Berlitz Camps: The Beginning

If you haven´t heard yet, I got a job! I had sent my resume etc. to a company called Berlitz, which offers camps to kids (among other things) and required native english speakers to be teachers and camp counsellors. right up my alley! Lisa found the ad for me in a German magazine. Anyways, a week or so after I sent my resume they sent me an email asking me if I was available for the easter camps because they were short a few counsellors.... even though I hadn´t had the training yet. Of course, I took it, and oh WOW. Maybe I´ll just copy and paste an email I wrote to Donny about the experience:

CAMP WAS AMAZING. That's all. Norderney was beautiful, windy and sunny with sand dunes and we were right next to the water almost. We stayed in a youth hostel so it was much cleaner than a normal kids camp and the food was actually good although there were no vegetables. But the teachers have a lounge with a fridge so you can buy your own and keep them there... I bought yoghurt and honey, haha! The team was also really great, we all got along and were really able to support one another which is cool and apparently doesn't always happen. I also just loved hanging out with the kids all day and speaking english in response to a german question! That was cool.

Given that, it was friggin´hard work though. We had 54 kids to look after and the days were 16 - 18 hours long. We wake up at 7:00 to get the kids up for breakfast, then after that you teach for 90 minutes. Half hour break, then teach again for another 45 minutes. Lunch, then in the afternoon you teach/supervise either a sport (sandcastles, soccer, martial arts, yoga) or a workshop (painting mugs, decorating picture frames, working on magazine). In the other 90 minute block you can prepare for your lesson or catch up on sleep or whatever. Then dinner, and after dinner the evening activity (which you can also prepare during your "free time"). Kids are supposed to be in bed by 10 but they never are, and night watch is the worst thing known to me. You go to bed sometime betweeen 11pm and 1am and you're up again in another 7 hours.

I was super happy because the camp director Freia thought I was great! :D I asked her if being hired without training automatically meant that you would work for berlitz the whole summer, and she said "in your case it does!". She once told me over breakfast in front of all the other experience counsellors that she thought I was doing an amazing job, and I just seemed to fit into the team really well and enjoyed being around kids, and all the other counsellors were like "yea you've been doing a really excellent job" and I smiled so big I thought my cheeks would pull me up to the clouds. :o)
Wow, so yea. It's gonna be an awesome summer.

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