Ups and Downs, Buses and Trains.

We finished week two in Italy and this one felt a little more eventful than the last. Unfortunately, the center is still waiting on some of my paperwork to go through so I haven’t received my clearance from the army to be with the kids. That being said, I was unable to participate in the first week of camp. My fellow counselors all told me how great the week was but I can’t give any personal statements on how the kids are or how the activities went.

Since I’m not permitted to be with the kids yet, I’ve gotten a lot of behind the scenes work done! One of the biggest things we do as a day camp program is created different themes for each week to plan activities and songs around. And with that theme comes posters. Typically, we would spend time after work painting posters for the upcoming week but since I’ve had nine, eight hour days where I haven’t been with the kids, I have gotten 30 of the 80 posters we will have to complete this summer finished! As much as I wish I was able to be with the kids, I am so proud of the amount of work I’ve gotten done on these posters (and the less work we’ll have to do through the rest of the summer).

Thursday night I received and email saying all my paperwork was through and that all I was waiting on was confirmation and a memo from the army to CYS saying I was cleared. We were hoping it was going to go through on Friday but I’m optimistic about getting cleared for the new week!

After being trapped in a room all week working on posters, I’ve been itching to get back into working out and being active. I went for a run on Monday and then dragged my roommates with me for another run on Thursday. It gets pretty hot in Italy, and the sun is up most of the day, so running after work is a little brutal. My roommates and I decided to keep up our healthy living and started four different 30-day workout challenges and a couch-to-5k plan. To avoid the heat, we are trying to run Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, at 5:30am. We’ve done one day already so we’ll have to see how this week goes but we have been keeping up with our 30-day workouts, four days in and doing great!

We finally got our commissary privileges on Thursday, but since we have our weekly staff meetings that night (and since my roommates and I have already been to the grocery store twice), we decided to wait until after work on Friday to go. With intentions of only grabbing a few necessities, my roommates and I biked over to the commissary with three reusable bags. Despite good intentions and a grocery list, we stuffed our cart full of food for lunches and dinners throughout the week. Since we only had a few bags with us, the baggers shoved as much as they could into each one and they were definitely not easy to carry. Now we had to get these groceries home, and if you remembered correctly, we rode our bikes to the commissary. It was quite the adventure trying to get bags that weighed almost as much as we did back home on our bikes, and after a good 10 minutes of struggling, a very kind woman offered to drive our groceries back for us. We have plenty of food for the week but we will definitely have to plan better the next time we go!

Saturday was quite the adventure but the best day I’ve had so far! We got an early start (leaving the hotel at about 6:15) and started our journey. We biked across base, hopped on the bus to the train station, and then grabbed a train into Mestre, Venice. We detoured to a small cafe to enjoy coffee and a croissant before getting on another bus into Jesolo, and then took one more bus to our final destination of Aqualandia. We definitely should’ve checked the weather before we left but we didn’t, and ended up caught in a little rain. But hey, everyone enjoys a good waterpark when it’s raining, right?

The rain actually made the day better because even though it sprinkled on and off, the lines were very low and we were able to ride the rides as many times as we wanted. We even got to go down a slide that was 42 meters tall (twice)! The park reminded me a lot of Disney, with small shows and everything, and it was a lot of fun to enjoy the water and each other’s company.

We stayed at the park for about seven hours (leaving right before the thunder rolled in), and ventured our way back to Vicenza. After three more buses and another train, we ended up back on base for the night.

We got to sleep in a little today and departed the hotel at around 9:15 to journey back to Jesolo. The bus was running late this morning so instead of catching the 10am train, we got to explore downtown Vicenza a little before hopping on the train at 11. We have only driven through downtown thus far so it was fun to walk around! The trip was a little shorter this time with only a bus to the station, a train into Mestre (with a stop at the same cafe of course), and another bus into Jesolo.

This time, instead of getting on a bus to Aqualandia, we walked through town to the beach. It was crowded and definitely hot but a great day to get to know new friends and enjoy some sunshine. Since we have to work tomorrow morning, we headed home earlier (following the same crazy path), and relaxed in our room after a busy two days

I’m hoping that my paperwork goes through this week and I’m able to finally enjoy some time with the kiddos but until then I’ll be enjoying my time in Italy and working hard on posters.

Ps, I’ll let you all know how the workouts are coming along, 5:30 tomorrow is going to come too soon!