If You Could Read My Mind...

The skies over Norway.

     ...you'd probably be surprised about what's going to come next. (How's that for clickbait?) But let me take a minute to take care of a few other things first. I'm planning with this post to do a bit of an after-action report of the camp and how it all went for me. I want to get my thoughts down on electrons before I forget too much about what went on. I've noticed with time that I tend to forget the bad things that happened and only remember the good. So this will have a bit of both. The good, the bad and the ugly (not that there was a lot of that). So here goes.

Fly Me To The Moon

     Let me sail directly to bed. Believe me, Frank would have sung that if he was going to have the flight we'll have in the next few minutes. I'm writing this really quick because I wanted to keep my writing streak going. One post per day. Look for another post later this week about my final thoughts from camp.
     For now, the flight leaves here at 6:20PM local and arrives at JFK at 9:05PM local. We've got a bit of a ride between now and then. And that doesn't even include standing in line at Customs, waiting for baggage and driving back to Reading, PA. I'll be trying to sleep on the plane and in the van. Definitely looking forward to being back home.
     Sunday, since we had a delayed flight, we did a bit of walking around buy the final things we wanted. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

This is my new passport cover.

Although this was a close contender for the spot.

The best way to describe this is a tubular grilled cheese.

I Turn My Camera On

     Since this day was a lot of sightseeing and walking around. I'll just let the pictures do the talking. But the basics are that we went to church in the morning. One student came from camp. Afterwards, most came and met up with us while we walking around the city. The Sunday after camp is always a sightseeing day to share some more time with the students. The short and sweet of it was that it was awesome. We had a wonderful time with the students who came. Unfortunately not all could be here. Some had to go home to other cities. But those that were there were great walking companions. It's sad to leave them.
     So without further ado, enjoy these photos. Tomorrow's a travel day so I hope to have something written before we board our plane.

Chocolate cake with mini eclairs inside.

Calm After the Storm

Natasha and Zhenya playing with static electricity.

     We did it. We finally made it to the end of the week. Just like any massive undertaking, it took doing each step one thing at a time. And now here we are. In the calm after the storm. Time to rest for a bit before the sightseeing on Sunday afternoon. As they say, "it's all over but the crying."

I Can't Dance

A dramatic reenactment of my waking movements this morning.

     Thus the last day of camp dawned; with yawns like caverns and skies like slate. Is it really Friday? I suppose it is. A friend asked me if this camp was going fast for me. Throughout this whole week, I've only had this concept of Friday in my head as a distant thing. I've been trying to take the events of the week one thing at a time. When I start thinking too far ahead, I begin to get overwhelmed by the number of things on my plate.

Band on the Run

     Yes, we, the weary band of travelers, had to run...yet again. So. Much. Running. But such is the cost of the quest. At least we had fun.

L-R: Katya, Yulia, Dasha, me, Nastia, Kolya, Yulia, Max, Nastia, Misha, Joan, Jesse, Marusya, Natasha

Photograph

     I did one of these posts last year and it was an easy way of getting more detail out there. This is just a photo collection that didn't exactly fit in anywhere else. Random things that I thought were good by themselves. Enjoy.

The Bridge of Love.