The Return

Well, I am back home from camp. Good ol' Burlington Ontario...Very lackluster when compared with Ottawa and all of the wonderful things and places I saw, but whatever, that is a good problem to have (I suppose, it sure doesn't feel like it). Also, excuse the writing. Sleep has been a rarity.

Anyways, as I wrote before I left, I said that upon my return I would write a post summarizing my trip. Sure enough, for the first few days of my stay in Ottawa my brain was slowly concocting ideas and jokes about what such a post would be like. After all, I would see so much during that single week, how could my blog post fail to be interesting?. The list is indeed impressive. I saw the questioning period during the House of Commons (or something like that), where the room resembled more of a group of monkeys hurling poop at each other rather than the leaders of this country debating (it was quite the spectacle). I visited the Canadian War Museum, went to the CBC radio-television location in Montreal for a mock radio show (again, something like that), and spent a morning in downtown Ottawa in the Redeau Center and prowling the streets in search of a bakery. I learned more about my country's history, and most importantly learned about the provinces and territories and their inhabitants, who are responsible for making this great land what it is. I also discovered the beauty and importance of French, which I will now focus my efforts towards so that I may become bilingual, and through a series of mixed English and French along with ridiculous hand gestures, I was able to communicate (somewhat) with the amazing Canadians from Quebec; something that would have otherwise been impossible (except they all speak English because they are true Canadians so we would have been fine anyways). Overall, at times I was humbled, touched, thankful, amused, sad, proud...Or almost any other emotion possible, it seemed.



But I will not write an intensive and detailed blog post about the camp. I thought I would as mentioned above, write a hilarious and detailed post about my experience, but that was only for the first little while. Then, as the days began to pass and the nervousness wore off and I became used to the environment ( which included mastering the art of showering with never touching the floor barefoot... Difficult when your flip flops are too small!), I realized just how grateful and happy I was to be surrounded by such amazing people. Naturally, the realization then hit me that such a week could and would not last, and that we would all pack and return home by the end.

And it is the immense dread that I experienced whenever I thought about Saturday and my departure that keeps me from writing some cheap trip-review esque post. I tried to avert the thought, or to force it from my head, but to no avail. I woke up on Friday at 6:30 and proceeded to stay awake for nearly 40 hours, all so that I would not miss or waste one of the minutes I had left. It was time well spent, but all things must come to an end, as they say.

I am simply too sad and miss the camp too much to spend time trying to recreate an indescribable week with words on a blog seldom stumbled upon. Nothing I write can give justice to what I experienced this past week of my life, and it is a feeling and appreciation that only the lucky hundred and two Canadian teens who attended the amazing week can relate to and understand. I have very few pictures to show anyways, and the ones I do have are of my friends, not of cityscapes or old, rusted monuments. It is the people I met and the friends I made who impacted and changed me, not a tour guide or radio session, and I would rather have a few pictures with them than a thousand of a city that will soon fade from my memory. To those I met on the trip, I thank you deeply. I was blessed enough to spend a week with you, and I will remember and cherish the memories forever. Adieu, until our paths cross again (which they undoubtedly will).

-Tom