Settling In...Kind Of

         
    It has now been a week and a half since I arrived at Gilwell Park Scout Activity Centre and I feel bad for writing nothing. It's that dreaded combination of busy-ness and laziness. The same also applies to photo taking, so this post is going to be pretty skimpy on pictures taken by me.
       To start from the beginning, on Thursday Sept. 6, two Lattitude representatives escorted Gustavo, Nicholas, and I to Liverpool Street Station in London. We killed time in the Starbucks during which time a pigeon flew into the shop. I found this really interesting for some reason.

       The two Ecuadorian boys and I then boarded the train bound for Chingford Station. It's about a 30 minute ride and none of us talked much. We arrived at the station and Kerry, the assistant director at Gilwell, came to pick us up. Kerry is a man by the way. By car Gilwell Park is no more than 5 or 6 minutes from the station. We parked in Camp Square which at that time was full of people (and no it wasn't raining that much).

          Nicholas was assigned his room in the The Den which is adjacent to Camp Square, then we drove up to The White House, where Gustavo and I each were assigned our rooms. My roommate is Nancy, also from Ecuador and she is very sweet and we get along well.
  Kerry then took us down to the cafeteria in the White House which serves lunch Monday to Friday, introduced us to 3 other volunteers and then left us. After lunch we were left to our own devices, the other volunteers having gone back to work, so I went back to my room.

         Eventually one of the lead instructors, Phil, came and found me and took me to the program office to do paperwork, then Tom took me on a tour of the Park. It was incredibly overwhelming, it's 108 acres and that particular weekend was Reunion, a camping event for adult Scout members with over 1000s attendees. The event has been going every year since 1921! (Save four years during WWII when Gilwell Park was used by army officers.)
     The best way I can describe Gilwell Park is that it is like Camp Pringle - times 10. Many buildings, lodges, toilet blocks, and activities. There is also the building which houses the UK Scouting Head Quarters, which is separate from The Gilwell Park Scout Activity Centre.
     I attended a staff meeting that first afternoon and met more of the staff. There were Australians, Brits, Brazilians, Mexicans, Ghanians, Ugandans, Koreans, Russians and Italians. I am the only Canadian. After a couple days of being completely surrounded by accents that were not my own, I started to think in different accents. It's kind of weird. After the staff meeting I was taken back to The Den. Oh my. The building was original the Scout Camp Hospital and falling apart both inside and out.
        I walked in, down the hall past the laundry room full of dirty clothes and half working machines, into the common room with a TV and a couch that runs along 3 walls. The common room floor was just a mess of cords, laptops, dirty dishes, pillows and food wrappers. The room was full of people, all looking at us new kids of course. Everyone was, and still is, super nice and very welcoming.

      That night happened to be a staff social night, so all 44 of us walked to the Indian Restaurant in Chingford for dinner. That meant I didn't have to brave the kitchen until the next morning. Nancy and I went into the kitchen, she kind waved her hand at the shelves in general and said, "you can eat whatever you want." I was at a bit of a loss. I had thought the common room was dirty but it was nothing compared to the kitchen. The dishes were piled high in the sink, the stove was greasy and grimy, packaged food was stuff into crates next to the gross looking microwave. One of the other new volunteers informed me he had seen a mouse in the kitchen the other day. Oh great. I took down some cereal from the top shelf, grabbed a bowl and looked around for the spoons. I asked the others, they laughed and wished me good luck in finding one amongst the mountain of dirty dishes.
    After that adventure I was buddied up with one of the Australians, Darcy, and with some others we were sent to do some random jobs around the camp, most of which didn't really need doing. Reunion had the camp very busy and the rest of the weekend was spent cleaning toilets and moving chairs and tables from one part of the camp to the other. 900 folding chairs in all. I'm told the work during Reunion does not reflect the work that I will be doing most of year. That first weekend I met some many people, there were about 40 volunteers at that point, but so many of them said, "I'm so-and-so, but I'm leaving in the next few days." By the time October is over, there will be just 21 of us left for the winter. I will be the only native English speaker left, I might just have to learn Spanish and Korean.
      On Sunday night, after all the Reunion attendees had gone home, the staff had a big party to celebrate. The volunteers partied in the tent that is attached the The Den and this is what it looked like the next morning.

         Monday morning had the 14 new volunteers packed up to go to the Scout Activity Centre in Oxford for 5 days of training. Most of us slept the whole way. The centre is called Youlbury, it's quite a bit smaller than Gilwell but still quite big, with lots of fields, forests and outdoor activities. As soon as we got there we were sent to meet the trainees from the other centres and try out the giant swing, that was really fun.

      The whole week consisted of different workshops on Scouting, safeguarding, rope work, fire building, setting up tents, delivery skills and learning new games. For a training week, they kept it pretty interesting and interactive. I think my favourite part was learning to use a fire bow and actually managing to light a fire with one. Just for the record: it was the two girls in our group who finally got the spark going. I also learned that there are 9 Scout Activity Centres throughout the UK, I might write a post about them all another time.
       By Friday afternoon it was back on the bus and we all slept again on the ride home. It was good to be back "home" as it Gilwell is to us now. Surprisingly, the Den was quite a bit cleaner, but only because a volunteer from another centre who had been working at Gilwell for the weekend had got fed up and cleaned it. I've been trying to clean little bits of the kitchen here and there when I have time. I asked some of the other volunteers if anyone had ever got food poisoning from the kitchen. They said no, but that by the end of my stay I will have a crazy strong immune system.
     We were given the next 3 days off which was a lovely break. Over the weekend I bought my first legal drink in the Chingford pub, The Station House, which attracts and odd mix of middle-aged people and the scarily Jersey Shore-esque Essex girls. Us Gilwell volunteers were definitely the youngest there. Other highlights of the weekend included buying a cellphone for 10 pounds, buying an Oyster Card, a Rail Card and signing up for a library card. Half the volunteers have been fighting off colds and sore throats, including me, and I barely left the couch in the Den all Sunday. It was exactly what I needed.
     I think that is all to tell about my first week and a half as a Scout Activity Centre Volunteer. All in all I'm adjusting well and having fun.

The First 48

    I made it! I am in London and am totally in awe of this amazing city. 

   The plane rides went off without a hitch. My friend who I was traveling with, Emily, and I took the 15 minute plane ride to Vancouver from Victoria. That gave us plenty of time to walk through the airport to our next gate. At the gate we met five other Lattitude students, some who I knew, others I didn't but all from Victoria. While waiting to board the guy in front of us turned around and said he was also a Lattitude volunteer, from England, who had just been at Camp Thunderbird on the Island for four months. He assured us we would enjoy the UK.

   The second, nine hour flight went very well. I got no sleep but I rested enough that I managed to last all of Tuesday in London. Emily and I devised interesting ways to keep the light out while we rested.

Me with the blanket over my head.

   Going through customs took a long time but luckily I was not one of the volunteers who was asked a ton of questions. I was so happy when my back pack came off the baggage carousel, I have a history of having my luggage lost. In total there were eleven of us picked up at the airport, all girls. We took a shuttle to the Generator Hostel in Tavistock Street (you can look it up if you want). Upon arrival we were given our room numbers, a key and a map of the surrounding area.
    As it turns out, I packed very lightly compared to many of my fellow volunteers. One girl brought two giant suitcases, she couldn't carry the both. A lot of people had to pay a fortune for overweight bags. It's kind of crazy and I don't know how they are going to get on and off the trains.
   But I digress. Once we had put our bags in our room (along with six other girls), Emily and I grabbed a bagged lunch, ate quickly, and navigated our way to the British Museum. We spent the afternoon in there, just "browsing", we were too tired to really take a lot in, I just kind of walked around and soaked in the size of the building and the number of artifacts. It felt almost disrespectful to walk so quickly through the rooms, not looking carefully at much. I need to go back of course.

      The dinner that night consisted of chips, exorbant amounts of pasta, and some sort of fried/breaded cheese. It was weird. The food so far has been odd, cheap and devoid of most nutrition. Today I ate some sort of sandwich that had both meat and eggs. This morning's breakfast was fairly standard European: ham, cheese, yoghurt, cereal. After dinner, Emily, Nicole (from Toronto), Meghan (from Saltspring), Charlie (from Victoria, and Oak Bay High) and I ventured onto the Tube and went to Piccadilly Circus.

     We ended up in this upscale bar that we were way too underdressed for. We had a drink (just one Dad I promise) and then went exploring through the city some more.

      The next day was incredibly busy and non-stop activities. First we took the Tube again to Westminister for a walking tour. I was incredibly grateful for my new hiking shoes, some of the other girls walked all day in flats and ended up with giant blisters. By the end of the day my feet were sore with tiredness, but otherwise unharmed.
  But back to the walking tour. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and quite theatrical. We started at the Parliament Buildings and Big Ben. We saw the statues of Oliver Cromwell and Charles I staring at each other from opposite sides of the the street. The tour took us around Westminister Abbey as the guide talked about the history of it. We went down Queen Anne's Gate and the guide showed us how the word "Shelter" had been painted on the brick to denote an air raid shelter that would have been below the pavement. Then it was through St. James's Park and a far away look at Buckingham Palace (the Queen was not in). The Park itself is quite lovely, I liked seeing the different bird species that we don't have at home. A large section of the park was blocked off because of the Paralympics. We walked down Queen Anne's Gate and the guide showed us the faded words painted on the brick which once indicated a bomb shelter had been there during the Second World War.
  The tour officially ended at Trafalgar Square, where we had gone the night before. Again, there was Paralympic stuff going on so we didn't go right into the Square. I can't wait to come back to London and explore the National Gallery.

   After the tour we took the Tube to one of the University Buildings for the real orientation stuff. Sitting and listening to the safety presentation made me remember how tired I was and I came very close to falling asleep in my chair. After, we were split into groups depending what region our placements our in and we all filled out forms to have bank accounts set up. We played some games to get to know each other, then we talked about our placements: what we were worried about, what we were looking forward too, etc. I know now that there are two Ecudorian boys going to my placement with me. Neither of them seem particularly friendly so far but that might just be the language barrier.
   At 5:30 we walked back to the hostel and went for dinner. It was pizza and fries, I need some real food again soon. After dinner half of the group went out for a ghost bus tour. I stayed in the hostel and attempted to use the internet which was somewhat frustrating.
  At 8:30 I went on the ghost bus tour with the second group. It was an old style double-decker bus which reminded of the Night Bus from Harry Potter. One thing I should mention about London traffic: the way the Night Bus drives is not much of an exaggeration - the traffic is crazy and pedestrians seem to have few rights when it comes to crossing. But the tour: it was a freaky tour guide talking about the the supposedly haunted places in London - the murders, the beheadings, etc. We went past the Tower and over the Thames and it was amazing.
   Some of the others went out again that night after the tour but I was so tired of walking that I just stayed in my room in the hostel and caught up with email and tried to write this blog post.
  I apologize if the tenses changed at all during this post. When I finished writing it was Friday evening and I was already at Gilwell Park. I have so much more to write about! It might take a few weeks to relate all that has happened so far.
  Lots of love to everyone back in Victoria, I hope you're not missing me too much :)

I Got a Blog

        So I started a blog. There's something slightly embarrassing about admitting it. I used to be very anti-blog, I couldn't see the point in writing down everything one did or felt and posting it on the internet for all to see. To me it seemed like why would anyone care about what that person wrote? I've changed my opinion somewhat over the years, and I do follow a few blogs. Why? Because they can be interesting, funny, informative, inspiring or full of beautiful, creative art work. Also they give me something to do on the internet other than mindlessly scroll through my Facebook feed.
      I can't promise that my blog will be any of those things, but I do have two (semi) legitimate reasons for keeping a blog.

1. For the next 11 months I will be living and working in England. Technically it's volunteering through the GAP-year organization Lattitude, but I do get a small stipend each week. My placement is at Gilwell Park Scout Activity Centre, a twenty minute walk away from Chingford, an outer district of London north east of the city.
     People seem really confused when I try to explain about the Park and what I will be doing there. I've just been saying "I'm working at a Scout Camp," but I think Gilwell is very different from Scout camps here or even places like Camp Thunderbird and Camp Pringle. In all honesty I'm not completely sure myself what is it is I'll be doing there. I'll let you know when I find out.
    So my first reason for keeping a blog is to record what I do during this year that promises to be very different than any of my previous 18. The blog is also a way to let people back home know what I'm up to. Of course I will still want to send emails and skype with people, but I think this is blog might save me from having to relate certain stories ten times.

2. Reason number 2 is that for the last year I have been working on my Duke of Edinburgh Award and will continue to do so this year. There are three levels to it and I just completed the bronze level this past Friday. Which means I've started on the silver. One requirement of the award is to pick a skill and practice it for a period of time each week over a minimum of 6 months. So blogging (writing) is my skill. A big thanks to Martha for being my assessor, I hope these posts don't bore you too much. I will do my best to post once a week. Ok. It's there in bold type on the internet, so now I have to stick with it.

     Today is Sunday, tomorrow my plane leaves from Victoria at 5pm. I fly to Vancouver and then board another flight to Heathrow airport which should arrive at 11:40am local time on Tuesday. Lattitude representatives will pick us up and take us to the hostel in London where we will stay two nights for the orientation before traveling to our placements around the country. Lucky for me I'm only an hour away.

   I think I'm almost finished packing, just a couple things to stuff in tomorrow morning. That was a somewhat frustrating experience and I had to leave some stuff out. I doubt very much that I'll miss that stuff. I've probably still over packed. My bags are all within the the size and weight regulations for the airline (barely) but whether or not I can carry them across London on the public transit is another question.

  I don't think there is much else to say. I'm so excited to leave and still a little bit nervous. Saying goodbye to everyone has been a sad but I don't think I've quite got my head around the idea that I won't be seeing some many people for a whole year!