We finished week one of camp and finally had some time to explore Italy!

Since we still don’t have access to the commissary, we went to the Lidl (local grocery store) and picked up as many groceries as we could fit into our two backpacks. Everything was super cheap and a very nice change from America! After we brought our groceries back to our room we took a taxi over to the local mall and did a little shopping before it closed. Inside the mall is a McDonald’s and it’s definitely a lot different from back home! It was a nice sit down restaurant with a much larger menu than a typical McDonald’s (except the food was more expensive than in the states).

We started our morning early on Saturday and headed over to Venice. We took a bus into downtown Vicenza to hop on a 45 minute train to Venice. If you were to picture what you imagined Italy to look like, Venice would be exactly it. The whole place was covered with rivers and pretty buildings with flowers in the balcony windowsills.

Most of the day was just us wandering through the streets of Venice and popping in and out of little store fronts. After hopping on a train back to Vicenza, we accidentally stumbled upon Vicenza’s pride event! Most of everyone was out marching for the parade so we didn’t get to see too many people but it was still cool to experience their event.

We had a slightly later start to our day on Sunday where we headed out to Verona. Our first stop in Verona (following the sane bus to train route) was Juliet’s Balcony and the love wall. There is a statue of Juliet rumored to bring you good luck when you rub her boob, we all took pictures doing it! Similar to Venice, we spent most of the rest of the day popping in and out of stores, (including the Disney store!) and taking pictures of pretty views, and of each other. We got to visit the San Pierto Castle to take in the view overlooking the city and the Verona Arena.

Since we only had our backpacks and a short amount of time to get groceries on Friday, we stopped at the Lidl on the way home from Verona again last night. My roommate made us chicken with potatoes and zucchini and boy oh boy was it nice to have real food.

With camp starting today, and our first weekend of travel under our belts, I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer holds!

I’ve also included some lingo that might help you follow along my blog posts!

Commissary: Grocery store; Px: Army superstore (Nx if you’re with the Navy); Post: Base; CYS: Child Youth Services (the program that runs the child care center; SAC: School Age Care; MST: Middle School and Teen; PC: Project Coordinator

It’s only been four days but it feels like it’s been a full four weeks!

I arrived into Venice at around 9:30am (3:30 am for those keeping time in the Eastern time zone) and waited for about an hour for six other Camp A girls to get in. There are 15 of us girls in Vicenza, five that got in two weeks before us and the other 10 that arrived on Sunday.

My home for the next 11 weeks is a hotel room consisting of two beds, a pullout couch, a bathroom, and a small kitchenette that I share with two other girls. And yes, we will be rotating the pullout couch all summer. We have also agreed to split groceries and meals as well so the tradeoff for sleeping on a pullout couch isn’t so bad!

We spent most of Sunday trying to get to know each other (and not fall asleep in the middle of the day) but Monday we got right into the swing of things. After a few orientation meetings we got our base passes, bikes, and new phone plans. Tuesday was a little more exciting as we got to actually visit the center we’ll be working at and got to meet our fellow staff and kiddos. Today consisted of more orientation and observation and tomorrow will be another similar day. Even though camp doesn’t start until Monday, our first real day will be Friday since tomorrow is the last day of school for the kids. The center I’m at is absolutely gorgeous and I can’t wait to get to know everyone and put on a great program for the kids!

Aside from work we have just been trying to get to know each other better and get comfortable on base. The garrison is split into two bases, Ederle and Villaggio. Almost everything is on Ederle including the hotel, library, bowling alley, gym, commissary (grocery store), shopping center, and high school. Villaggio has the elementary and middle schools, the centers that we are working at, and some more military housing. The bases are a few miles apart but are only about a 10-15 minute bike ride. The ride is beautiful and definitely makes having to be at work at 8am a little easier!

We finally got off base last night (aside from traveling to and from work) in hopes of finding food. We haven’t gotten our commissary privileges yet so even though we have a kitchen, we have nothing to cook in it. The hotel offers breakfast every morning and thankfully there are some fast food places where we can get food on base but being able to eat a fulfilling pasta dish last night was a much needed change of pace. Unsurprisingly, I have also gotten gelato the last two nights (when in Italy, right?).

We’re not allowed to do over night trips this weekend but a group of us are planning to visit downtown Vicenza after work on Friday and then make day trips to Venice and Verona this weekend. I am beyond excited to go explore and can’t wait to share my travels!

I know our camp outfits are super cute but our camp names are even cuter! We won’t be going by our real names this summer but by our dessert names, try to guess who’s who! Ms. Funfetti, Ms. Peppermint Pattie, Ms. Creme Brûlée, Ms. Carrot Cake, Ms. Sugar Cookie, and Ms. Cinnabun!

Happy travel day!

I’m writing to you from a sports bar/crab shop in the Philadelphia airport and no, I’m not eating a cheesesteak (however not for the lack of trying from my parents). I am quite happily enjoying a burger and what might be the largest order of fries I’ve ever had in front of me. I have a four-hour layover here before I hop onto my eight and half hour flight to Venice so I figured I might as well grab some food while I wait.

Despite flying into Venice, I’ll be on an army base in Vicenza serving U.S. children as a summer camp counselor with Camp Adventure Youth Services. If you’re just as confused as I was about the program, let me explain. Camp Adventure is a program run out of the the University of Northern Iowa and has 13 participating universities (Toledo being one of them). We serve over 150 bases, including all branches of the military, in 27 countries. Our locations range from places like Pearl Harbor, Hawaii all the way over to Okinawa, Japan. Camp Adventure serves the youth of military families in an effort to “create magic moments that last a lifetime”.

P.S. for those of us not so great with geography, Vicenza is in the northeast corner of Italy between Verona and Venice, closest to Croatia and Austria.

And so how the hell did I end up writing this blog waiting to catch a flight to Italy?

It all started before it even really started. Back in 2017, when I toured The University of Toledo, I was introduced to the idea of Camp Adventure. Whether by coincidence or not, my tour guide was an education major who had participated in Camp Adventure during his time at Toledo. The idea of being a camp counselor halfway across the world immediately sparked my interest and while it was not the reason I chose to UT, it’s always been in the back of my mind. Fast forward to the spring of 2018 (almost two years later), and my academic advisor brings up Camp Adventure again. To graduate from the university you only need 120 credits, but to graduate from the College of Education, you need 128. Thankfully, Camp Adventure offers college credit for completing the summer. At this point my options were to try and squeeze in eight more credits of classes that I probably wasn’t that interested in taking or get to travel while spending my whole summer working with kids (something I am undoubtedly passionate about). I chose the later.

So when the fall rolled around again I submitted my application and moved onto the interviewing phase. After a sleepless night (literally, this was the day following our Relay For Life event), I had my interview and got accepted to the program. After endless pieces of paperwork, countless training sessions, a three month wait for my passport to arrive, (barely) becoming lifeguard certified, and a lot of unknown I made it to where I am today, writing to you in between bites of my burger.

While away for the summer I will spend most my time running games, songs, and camp activities with the opportunity to travel on the weekends. I’m not sure where my adventures will take me but I do know I couldn’t be more grateful for this opportunity and the people who have helped me get here.

More to come!