ISCM 2009 - Unforgettable!

Hello friends!!!
It is the first day of September, and camp is officially over! I cant believe 10 weeks at Summer Camp Montana have gone by. That means that we have been out in Europe for 2.5 months. It has been incredible thus far, but we are ready to turn the page and start some new adventures. Camp was amazing; being in Switzerland, meeting new people, and making friendships that will last a lifetime. What's not to love. Of course, there were some annoying campers, the seemingly endless hours of work and lets not forget the SWINE FLU.... but it all evens out.

Looking out over the valley from camp!

Now that its all over, let me give you a short recap of our adventures...

First session, Ally was a counselor of 8 senior girl campers and I was a night guard. Allys highlights included her amazing campers, river rafting, overnight hike, excursions to Zermatt, sliding down a glacier on trash bags, 4th of July staff party, and so much more. I personally enjoyed sleeping all day and soaking up the sun, but staying up all night was not so much fun. I did get to enjoy some nail painting parties with some of the campers and I watched a lot of movies and really enjoyed skyping with my family every night!!! This session was fun getting the swing of everything and falling into the routine of camp. It was kind of lame that Ally and I were on completely opposite schedules, but it worked out.

The Alps :)

Second session, I was a counselor of 8 younger senior girls and Ally was a night guard. My highlights included river rafting (by far my favorite activity), my entertaining campers, senior dinner (a nice dinner with all the senior counselors), going to Aqua Parc, being a role model to younger girls, excursions to Lausanne and the Olympic Museum, hanging out with all the other senior counselors, Swiss Day, the amazing hike up to the over night hut, and our staff wine tasting party. Ally loved all the friendship bracelets the campers made her, catching up on sleep, taking baths and reading books, and watching lots of movies and actually getting to talk to people via Skype. Second session was a busy session, and again Ally's and my schedule were crossed, but we made the best of it and looked forward to the last session.

Sunset from our balcony :)

Third session was an interesting session to say the least. Ally and I were finally going to be counselors together! She started out having 7 senior girl campers, and I was the senior floater (basically I took over for counselors on the days that they had off). The first week was a normal week, but the campers were different. This session there were many more campers that did not speak english very well, so the language barriers were difficult. Soon enough, the swine flu hit camp montana. Senior campers started dropping like flies. Campers were getting sick, some were leaving because they were scared of the flu, others were leaving because of school, and the senior section was shrinking. Before camp was actually over, we had over 30 senior campers gone out of the 120 campers we started out with. Because of this, all the groups started to merge. At the end of the first week, Ally was down to 5 campers with 2 leaving in a few days. The 8 senior girl groups merged into 6 and Ally and Heidi (our roommate from San Diego) were left without groups. I was still the floater and Ally and Heidi started to work in the infirmary to help out with all the sicko kids. During the second week, I started getting sick - swine flu had hit the counselors. I was put in quarantine with 10 other sick campers and counselors (including Heidi) for 3 days. I was never tested for the swine flu, but I def had some kind of flu. We learned that the swine flu is really no different from a normal flu - fever, body aches, worn out, and a cough. When Heidi and I were fever free, we went back to work, but not for the senior section, for the infirmary. Basically we catered to the sick kids every needs - bringing them movies, meals, and medicine all day long. We were sad to not be working with the campers anymore, but we were making a little extra money and we had fun getting to know more campers that we wouldn’t usually meet. Before we knew it, it was departure day; what was left of the campers and some of the staff members made their way home. After camp cleared out, Ally and I moved out of our apartment and into the junior villa with the other counselors staying to work for the Omega European golf tournament which is held here in Crans-Montana (the town that the camp is in).

Below camp at the Lake!

So that was the past 10 weeks, filled with camper drama, staff parties, excursions, and endless bonding with all our new friends!! The rest of this week will be filled with working as servers at golf, making a little extra money to be used on the rest of our travels. Last night Ally and I booked our flight from Milan to Mykonos Greece - our first leg of our travels :) The rest of our journeys will file in along the way.
Now that we will be traveling soon and going to different places, we will try to post more adventure stories so stay tuned :)

Ally and I on a hike around camp!!

Good luck with school to all of you who are starting again...
We love you and miss you all!
Lots of Love and Hugs,
Amanda and Ally