During the summer of 2001 my girlfriend and I (or me and my girlfriend) went to California for the summer to work at a camp on PCH (Pacific Coast Higheway) in Malibu, It was an interesting trip and started of, strangely in canada...

Daniel and his girlfriend Rachel in San Francisco, the greatest city in the world.

In the begining...

IT all started in the begining. Don't all stories have a begining? Well this is a story of adventure, a story full of love, action, adventure, and murder. Well maybe not murder but it sure does sound cool doesn't it? Well back to the story. I am not a U.S. citizen. I am a member of that great nation to the north. "North of what" you say. Well I'll tell you, norht of a small country called The United States of America and south of the North pole. Yes I mean Canada.

I know what you are thinking, "People live up there?" Well yes people do we also have technology, live in houses, and have a military. Not everyone says "EH?" nor do we all have dogsleds. We are Canadians!! Well enougth of that rant, sorry about that. When I get on a role I forget when to stop sometimnes. I now live in Jacksonville Florida due to a freak occurence with the moons of Jupiter and a cow named betty. No, actually my parents moved down to Florida to statr their own buisness. We are living on American VISA's (no not the credit card). The only person who on the VISA who can work without a special VISA is my dad, so he owns the buisnaess and my mom hel;pos.

Well I wanted to work on my own and earn some of my own money, so I applied to work at the previously mentioned summer capm in Malibu. The Camp is called Camp Hess Kramer. It is an overnight Summer camp. But since I was not a citizen of this great country I could not work legaly. So I had to get a student work VISA. Yet for some stupid reason The Government accepter the application and everything but we had to go up to the CANADA BORDER to get it. yes I said they made us drive up to the canada border from Florida to pick up a piece of paper saying I can work. Why they could not fax it I don't know, but we had to drive 19 hours just so we can pick up a damn pice of paper.

So me, my dad, and my girlfriend drove up to the border together and stoped at the INS and Custioms building at the Buffalo checkpoint. But in their eternal intelegance and their appeal to customer satisfaction they made me leave the parkinglot, go throught the border, make a u-turn and give the guard at the gate my passport. I then parked back in THE EXACT SAME SPOT and went to the same guy and I saw the guard give him my passport. He then recieved us. Now being an intelegant person yopurself (unless you work for the INS and customs) does that make any sense to you? Wella fter being stuck there for 2 hours arguing over wheteher our VISAS are legal even tought we have all of the paperwork and all they have to do is look us up on their computer (whick they never did) we got the piece of paper saying I can work. We then stayed a week in Toronto visiting my family and the places I grew up in.

The Arrival...

We then traveled home and a couple of days later caught the plane to California. We flew Continental airlines. We left from Orlando International to Houston for a layover and finally flew to LAX. We were picked up at LAX by two guys from the camp, Michael and Sam. They were head counselors and we were intorduced to 3 other members of the camp. We then had a 45 minute drive to the camp. You see. even tought malubu is small it is 5 miles wide, but 30 miles long. So we drove down PCH and saw a bunch of amazing sites and scenery. We entered the camp and went strait to the cabins to go to bed. We were so tired from the flight we went to bed. Also we had to get up really early and it was midnight.

Dan and Rachel on the plane after traveling for 10 hours

The orientation...

Well orientation was incredably boring. We sat throught very uninteresting lectures about not hitting kids or having sex with them. Something anyone in their right mind would not do. Well that lasted about a week. During it we got a tour of the camp and went throught all fo the activities the kids will go throught. As you can tell from where that camp is it was a nice camp. Let me tell you everything they had:

• Tennis courts
• Putting green
• Climbing wall
• Ropes course
• Theater
• open auditorium
• Open air Chapel (it is a jewish camp)
• Dining hall
• a soccer field
• private beach

The Private beach was the nicest. We actually shared it with a few beachside houses, but they were really nice. One really cool thing was that one of the houses we shared the beach with was David Duchovney!!! Yes you heared right (well read right) David Duchovney! The reasn we know is that last year we were not there but were told this) onne of the head counselors (and this is a very reputable source since he told us himself and he never tells lies) was in the water with a bunch of kids outside the house. Duchovney then hit him in the head while surfing accidentaly and took him inside the house to get him a bandai and some ice. So we all thought that that was cool. We never saw him, but we saw his car go in and out all of the time.

David Duchovney's house (the Grey one)

Well sadly the camp started. I had the youngest group for the first session and they staryed for two weeks and then a new batch came. They were all cute and good except for one or two. I first had 3rd graders, then 5th graders. There were ten kids in a cabin and two counselors to a kid. since I had one some previous camp experience the previous year and I was in college I was the senior counselor and my co-counselor was a senior graduating from high school so he was the junior counselor. I went to L.A. to pick up the kids and had to see the mothers and fathers say goodby to them. As usual the parents were sadder about the kids leaving than the kids themselves. But I promised top take good care of them and not to beat them up or loose them. They all turned out to be great kids. Some of them I became good friends with. This might be because mentally i am more on their level than my peers, well that is what my mom tells me (just kidding).

First session kids with me and my co-counselor and C.I.T. in the back

Our days would go as follows:

1. Wake up at 7:00 A.M.
2. Go to breakfast at 8:00 A.M
3. Go to activities for the morning
4. Go to luch at 12:00
5. Do afternoon activities
6. shower and change for dinner and services
7. Dinner and Services
8. Night activity and bed
9. Counselors can hang out for a couple of hours with
   one counselor on watch every 4 nights,
   the rest hang out then go to bed

Camp begins...

The previous year I was a counselor at another camp in middle-of-nowhere georgia, so this camp was a good change. I came into the camp with high expectations for the camp and low expectations for the kids. I expected first class foods. An impressive surroundings with lots of stuff to do around. Amazing facilities, and an incredably staff. The kids I epexted to be snobby and stuck up to us poor middle class folks. Well I was wrong on both counts. The camp was in good condition and the bathrooms were really nice, but the staff sucked and the head counselors and administration were assholes. The kids were awesome tought and they ruled. Not one of my kids was snobby and I did not hate a single one of them for being rude, snobby, ect. Just one or two kids I did not like for being really annoying.

The reason the Administration sucked was because they really only did stuff to help and were nice to and listened to the old time returning staff, while they prety much left us newcomers out to dry. When we needed something or help they always gave the returning staff first dibs and more help. Also they could get away with murder while we could not do anything without getting in trouble.

The session went really well and along wity being a counselor I was a lifeguard for the pool during certain times of the day. It was a fun easy job. I made lots of friends with some counselors. WE would go to lunch on our breaks together and on our day off we would go out together with me and my grilfriend. For most of our breaks we either went to L.A. or places around camp.

With our friend Josh on the first day off we(me, my girlfriend, and josh) went to Santa Monica Peir and hung our there all day and then went to lunch. He is a really cool guy and I learned alot from him. He is studying to be a Rabii and was very outspoken about what he believes, It was fun to argue with him over political topics.

My friend Daniel (good name don't you think) took us to his place for session break between the two sessions. We had three days and during that time we went to six flags and got a tour of the L.A. and valley area. It was alot of fun. Six Flags was awesome!!!!!! I loved the coasters and especially superman. IT is a ride strait up and inmstead of a lift hill you are blasted at 60mph out of the station and then go back down backwards!!! Now this was especially fun for me because i am afraid of heights. But I came off with a huge smile on my face after the ride. I can't wait to go back and visit six-flags again.

Six Flags with Daniel, me and my girlfriend

Camp Ends...

Thankfully camp ended and we could go home. We droped off the kids at the busses and with their parents and said tearfull goodbys to them and all the other kids and friends. Then everyone promised to write and went their own ways. But me and Rachl (my Girlfriend) had different plans. Instead of going home right away we decided to travel a little and went to San Francisco for a few days. I have got to say that San Francisco has to be one of the most beautiful citites in the world. The roads, the buildings, and the layout of the city is just beautiful. If there was one city I had to live the rest of my life in, it would be San Francisco

Frisco...

The first thing i learned when going to San Francisco (S.F.) is that they hate it when you say Frisco. They also hate it when you play running of the bulls with the cable cars, but that is a different story. You see, everyone hates tourists, they wear stupid clothes and are the scourge of the earth. Only tourists use the term Frisco, so the munute they hear that a special tourist task force is sent out after you to mug you and take all of your travelers checks. This did not happen to me but I heared that it happens.

The Famous Cable Cars of San Francisco

Now what is the first thing you think of when you think of S.F.? The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, or the cable cars. I think of all three becuase they are all just as awesome in my mind. The first day we arrived very late so we went srait to our hotel and went to bed. The next morning we woke up very early and left for a full day of adventure. We first went to Alcatraz and arrived at the peir via the famous cable cars. We had luckaly gotten tickets two months before to Alcatraz becuase the next date available to go to the Island was two weeks from that day!!! It is very hard to describe a cable car experience, but it is most like riding a subway train that goes down the middle of a busy street and stops in the middle of intersections to let people on and off.

Alcatraz Island

Alcatraz is a island in the middle of the S.F bay. It was a civil war base, a army prison, a civilian prison, and eventually a museum. The Island itself is amazingly beautiful and when the morning and aftyernoon fog rolls in, there are some spectacular views of the island and the Golden Gate bridge from the pair we were launching from. When we arrived on the Island we first saw a very boring movie of the history of the island. I had alread known most of the history, so I just looked around the room and at other things during it, while keeping half an ear to the movie. We then walked around the island and visited all of the areas of the prison: fro the cells, to the cafeteria, the open grounds and play area, to the wild plants and birds who lived there. The coolest part was seeing the actual cells of the men who participated in the gretest escape from Alcatraz. They made manaquins and dug holes in their stone walls to get out, all without the knowledge of the guards!! Alcatraz was an amazing time.

We caught thew boat back to the mainland and walked went peir 39 and the rest of the famous sites in the peir area. We had lunch at "Bubba Gump's Shripm" named after the movie "Forest Gump". The food was good and the environment was awesome. They asked you questions at the beginging of the meal of Forest Gump Trivia and would make fun of you if you didn't get it right. It was a fun dining experience. OF course we had to visit the famous Peir 39 seals!! They were very loud and lazy. But there were many of them and they were really cool. After a full day of walking around we went back to our hotle to cange and went out to "The House of Nanking" in Chinatown for lunch. The food was excelent and there was no manue, you just ordered whatever and they made it.

The next day we had a more relaxed schedule and took a cable to Golden Gate Park and walked around there and the Golden Gate Bridge area for most of the day. The Golden Gate Park was a totally artificial park created on send!! It had a reall cool aquarium with life penguins and sharks that they fed often for the public. The Golden Gate Bridge, was well, The Godlen Gate Bridge. What else can I say? Look at my pictures of its beauty (and the beauty of the girl I am standing next to). Once we were done with the park, we went to downtown S.F. and had a nice italian dinner at a local pizza place.

The final full day there we just walked around and did nuthing most of the day. we visited more sights like Lombard street and the famous Ghirardelli square and its multiple chocolates!! Mmm.....Chocolate.....

The next day we laft on our plane after trying to find a taxivan to take us toy the airport. One finally came after two hours of waiting and we almost missed our flight. We were sad to leave and both of us promised top return one day and go for a longer time. Overall it was an amazing summer and I wish that I could do it again (well except for the whole shitty camp administration thing). I hope you enjoyed reading about my trip and are inspired to go on your won adventure.