My American Summer: Part Three - Travelling the East Coast

This summer after working at an American summer camp I went travelling and a friend and I decided to go on two treks. The second trek I went on was called American BLT, lasted two weeks and went from Miami to New York and I booked with Trek America through STA. This trek was all hotels and hostels, the best hotels seemed to be at the start, then they gradually got worse! It would have been better the other way around! I didn't feel the group bonded as much as we all did on the first tour, as it was a mixture of males and females but the age range was much greater. Also the trek leader wasn't as enthusiastic. But it was still a great trek and we got to see a wide range of places.

The highlights of the trip for me were Orlando, Panama City Beach, New Orleans and Nashville. At Orlando there was the opportunity to do a theme park, Panama City Beach had the most gorgeous beach I'd ever seen and I got in a full day of sunbathing! New Orleans was just crazy and I loved the creepy history behind the place, we went on a great ghost tour and the strip was a good place to go out at night. Nashville really surprised me as I wasn't expecting much! It was really lively at night and had an amazing strip to party on! And of course everyone was dressed in cowboy boots and hats, so fun! Also I should mention that we drove straight out of Miami so I didn't see much of that, and you don't have a night in New York so you have to book extra time there if you want to see it! We had booked five days there before we flew home so we got to see a lot.

Diagon Alley in Universal Studios!

Number 12 Grimauld Place!

On route to New Orleans

The famous Bourbon Street

View from our hotel

Swamp tour!

I would definitely recommend doing this! 

Had a stop at Ginnie Springs

Live music in Nashville!

Washington

The Washington Monument

Quick stop in Philadelphia

New York Grand Central Station!

Central Park

View from the High Line

Bubba Gump's!

View from the Rockefeller Center at sunset

We visited Rockefeller on 9/11 so the memorial lights were on, it was a sad moment.

Sealions at Central Park Zoo

They were excited for feeding time!

View of the Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry

View of Manhattan

Where is your favourite place in America or where would you most like to visit?

My American Summer - Part One: Camp

Heyy, I'm back! It feels so, so long since I last wrote anything! Although I did post things whilst away, they were all scheduled so I feel like I abandoned my poor blog! So I thought for my first post back I'd write a summary of my summer (nice use of alliteration there). But of course three and a half months was quite difficult to fit into one post, so I've decided to split it into part 1 (camp) and parts 2 and 3(travelling). 

For those of you who don't know, wayy back in January I was hired to work at a Jewish summer camp in Wisconsin through an agency called Camp America. I won't go into this in this post, but I wouldn't use Camp America again myself. I worked as the camp photographer and videographer at camp, which meant I basically taught some activities for part of my day and then spent the rest of it running around taking photos. It was awesome! Don't get me wrong it was a really difficult job, my hours were really long (generally 8am-12am) and I was exhausted by the end of it, but it was also the best summer I've ever had. Below I have provided a million photos (I'll be impressed if you make it to the end!) In the pictures it awkwardly looks like I'm alone, but I didn't want to include any group pictures as I didn't have their permission etc etc. And obviously photos of the kids are a no no! So here are a load of snaps from my summer spent at camp (and a few creative captions) the usual suspects of nature shots and pretty landscapes are present of course!

Sunset at Camp's beautiful lake

Me ready to go at 4am and looking slightly concerned at my choice of suitcase (later had to buy a new one!)

The cute staff cabin that me and the other specialist girls lived in!

My name spelt in Hebrew which one of the Israeli staff wrote for me :)

Always spent our hour off chilling by the pool

Sunset at the lake

Couldn't get enough of these..

 Me during staff week

Gave archery a go by the end of camp!

 Caught some eagles on camera

Campified where bands came and played! (I can't remember their name or I would have credited them!)

 During our two days off over inter-session we visited Chicago!

This is where I fell over and had to visit ER to get my chin glued back together!

View from the Sky Deck

I dared to sit on the ledge! (Afraid of heights!) 

Only took me 7 weeks to get close enough to a Chipmunk to get a decent photo 

 Secret 2am camp fires are the best

It rained a lot in Wisconsin 

 Of course I learnt how to make friendship bracelets!

 I finally got to try out one of the hydrobikes! Very fun

 oooo pretty coloured fire

 View from the stargazing boat at night

 Lake fun

The kids loved stealing my camera and taking candid shots!

Learnt how to tie dye too!

Rare days off were spent chilling by the lake in town

 DQ was pretty good too

Ahh Wisconsin

The first time we went out for breakfast.. Needless to say I didn't finish it!

 Best hot chocolate I've ever had.

 Days spent sunbathing!

I miss camp! If any of you are considering spending your summer this way, don't think about it, just do it! You won't regret it I promise.

How did you guys spend your summers?! Feel like I need to catch up.