This past weekend was the weekend of my Spring Break, and also the weekend of Easter, so my family decided to go to Philadelphia! Along with being a popular city with places to sightsee, Philadelphia also is home to UPenn, or University of Pennsylvania, and since my brother is off to college soon, our family decided we should look at some colleges. When looking at the University of Pennsylvania, it looks beautiful! I've never seen any colleges, but UPenn's dorms and halls look wonderful - though I've only seen the outside. The campus is also extremely vivid and nice, with plenty of places to work or study. Once we left Upenn, though, the streets are packed and the garages are far! It's easy to go in circular directions, so if possible, it was much easier to just walk! This is what my mother and I did, while my brother and father went on a tour. We walked over to a quaint little shop, called the University of Pennsylvania Bookstore, and they had plenty of merchandise, and a LOT of books - though none of the ones I saw looked exactly ... interesting. It was a fun visit, though, since my mother and I both ordered a drink from the cafe section, and we sat down and talked about college.
As we normally do, around this time of year, this past week (week of July 16), my family visited Virginia Beach (we went to a town house, hosted by Coastal Accomodations). We got back yesterday, but all the adventures we had from Sunday all the way to yesterday (Friday) are fresh in my memories, as happy living things. I'll start with Sunday. On Sunday, we only got there at 4 o'clock or maybe 4:30 to 5:00, but we were there for dinner. We had decided only to go out and eat at a restuarant twice, since we had rented out a town house, with a wonderful kitchen. Now, before I jump on the dinner, I am going to describe the house a bit. Now, though, do not even get me started on the stairs! There's the main floor/first floor, which is the floor you will be greeted with once you walk through the door. Where I live, we usually enter from the front door, but here in this town house, that was a no. Instead of a key, it was a code combination, and it was at the back door, so there was no way to get in from the front. Luckily, the parking lot for the town houses were also at the back, so we didn't have to constantly go to the back door. There was a porch at the back, with some chairs and a table, but that's unimportant. Once you open the door and go in, you are greeted with the couch, a table, and two wide chairs that are so close it looks like it's actually a couch (and serves as a second couch in our case). As you pass the couch, there's the kitchen, with some bar-stools at the counter to have a casual irregular meal. The kitchen also has a sink (attatched to the counter), a refridgerator, utensils, a pantry, and other kitchen necessities like plates, pots, pans, etc. You pass a hallway with the bathroom, laundry room, and closet, and get to the dining room. That's about all you start with on the first floor, so you walk up a set of steps. I am not talking about 5-10 stairs. I'm talking about like fifteen/twenty or so, just to get to the second floor. Do not get me started about the pain of walking all those stairs all those times every single day. Anyway, movig on, upstairs is where all of the bedrooms are. There are 3 bedrooms there and a hallway closet, painting, and table with drawers. Two of the rooms connect to a bathroom and the last one had their own bathroom. The last bedroom also had a deck. Then if you hike up another set of stairs, you'll reach a collapsible bed that turns into a couch and a wall tv. Then, there's the last bedroom which has a bunk bed and dresser, with another bathroom. That is the house in a little more than a nutshell ;). Back to Sunday. We reached there pretty late, so we dropped off our stuff in the house and got ready, and then headed to a place we went last time called Chops. It had seafood and steak, but I ordered a Filet Mignon which I thought was pretty good. We had decided we could go to one place we went to last time, that we thought was very good, and then we'd try something new. After we went home, unpacked, and digested, we decided to scout the beach for the next day. We donned regular clothes, and went to the closest part of the beach but the waves were very rough, and there was a very steep incline, where it was basically a mini-cliff, so when the waves reached over and hit that part of the sand, it would erupt and hit you. This happened to me, so through all the walk, I was soaking wet. By the end we decided not to go, because of the ledge and how crowded it was. On Monday, we went over to a place where the ledge was less steep, though the waves were still big and rough. I went in with my brother, and we played around with boogie-boards and waves till my fingers were purple. When we went back home, we didn't do much but watch TV and eat chicken-noodle soup for a light supper, though we did go around and get our favorite by-the-sea dessert - Fudge! The next day, I found I had a cold, so I had limited time in the ocean. On Wednesday, I didn't go in the ocean at all, but we did go shopping, and I got a VA beach mug, which handle had two slots, where a matching spoon fit in! On Thursday, my cold was getting better, so I went in the water a lot, and we stayed for nearly two and a half hours (!) jumping over waves! That night, we went back to the fudge store, to restock on our supply, but while there, we went to the very end of the pier where we watched the ocean. After doing that for a while, and fully resting up, we went to some shops on the pier, where I got a Pier Life hat, a bag full of hand-picked rocks, and a bag of magnets. Later on the way home, we stopped by the T-Shirt factory and got some t-shirts for me and my brother. We then walked all the way to our little (or actually quite big) town-house, and for the rest of the day, we vegged out on the couch watching TV. The next day, we got up at 8:30. We packed all of our little things and clothes, put them into the suitcase, and were out of the house by 10:00 (our mandatory checkout was by 10:30). As we left, I wished the ocean goodbye, sad that we were leaving and counting the 360 days til the next VA beach trip.
Summer Camp's are very popular for children during the summer, whether it's for parents to have some time to focus on work, or for the fun of the kid: The question is, what type of camp? There are many different types of camp, but in my case, it is a horse-back riding camp. One of the best in the area, apparently, and it's name is Mulford Riding School (in Centreville). It's not just horse-back riding, but multiple fun, adventure-packed activities, where you do something different every day. Today, I had the same schedule as yesterday, but we worked on a project or did different things. Today, July 12: Before classes start, if I get there early, I would go over to my "Home Counselor(s)". These are the counselors that you start with, eat lunch with, and dismiss with. Mulford Riding Camp has lots of counselors, and one of the best parts is they're all very welcoming and kind. Each counselor (and sometimes multiple) teaches a section, and each group gets two counselors. (There's seven groups that you get into depending on your age. Each group is split in half into "A" and "B" but that is decided randomly.) Anyway, for me, my home counselor is the Drama counselor and the Photography counselor. Once classes start - following my schedule - I would first go to Baking/Arts and Crafts (You get a choice between Baking or Arts and Crafts and halfway through the week, it switches so that you can try both. Because the week isn't even, on Wednesday everyone goes to Arts and Crafts). In Arts and Crafts, since today was Wednesday, we all went to Arts and Crafts to make tie-dye unique "Mulford Riding School" t-shirts (that they let us tie-dye ourselves). On Monday and Tuesday, though, I went to baking. In baking, they don't let you use ovens or stoves, because they might be dangerous, but guided you into making the batter. On Monday, we made chocolate-chip-cookies that we got on Tuesday, and on Tuesday we used cookie-cutters to cut out shapes of a horse-food recipe Mulford Riding School calls "Horse Treats". Back to Wednesday (today). After our first period of Arts and Crafts, we headed over to second period (a very common favorite). Horse-back riding! Although this camp was not just about riding, but also grooming horses and building connections with them, you still get fifty minutes to ride! You ride the right horse depending on your height, and each horse has a guide, who will guide your horse for the first few days until you get the hang of it. Today, we went into these little woods next to the riding blacktop, where you start off when you're first riding. In the woods, you practice maneuvering your horse and playing games like trying to throw balls in buckets or rings on cones. Well, today, in the woods following everyone else on my horse, Nasrine, my guide let me try to steer my own horse. The steering is pretty simple, you pull on the correct rein to get it to go one way or the other, but the one I had the most trouble with was starting. You're supposed to squeeze it's sides, but Nasrine doesn't listen to me, so I try to get momentum and squeeze her hard enough. In the woods, there is one part where everyone always trots. A trot is faster than a walk, and gets you bouncing up and down, but trotting always feels fast to the normal slow-paced walking. It feels nice to trot and once you master trotting, they teach you different things, like Posting Trot (where you stand up and sit down along with the rhythm of the horse) and Jumping Position (where you lean forward until you aren't sitting on the horse but trying to balance on your feet). They also give you useful tips, like how to hold your reins, and how to position your feet. After I finish with the horse (which despite being 50 minutes feels like it went by at the speed of light) I head towards Horsemanship. I would grab my snack along the way, and you eat inside the barn, which can be annoying because of all the flies. In Horsemanship, you make the horse perform cool tricks like making it bow it's neck while it's following the cup of food, or smelling which bucket has food, or maybe you'll just groom the horse. After Horsemanship, I have Drama/Photography. You again get a choice between Drama or Photography, but on Wednesday, if you want to switch, you switch halfway so you get half-drama and half-photography. I haven't been to Drama yet, but from what I have heard, it is making funny commercials or acting different scenes. I started off with Photography. We took pictures on Monday, where two people would share a camera, and started editing on Tuesday and Wednesday in a nice and air-conditioned room. The Photography teacher uploads your picture onto a computer, which you share with your partner, and you edit them with Apple's editing system. For me, today, my partner and I had found a picture of a goat, but there was a wired black fence that destroyed the image of a goat, because the criss-cross pattern made it difficult to focus on the goat, even though it was a great picture. Using the app, there was an option that erased little things, like if there was a ball, you could erase it, and it would disappear. The only drawback about it, was that it was slightly blurry, but you couldn't notice it very much. We were curious, so we started erasing the fence, and surprisingly, it actually worked and the goat looked as if there had never been a fence when we finished. We just left a dot of fence where a the eye would have been, because since there wasn't any other part of the eye in the photo, the app couldn't auto-correct, but the goat's eyes were dark in the photo so it worked out. We (my partner and I) worked so long, we didn't get to go to Drama, so the Photography teacher said we could go tomorrow. After Drama/Photography, we go into an indoor room where are backpacks rest, to grab our lunch, and then we head outside to the Theatre in the Woods (a few wooden benches and a wooden stage in a thicket) to eat our lunch for a 25 minute break. This camp has gotten me so exhausted and hungry, I eat more than I have ever eaten before in my life. After having two Apple Turnovers for breakfast (I usually have one and declare I am full), I am starving and eat a whole blueberry bagel, a full box of strawberries, and a huge double bread roll called a Portugese Roll. I have never eaten that much, and definitely not in 25 minutes with time to spare! After Lunch, I would head to Barn. The Riding School has lots of different animals (besides horses and ponies), like Bunnies, a cat, Chickens, Geese, a Goat and probably more, but none more that I have met or seen. Yesterday, we said hello to the Geese and Goat, and held chickens, so today, after taking a shovel to the Horse Stalls, we went over to see the Bunnies. Bunnies are small, furry and cute animals, so by sitting criss-cross, knees-touching, we have entrapped the bunny. After petting it a couple times, it bit me on the hand, and it was not pleasant. I was scared of that bunny, yet it was cute, so when it crawled on my lap for a picture, I held it there, til it bit my ankle, and that hurt the most. It stretched it's long body around as it walked. Barn is all about meeting different types of animals, and interacting with them to learn how they live. After Barn is Games. Games is - as the name states - just where you hang around and play games. Sometimes you get small prizes for winning games, like an Ice Pop* or choosing the next song. Today, we played a relay, where you have to go through hula hoops, jump on poly spots, jump over pool noodles and shoot plastic balls through baskets. Then, when everyone is done, you can chill in the shade with your friends eating Ice Pops (popsicles), or you can go play Gaga Ball, a game where you try and hit a person's ankles with a ball to get them out. Then, Games ends soon after the main game ends, so I hurried to my last activity: Archery/Training/Ukelele. There's two halves to this period. One is Archery/Ukelele, and the other one is Training. Training teaches you how to lead a horse, how to lasso something (if you were to be on a horse and want to lasso something) and as for today, how to jump on a horse without stirrups (stirrups are the footholds). First, you have the option to either go over to Archery, or learn how to play the Ukelele. I love Archery, so I chose Archery. I got split into groups, so I have three-ish arrows to try and hit a target, and then I put my bow back and gather my arrows for the next group. While the other groups are going, there's a rope/balance course. There's lots of different courses: One is some handle bars and a ladder that swings when you try to climb it. Another one is when you stand on a thin band of rubber, that stretches from a tree to another tree. It's too thin and bouncy to walk on it while balancing, but for your hands, there's different types of courses, like knots of rope you have to bounce on the rubber to get, or little rings hanging by chains. I learned how to get the rubber to serve as a trampoline so I could jump higher and get the knot, and afterwards went in for Ice Pops. The last part was Training, because we had Training first yesterday, so we had it last today. There's a wooden replica of a horse, covered with a mat to cushion us. I go first, since I finish my Ice Pop first. There's two wooden handles - one on each side - representing the saddle you can hold when you jump. The horse is pretty high, so since some people can't do it, they would use a black tag as their stirrup, or a step stool. Proud to say, I used neither. If you jump high enough, swing your leg, and grab the handle on the other side (you start holding the handle on your side), you can hold on until you can scramble up to fix yourself. There, the teacher had us make a pose, and stand up. Then, you lift one foot over the handles so both your legs are on the same side and slide/jump down. Once I was done with Training, my whole class went to our room and gathered our stuff. The Photography and Drama teachers came soon to start calling the names for Kiss and Ride. As I exit the humongous Mulford Mansion, my feet are sore, I'm hot from the sun, tired from walking and hungry from the exercise, yet I can't wait for tomorrow!
*Ice Pops are a type of popsicle without a stick that's in a tube of plastic so you can just drink it out. Everyone in my group so far has gotten at least one (so nobody is left out: Just some people might get more than others) if not two or three or five :)