What A Trip!!
By:
Alaynah Luttrull
Hey everyone! For anyone who doesn’t know, my name is Alaynah and
I’m in eighth grade. But, more importantly, I live in Poland. Yes, you read
that right, I live in Poland. Amazing, right? I think so, too. Anyway, every year,
my school sends the entire eighth grade on a trip. We go on the third week of
school, and we are gone for the entire week. Plus, there are no parents.
Mwahahaha. (Rub hands together evilly.) No, actually, I missed my parents. Now,
if I were to describe the entire
trip, it would probably take a whole week, so I’ll only tell you the
highlights. And some of the lowlights, too, of course.
For starters, I was sick the whole time. It was only a cold, but we
were outside a lot and it was cold out
there. But I had a fun time anyway. I didn’t always feel sick, but I lost my voice
for most of the trip. That’s probably going to come up a good bit more. We’ll
see. ;)
I’ll start with Monday. We got to the Masurian Lakes District just
after lunch time. I was in a bus for five hours. Five hours. Pure torcher. We were assigned cabins and cabin mates
for the week and were sent off with the key. It didn’t take my cabin mates and
me very long to find our cabin. Cabin eleven. At the very edge of camp on the
back side.
One thing you should know, the cabins are triangular. It was funny
because we kept bumping our heads on the ceiling. I think we were all used to
it by the end of the day though. I loved our cabin instantly. It had two
levels, and a curved staircase. The bottom level was bigger, with two couches,
a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a wardrobe. The upper level had two small
rooms, each with two single beds in them, and a balcony. We chose our beds (mine
was one of the ones by the balcony) and left our bags on them. Then, we went
back to the main building for a late lunch. The food wasn’t bad. I’m a
seriously picky eater though, so it wasn’t my favourite, but it was good all
the same. I especially liked the french-fries.
After lunch, we got with our TeamTime groups to play some games.
Team building activities, the teachers called them. We played an Alpha & Beta game, where we had to act a certain way while another group acted a
different way. It was pretty funny to see what some of us looked like trying to
hold to our ‘culture’. After we had finished the game, we had a group
discussion about what we thought of the other group. I was an Alpha, so I had
to describe the Betas.
We had dinner then. And guess what? They had french-fries again!! I
believe that the rest is self-explanatory. After dinner, we all want back to
our cabins because it was raining and we couldn’t have to bonfire. It was
disappointing, but it was okay. We wrote in our TeamTime journals and got ready
for bed.
The next morning, I was up before the sun, at five thirty to be
precise. I showered and got ready, then sat out on the balcony with my book. At
seven thirty the teachers began wake up call. Once everyone was up and ready,
we had morning activities. I had picture-taking time. After we had finished, we
all gathered back at the main building for breakfast. I ate cereal.
Our first rotation was the ropes course. That was really fun. It was
difficult, yes, but it was awesome. I want to do another course again soon.
Then we had game time. Really, it was free time. We could do whatever we want,
as long as we followed the rules. I stayed with my newfound friends and played
pool and ping-pong until it was time for swimming. As I’m fairly certain you have figured out, we had swimming next. There was a water slide and everything! I swear I went down it two hundred times. When we were called out of the pool, we went down to the lake for our kayaking training. It was pretty easy. Boring, too.
After that, we had dinner. French-fries. :) We left for the bonfire after dinner. We had to walk in the
dark. We had flashlights, but not everyone used them. The boys continually
tried to scare the girls, but mostly ended up getting punched. They kept on.
Persistent idiots.
The bonfire was amazing. It was really warm and cozy in the wigwam.
We had cookie challenges, singoffs, and made s’mores. But since my voice was
gone, I couldn’t sing. I mouthed the words, though. That was good enough. I had
an amazing time. By the time we ended, I was exhausted. We went back to our
cabins and went to bed.
Wednesday morning went a lot like Tuesday. The only difference was
that, instead of pictures, I had reading. After breakfast, we all boarded the
bus and went to the kayaking place. Once we got there, we were assigned
partners and got into our boats. It was hard to paddle for as long as we had
to. Seventeen kilometres. I do not know how many miles that is, but it’s a lot.
We stopped about halfway through to eat lunch and let people catch up.
When we finally made it to our final destination, my arms were ready
to fall off. I also had blisters on my hands. I still had fun though. We got
back to camp with just enough time for us to change for dinner and the bonfire.
I found my friends at dinner and sat with them. You will never believe what we
had. Chicken, coleslaw, and… French-fries!!!!!
Yum.
We did the same things in bonfire, but they were ongoing
competitions, so we did the second round. We went to bed, same as before, but
this time, I think we were asleep before our heads hit the pillow. I know I
was.
