Orientation week
Saturday, June 09, 2018
Orientation Week!
Friday 1st June
ITS FRENCH WOODS DAY! We woke up, packed up and made our way to the HI New York hostel in an Uber. The coach to French Woods picked us up at around 11am and we arrived in the Woods at around 1.30pm. I can honestly say that I have never experienced French woods as hot as this day. It was awful! On the plus side, Steph and I are still in the same bunk this year! There was a little mix up between which bunk we were in, but it was all sorted in the end and we’ve ended up in a great bunk with returners and some newbies.
It took me a while to brace myself to unpack in the heat. Whilst unpacking my bedding from last year, it became apparent that something had nested in there all winter. As a result I had to throw away all my bedding, luckily I took 2 blankets from the plane so I could layer those on top of the bedding I was already given.
After dinner we had our welcome meeting before going to the dining hall for supper and playing the good old human bingo. The night finished in true French woods style... dancing on the tables and singing to party in the USA and the Wobble! Thankfully, sleeping was 1 million times better than the first night last year which felt about -5 degrees.
Saturday 2nd June
Today was full of meeting after meeting, then working in our specialty areas in between breakfast, lunch and dinner. Once the daily meetings were over, we went to the canteen for ice cream and a dance to our Frenchwoods fav’s.
Sunday 3rd June
Today was like Groundhog Day. Meeting after meeting. We got to play classic Frenchwoods Brain Wars again! Basically you are split into 4 groups and have to answer questions surrounding musicals or random facts. After each round there is a singalong which is good fun! I actually came back to the bunk and had a decent nights sleep.
Monday 4th June
Another Groundhog day full of meetings. After meetings had finished for the day, we all gathered in the canteen for a rock concert Rock Shop had prepared and ate pizza and ice cream. After the concert, a group of us went for a nice moonlit chat which was nice. It was nice to actually genuinely get to know a couple more people and chat where the conversation isn’t forced. I went to bed around 1am and it was COLD!
Tuesday 5th June
It’s our day off! Finally we got to go to Walmart to buy warm bedding and essentials - I was especially excited after my traumatic experience of a woodland animal nesting in my bedding all winter.
We got to Binghamton at around 11.30 and Beth, Elisha, Lily and I headed to the shops to get some essentials we needed... such as Lily buying 7 pairs of shoes and Beth buying a cute pair of Adidas leggings and 2 hats haha. We then went to TGI Friday’s for lunch before heading to Walmart to purchase warm bedding. We spent hours in there, and ended up sitting in Starbucks until the buses arrived.
Once arriving back at camp, everything went down hill. It took 5 whole people to carry Elisha’s shopping PLUS Elisha herself. It was hilarious! My bag snapped and it was a long walk. I cherished my final early night and headed straight to bed after unpacking my things.
Wednesday 6th June
The final day of Orientation! And we were also told that 5 campers would be arriving today. We attended a few meetings after breakfast, but one of our campers arrived before lunch! All of our campers are returners which is amazing. 5 of them were here by dinner which was great, we got them unpacked and sent them to watch the Greatest Showman whilst the counselors were having a q&a session. We managed to get a lovely early night before the rest arrive tomorrow!
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