looking bar and a view looking over the harbour (It reminded me of something out of ‘White Chicks’ we they go to the Hamptons) They had great music pumping so we all got stuck into it dancing on the dance floor having a great time. At one stage there was no one dancing and we were tearing it up and then all of a sudden all these people started joining in and coming to dance in the circle we had made, taking it in turns to jump in the middle and show of their dance moves It was such a good time, quite funny though because we were the youngest people there by about 30 or 40years but they all had a good time. It was a bit like cougar town all the younger guys, and when I say younger I mean 35plus had snagged all the older 50plus women and all the old men were coming and dancing with us!

Monday was an ordinary day except for the fact that it rained from lunch till dark so the kids were quite feed up with being inside for the afternoon.

Tuesday was crazy hair day after lunch so most of the kids did their hair all funny and we had a fashion hair parade and gave out prizes, us counsellors also did our hair crazy – I teased the crap out of mine made 3 spikes on my head put green and gold clothes pegs in it, hung 2 kangaroos from either side of my head and had little Australian flags in my hair. We had a fashion parade and I came 2nd!! Hollie beat me with her creation of 2 pigtails sticking straight up in the air with pom pom things coming out each end – Well deserved; Verena came 3rd with a Lady Gaga inspired do, she had a loo roll stuck in her hair along with a bunch of leaves sticking out and lots of teasing.

Wednesday was meant to be trip day but the weather was not too good for ‘Water Country’ so it was moved to Thursday. Kelly and Sarah are in the dorms this week and because their day off is Wednesday night and Thursday Verena and I had to cover so we moved into the dorms last night and this morning along with Nicky & Leigh we headed off to ‘Water Country’. The other girls decided that they would tag along and spend their day off there too. We kept hearing about how good it was from the kids and that it was the biggest water park in New England region, which consists of 6 states. It took us 3 hours to get their and was in a different state, New England, lets just say when we arrived our hopes of something similar to ‘Wet & Wild’ were severely dashed – big time. It was about ¼ of the size of ‘Wet & wild’ and about ¼ as good. Never the less we split into groups and took the kids around went on a few slides and had a dip in the pool.

Headed to the wave pool (reminiscing of Darwin, girls) when just as I bent down one of the little girls who was crouching jumped straight up and hit me in the face – square smack bang in the middle of my nose. $#%* @#!$ &*#^ Bloody hell it stung like crazy and I couldn’t see for a second and then came the blood, right as the waves start crashing around me I’m trying to get back to the shore and asked the life guard for a tissue, she then radios for an EMT (emergency medical team) who comes running over and asks if I need to go to first aid! All this for a bleeding nose, and she didn’t have a tissue with her so I just pinch it and head to the toilet to wash the blood of my face – attractive! Blood all gone and sight restored it was time to leave.

Headed back the 3 hours stopped at Macca’s for dinner which took forever for the kids to decide what they wanted and then order and eat. Got home at 9.30pm, I’m still in the dorm tonight, its now 11pm its 27.5 degrees, I’m dosed up on pain pills have a cracker of a head ache and I’m about to go to bed hoping that I don’t get 2 black eyes when I wake up in the morning!

I have tomorrow night and Saturday off, so tomorrow we are planning on heading into Plymouth and going to a bar then on Saturday we were going to catch a ferry across to ‘Providence Town’ and ride bikes around but its thunderstorm warnings for that area so we might just head back into Boston for the day.

I still haven’t got the darn fone card yet as the shop where I previously bought one in Minneapolis tells me that they don’t sell international phone cards, so I will have to head to wall mart and see if I can get one.

Cheerio and good night xox.