I don't like the flowers

I don't like the flowers.
I don't like the daffodils.
I hate the mountains.
But I do like the rolling hills.
I do enjoy a good fireside,
especially when the lights are low
but please no more "do whopping!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yad_i1Ze9S8
I've heard this camp song probably enough times for the rest of my life. We learned it at orientation, one of my roommates during orientation would sing it and at camp, once it was resurrected it never stopped. And its only June! It gets stuck in your head like nothing before. I'm sure people have gone crazy because of it. I don't like the flowers anymore.

With that said, this is the run down of what happened this week.

Last Friday I lost 2 campers and on Monday I got 4 new ones. For those of you that have worked with me know that I am big with nicknames or secret names for people. One of the new kids we called "Swiss model" and the other "Ron Potter" cause he looked like a combination of Ron Weasley and Harry Potter. The other kid that was part of this trio was just kind of around and the fourth was a kid who had the bluest eyes you had ever seen and you just melted when you looked at him. So when Robbie first met this blue eyed angel, Robbie during his interduction told him that all the girls would be after him especially when he was older (cause he is now 11) and he would be a real ladies man. This blue eyed kid was so sweet, he would follow me around and help me out and tried really hard with his English. The bad thing was he got sick and I only saw him for 3.5 days.

But the Swiss Model was the exact opposite. I have never met anyone more resistant to anything in my life. He was at English camp and I probably only heard him speak 3 sentences of English and those were all variations of "I don't want to do that." He couldn't even say the basic sentences that the 5 or 6 year olds could say like "Can I go to the toilet" or "I am 11 years old." There came a point where during our show rehearsal he had to say "My name is..." and instead of his name, he said another name. Uh....there might be a problem here. I had to have the directors talk to him several times to remind him this was "ENGLISH camp". He got better throughout the week especially when him and Robbie had a moment of doing some 70s dance moves. He also got better when I had someone tell him in Italian that if he didn't start speaking English, he could go to the class with the 6 year olds because they were all still learning the basics. He tried harder after that.

There was also one girl named Luna. She stood out in a crowd. She was literally in her own little world, but you wanted to go to there to see what was happening. She was on my Olympic Team. Doing relays like over and under where you pass the ball over, then under and so on, she would chuck the ball across the yard. Not like oops I dropped it but would throw it over her head far. We did not do well. But everything was that way for her. Dancing, talking, interacting, etc. One day during dodgeball, I was thinking "I'd make a movie about Luna" next thing I know, Robbie is saying there should be a indie movie about Luna and he came up with the title "From the Earth to Luna" or something similar. It was too clever to not mention.

Our final show for the week was a hit. My class did "Limena's Got Talent" like "America's Got Talent". My Swiss model was going to juggle. He surprisingly was good at it. However there was so much drama around the show. Who were the judges, what talent was each person going to do? What music? Oh so and so isn't here, who will fill in, etc. etc. Luckily, we had two hosts so a host became a judge, my blue eyed angel who was sick, came in JUST to do the show and was a judge and our original casted judge remained. We had dancing, basketball tricks, magic (which the guy was really good and worked really hard at) and juggling. Throughout the day, the swiss model kept telling me no, I don't want to do it, no no. He was great and the crowd loved him. But I was so over the Swiss model that I was happy to see him go. I have never seen anyone that lazy since I can rememebr.

I also went to downtown Padua a couple of times. I went to the Scorvegni Chapel. It is completely painted with about 18 different panels of the the life of Mary and the life of Jesus wtih the seven sins and virtues along the building. It was pretty neat. We then went to this resturant with tons of pizzas and I being too overwhelmed got mushrooms while the woman next to me got a pizza with scfilacci (horse) on it. So yes, there are people that order that. During my downtown excursions I also went to the University which was so cool. Also, around the university, there are big pieces of paper that have charicatures of people that graduated and stories about them written by their friends. They are the types of stories that your friends know about but you would never tell your parents. Basically its a big public roast on paper for all to see. Without being able to understand some of them, the pictures were graffic enough to get the point. I did not get to see the pulpit that Galileo taught at because they were renovating it but I did get to check out parts of it. They had the original door and I have a picture of that and the ceiling with tons of coat of arms on it that reminded me of walking into Hogwarts. I also walked through a coffeeshop not thinking much of it, everyone just told me to walk through it. My host family took me another day and told me it is one of the oldest coffeeshops in the world! Say what?! That's weird to think about. Before Starbucks, there were old, really old coffeeshops and I have been to one. Next time, I place an order.

Oh and because people keep asking me...the men of Italy. While Marlena and Rachel thought the lifeguard was cute and planned to duplicate the scene in the Sandlot where Squints pretends to drown to kiss Wendy Peffercorn (the lifeguard) I was looking around for other cuties. There was ONE guy I pointed out to Robbie when we went to the pool. He was a director at another camp. Robbie went to get a drink and came back and told me that my prince charming had anger issues. He was seen yelling at one of the kids and told them "I never want to see your face again" and then ordered a drink like it was nothing. So moving on...right ladies?