Camp 1 - Arrival Day to Day 3

Having packed over the week leading up to camp, with a exponential relationship between amount packed/stress vs. time, the flight itself was a relatively comfortable affair. It took about 8 hours from London Heathrow to JFK, New York, on what I think was a 747 with Delta: there's something to be said about free inflight movies... I watched Another Year and would have watched Biutiful if a) the screen had been bigger and b) I had been conscious.

I didn't actually manage to sleep on the flight, besides the odd lost few minutes (I think I missed a chunk of Another Year hence it's still on my watch list... on the way back maybe?). Joanna, the girl from Camp Leaders (different camp) who sat next to me on the flight managed it - so much for long legs. When I set out I decided to try the no-food-til-breakfast method, not eating a thing until breakfast the next day to get over the jet-lag... two days later I can't say it's worked because everyone seems to have the same crazy amount of energy.

Checking in at JFK was slow. Getting through passport control was delayed because I didn't get one of the forms on the plane and had to step out of the line to finish it - there's a blue customs form and then another one to do with contact details.

Flying into New York itself was amazing. Since JFK lies to the east of NY and we approached over Smithtown I didn't get any shots of the city from above, but the beach-fringed lines of the New Haven/Bridgeport coast were a welcome sight.

I met three people from my camp after getting off the plane in NY. We came into the wrong terminal and had to the use the airtrain to get to where the coach to camp was going to meet us. The coach back went via NY: the streets are massive and the shear number of tall buildings was dwarfing. Looking down a single street gave a view never seen in a London vista... a clear sky from the road, the streets are so straight.

The rest of the ride back was unremarkable, and all I wanted to do once I got to camp was get to bed. A fairly short welcome followed, and after being assigned a cabin (wooden but not logged unfortunately) I made my bed and went thereto. Before joining the dream fairies, I met my RA (an abbreviation I haven't worked out yet) - the guy who looks after my cabin and a couple of others - and my only cabin-mate. Two days since then, my other cabin mate and the cabin attendent have yet to arrive so it's been a little slow getting the place decorated for the kids.

Day 2 was plain and simple: meetings, briefings, a bit of swimming... and unpacking all the kids stuff. Folding umpteen shirts, trousers, underwear etc. and enough towels to dry off a rhinoceros per kid the "Camp Lee Mar way" took until the evening and into Day 3. We would have got it done had we not been asked to watch an hour-long DVD slide-show of the previous year... all very well to get to know the kids who'll be coming on Saturday (Day 7) but it felt rather like an indecent amount of facebook stalking.

After the DVD, I took the opportunity to take my camera out and try and take some night-shots. Fireflies buzz in the air at night, flashing and darting like the stars one gets when concussed... my camera wouldn't have nearly the sensitivity to pick them up :(

Instead of some dazzling long-exposure photography, I wandered away from the buildings and photographed a couple to see how well I could get them. Before I could move to the sky, I heard rusting in the border of trees between the camp and road; from the sound of the F-off that followed my tentative "Hello?" and the clinking of bottles, I'd say it was probably no more than a drunk. Anyway, I alerted the camp Director and his response was to call the camp security guard... atempting to remember his words: "A member of staff says there's someone not from camp in the trees near the tennis courts... take a look, but don't shoot anybody."

Since my next attempt at a photo nearly led to my camera being run over (I put it on the tarmac to keep it still for the shot) I opted for bed.

Today, breakfast was followed by further unpacking. More interesting was the propect of decorating: we went for a space theme (other cabins going for Hollywood, Shooting Stars, Animals, Nautical and others). Firstly, my cabin-mate removed the remnants of a glow-in-the-dark spider's web on the ceiling, and I set to work on constellations, a galaxy and some planets. As of this moment, I have a rudimentary Earth, Ursa Major (actually only The Plough part but I'm three thousand miles from the geeks as Greenwich) and Orion - actually, labelled as Orio because I misplaced a foam 'N' - ready.

Dinner is soon, more decorating is to come and I'm looking forward to some me-time this evening where I can console myself about missing the last episode of Game of Thrones by reading it instead.