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The Jump of the Wolf, or how I got upgraded to "Adventure Counselor"


On Monday I received my first site assignment for American Village, the English-immersion camp system I will be counseling at this summer.

Drum roll please....

Miramont de Guyenne! (cue frantically Googling where that is)

...Southwest France! (NICE!)

...an hour from Bordeaux! (NICE!!)

...adventure camp! (WHAT?)

So yes, friends, I will be spending July at Le Saut du Loup (which Google tells me translates to "The Jump of the Wolf"), an American Village "Adventure Camp" for 11-15 year olds.

The website offers a few glimpses of camp life, including horse-riding, stargazing, and archery.

I was expecting to be placed at one of the "original" language camps, so this is a pleasant surprise. I looked back at my application to see what could have caused this assignment, and this might have been it: "Outside of work, and depending on the weather, I try to stay outdoors as much as possible."

Whatever the reason, it does not matter. I can now envision myself more clearly- somewhere in Gironde, shooting arrows with a bunch of teenagers. It's going to be awesome.

Les van den Broek  enfants et moi
I booked my train ticket from Paris to Bordeaux/Marmande for a day after I land. I am excited to spend some time with my former host family, the van den Broeks, in Levallois before heading to camp! It's been five years since I've seen them. I've also started practicing my French again.

In other news, my departure date is creeping closer, and I've made a lot of progress in trip planning/leaving the country.

In the last week, I've:

purchased a Eurail Select Pass to Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey. I hadn't planned to get a rail pass, but in order to get one it needs to be shipped to the U.S., so even though I'm not traveling to Eastern Europe until October I decided to buy one now. Plus, I got $75 off the cheapest pass, so the total was less than $100. Not complaining.

realized I needed, applied for, and received a Turkish e-visa. It's $20 if you do it online, $30 at the border.

contacted multiple farms in Italy for a place to stay in September, received a few nos, one yes, but nothing's confirmed. More about that in a later post!

bought my very own camp counselor fleece, along with a myriad of other travel-y items. (Thank you Sierra Trading Post for your deals on quick-dry underwear)

started wading through the nightmare that is setting travel notices on credit/debit cards and researching SIM cards...has anyone traveled extensively using a prepaid European SIM card? Any insight?

Here's to one more full week in Minneapolis!

Sophie


Comments

  1. KayleighJune 11, 2015 at 11:47 AM

    The camp sounds awesome! I want to go... I could pass for 15, right??

    ReplyDelete

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