A day in the life of Jamison Arends

Ello everyone!!

Well, I am officially into my second week as a Camp Adventure Intern. I have had such a blast so far and I cannot wait to see what else England has in store for me.

WORK:
Today, I got to travel with a group of 40 kids to the Woburn Safari Park – How sweet to say this is my job! Anyway, military agencies don’t mess around when it comes to field trips, because we hopped into a huge charter bus for a field trip 1 hour away – pretty sweet, eh? On the way there, I was reading a book called “From Good to Great”. It is a pretty popular book in the business world, but I was falling asleep as the bus bumped along the road. I tried really hard to stay awake because I didn’t want to look like I am lazy and such. So, we got to the park and there were two HUGE lion stones; I knew I was in for a treat. J We stayed in the bus as we looked at most of the animals. We saw wolves, Black Bear, Elephants, Giraffes, Lions, Tigers, Monkeys galore, Gazelle, a Long Horn Cow, Kangaroos, and Ostrich. The animals were quite awake and did some cool things for us. The Elephants put on “Sun Screen” using dirt and their massive trunk! They were Asian Elephants and it was nice to see them up close eating grass. Next we got to see a wolf find and eat a fish. It was funny to hear the kid’s questions. They are so obsessed with pregnancies. I was asked again today if I was married. Haha. I was told by on kid that you have to be 20 to marry and I can’t marry at 19 because his mom married at 20. We did not get an up close look at the tiger, but I was fascinated! The lions were pretty cool. A pride of lions is what they call a group of lions and that is how one gets “Pride Rock” in Disney’s The Lion King! Speaking of, I think they have that showing in London, as well as Wicked!!! And the Phantom of the Opera. I WANT TO SEE THEM ALL. Okay, anyway, back to my story. The black bears were kind of cool. They just wondered around. Now, the monkeys, they were sooo cute! They had baby monkeys and one would carry the baby under the mom. It was so cute how small they were. There was also an older sibling trying to pull a baby away from the mother and the mother kept slapping it. They are very protective! This was about the same time that a monkey felt the need to come and jump up on the Coach and ride the rest of the way through the park. J I wanted to take pictures of all of this, but I didn’t find out I was going until today when I got to the youth center. The giraffes were eating when we saw them. They just had a baby giraffe and apparently a lot of the other ones were pregnant. After our own little safari with guided tour, we went to a nice spot to have some lunch. Then, we headed to this huge play ground full of fun things to do! We let the kids run around there for quite a while and after, we headed to another, indoor play place. They had a bunch of fun and most all the kids were at a huge point of happiness. On the bus ride home, it was funny –after the School Age Coordinator told me I should use our hour drive back as some sleep catching up – to wake up and find the bus as quite as if there was no one even on…the kids had all fallen asleep!!!! It was one of the cutest things I had ever seen. J I, of course, took advantage of this hour and fell back asleep. Getting back to the Youth Center, I got to partake in the end of “closing”. When I walked in, one of our counselors said “say hi to Mr. Jamison”. That was fun to see all the kids in a nice circle ready to have fun.

TRAVEL:

Well, last weekend, I got to visit few different places. It feels like I have been all over England, but I haven’t. We went to a place called Bury St. Edmunds on Friday and got to see an old abbey. It was rather neat. We ate at a sweet pub called the Queen’s Head. I found out it is REALLY expensive here so I have been a little conservative with money when it comes to food. I want to save as much of my money for “object or things”. The conversion is 1.00 = 1.68 dollars. It apparently was 1 to 2 last year meaning that the amount of stuff I could buy in the states would be twice as much as I could buy here. Oh well. The Bury St. Edmunds Cathedral is a very old building that has a lot of history. The Cathedral is just a small part of what existed back in the day when the Abbey was as big as any church that would have existed in England. The signing of the Magna Carta took place at this particular Abbey which excited me a WHOLE BUNCH. I’m such a nerd. It was cool to stand around the remains, all in pillars that used to hold a huge church and to think that such an important document that changes history was done around my location. CRAZY. The Abbey garden was also very relaxing and quite pretty. I want to put a pretty garden in my backyard when I have the house I’m going to build. It was soooooooooo beautiful.

On Saturday, we got up early and travelled to Cambridge. BEAUTIFUL college town. We got to go punting on the river, very popular, and take some amazing photographs. We also go to see some VERY old colleges including the college one of the Princes’ attended and Stephen Hawkins…who is still the Honorary physics chair there. It is call Trinity College. We got to see
part of King’s college. This has a huge Cathedral that I actually got some video footage of. It was bad timing on our part because most of the colleges were close do to final examinations. They have like a whole month dedicated to them? Idon’t get it. Haha. We are going back, however, because we want to get into Trinity College – the fancy one – and go to the Library where they have some really cool historical things including Winnie the pooh first sketches and one of the first fully English translated bibles. I’m not sure what else? We went to the Museum in Cambridge. Saw some cool stuff there – just like you would see at any museum, but it was free J. We ate at a small vendor at the market. I love the market. It makes you feel like you are actually in a community. Like I said, we are going back to Cambridge so I will get to see more. It’s basically a beautiful college town that is full of life and old, cool buildings.
On our way back, we stopped in the town of ELY. There was a Cathedral here that was actually the sight of part of the film of the Other Boelyn Girl and The Golden Age. I got some really good video of this one. It just so happens we rented the movie of the Other Boelyn Girl and got to see the scenes that included the cathedral – TOTALLY COOL. These cathedrals are SOOO massive. It makes you want to kneel instantaneously and start praying because there must be some spiritual being out there!! It’s really a cool feeling.

Well, that is basically the gist of it all. We went to the village right by the base we stay at and had to go to a Chinese place because all the pubs have weird hours on Sunday nights. We just signed up to “GO APE” which is a rope training ground in the woods that takes three hours to complete. It will be a lot of fun!!! You get to swing from trees!! The weekend we might go to Norwich, but I am waiting for my Britrail that just came in. We for sure are going to BATHS….like the “Roman Baths”. I’m VERY EXCITED FOR THIS!!! Oh, England has sooo much to do!! You don’t even know!!!

P.S. - All the American style plugs on my floor have mysteriously stopped working! There was a huge storm with hail and stuff and it even collapsed one of the CDC buildings.

Talk to everyone soon! I will try and get some photos loading on here. In the meantime, enjoy the words of Jamison Arends.

-Jamison