Katy's Post - Barretstown Here I come!

Hi Everyone! Sorry I haven't written in a few days!  Internet access is hard to come by out here in the back hills of Ireland! Before I tell you all about the awesome camp, I will tell you about my day 3 in Dublin.  I am unable to add pictures now, but will do so in a few days!

Day 3 in Dublin

Powerscourt Waterfall

I love sheep!

Einniskerry

The bridge from the movie P.S. I Love You

Today I went with a tour group off to explore Wicklow and the surrounding areas.  I meet a group of people in the morning - a family from Germany, two couples from North Carolina, a mom and daughter from Germany, a woman from Norway and a woman from Germany.  We all piled into the van and headed out onto the Irish highway!  We traveled about 45 minutes outside the city and stopped in a little village called Einnskerry.  This small village is located near the Powerscourt Estate. In the old days, it took about 200 people to run an estate in Ireland - cooks, maids, gardners, farmers, butlers, etc. All those people lived in the little village at the bottom of the hill from the estate.  Nowadays, it is mostly for tourists and nearby houses to get coffee, shop and get supplies at the pharmacy.  We stopped here and got some tea. (I love Irish tea!)  Next, it was on to Powerscourt Gardens!  (Jack Elice - I thought of you!  I remember you did some great research on this!)  I looked around the gardens, which were beautiful!  Then, we went on to do a hike in Wicklow National Park.  We climbed for about an hour to a place where we could see the Powerscourt Waterfall. It was grand! (People in Ireland use the word grand a lot.)  We also travelled to the old monastary grounds of Glendalough, which has been in existence since the 6th century!  WOW! We saw some of the ruins from the buildings and the round tower (which looked like it should be from Rapunzel).  On the way home, we went through some beautiful country side. We saw the sights of some well known movies (P.S. I Love You and Braveheart were filmed there) and also spotted some sheep!  There are sheep all over the country side in Ireland. I LOVE SHEEP!  At one spot, they were so close to the road, I asked the driver to stop and I hopped out to see if they would come say hi to me. They didn't... : ( But I did get some good pictures! I will post those soon.  It was a wonderful day exploring the countryside. Right from the tour, I went back out to the airport to meet up with a group of volunteer cara's (counselors) to travel to Barretstown Camp. YES!!! Finally what I have been planning for for months!

Arrival at Barretstown
I arrived at Barretstown with about six other caras and interpreters. We met the Camp Director and she showed us to our rooms.  It was very late and we had to get up early, so we all went to sleep.  The next morning, we started our volunteer training. There are about 50 volunteers from all over the world. I am the only one from the U.S.A.!  Everyone is super nice.  I have met people from Sweden, Holland, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Denmark, Greece, Cyprus, Ireland and many more! All of the volunteers speak English, so it isn't difficult to communicate. However, there are many different words and accents, so sometimes it is hard to understand exactly what they mean.  We had a full day of training, learning about the camp, about our campers, and about each other. 

Today, our campers arrived. I am in Cottage 3 with 8 girls from Spain and 3 girls from Ireland.  There are counselors from Spain, Ireland and the U.S.  We also have Activity Groups that we do daily activities with. For that, I am with campers from Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. I have learned to speak a little Spanish, Swedish and Italian!  It's just about dinner time - everyone's first dinner together. It should be fun!  I am excited for all the singing and dancing - I am sure you could have guessed that. At training they taught us two new dances, and...guess what... THEY HAVE THE ICE CREAM AND CAKE DANCE HERE!!! Just like the one we learned in school. WHOOO WHOOO! : )

I am so enjoying getting to know about all the different countries and all the different campers and counselors. I will fill you in tomorrow about our first full day! 

Ciao!

Geography Challenge - Find all of the different countries I mentioned in this post on a map! Also, find out what language they speak in that country and how to say - "Good Morning!" in that language.