Staying in Sanremo and Training for
camp at Blue Beach
Before I start, I want to confess to being a crap blogger and not posting in MONTHS. I lost my mojo sometime around Christmas and I think I saw it peeping behind the curtain earlier, so, lets see how this goes. I'll try not to bore you with loads of info!
Sanremo was the next destination for Louise and I. It is a city on the coast of northern Italy which is really near to the border of France. Before I went there I had never heard of it, but apparently it is quite the tourist destination! It holds a huge music festival each year which I've heard is pretty good.
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| Flatmates and fellow tutors |
We
spent one glorious week in Sanremo and another in Blue Beach, which is a lovely town very nearby which we moved to after our week in Sanremo for training to prepare us for camp. (In case you're only just joining my journey here, go check out my introductory post in which I explain what the hell we were doing gallivanting round Italy for six weeks.)
To cut a long story short, LSF made some changes to dates but we had already booked flights and hostels around our Sanremo dates. This meant that we shared a flat which was provided by the company we were working with, Lingue Senza Frontiere, with four other girls from the UK. They were all awesome and we hit it off straight away- especially after the first beaut night drinking vino together!
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| Our lovely little flat |
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| B-e-a-utiful church |
We
spent the week laying in the sunshine, visiting the beach, sightseeing, having
a laugh and going to the local bars at night. I actually spent a whole day in
bed after one of these aforementioned nights in the bar which was a bit of a
shame.. but it was a bloody good night! And Louise was there to cook me fried
potatoes and Nesquik as I nursed my terrible hangover, so it wasn't all bad I
guess!
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| The night that ruined me. Terrible quality, soz |
One
evening, after another night at the bar, our fellow male trainee
camp tutors came back to our
place for more drinks. After a while, it appeared that we had two scary Italian police officers banging down the door. I couldn't believe what was happening.
Turns out, the neighbours complained about the noise coming from our flat, so
there we were, staring blankly at two cross Italian coppers! They woke up the rest of
the girls, even though they weren't involved in the ruckus, and asked
everyone for their passport numbers! This scared us ALL to death because, 1: we
were all there to teach children and needed clean records; 2: The company could get in trouble and 3: We needed our passports
to get home! It turns out, this is just a formality in Italy and isn't
something to be particularly worried about. Somehow, in my half drunken state I
managed to use my Italian skillz
enough to sort it all and dig my panicky companions out of trouble. Might pop that one on the CV.
A
few days after this little altercation, it was time for us all to move to Blue
Beach resort, where we were staying for the next week whilst completing our training
for camp.
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| Swimming pool fun feat. Me, Chloe, Emily, Lottie, Louise |
Our
time at Blue Beach was indescribably AWESOME! Let's just say, the first things
we saw were the resort swimming pool
and the sea which was about 35ft from
our rooms. We all got straight into the pool and became acquainted with the
other guys and girls who were going to be training with us. We had the weekend
to chill and lay by the pool, then on Monday hardcore training started. So
before the early mornings began, we went to the beach each night and 'enjoyed'
a few €1.50 bottles of Carrefour wine.
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| Evening on the beach. Spot the cheap wine.... |
The truth is, we weren't only there to sun ourselves silly and have a wicked
holiday; we were there to prepare ourselves for our week of teaching Italian
children at an English summer camp. Training began bright and early on Monday
morning and we all met in the training area which I can only describe as a
dusty mosquito haven. Our camp trainers
soon wiped our 'we're too cool for this' attitudes away when they presented us
with the first song circle of training. Song circle is when we all come
together each morning and several times throughout the day, and sing the songs
we were going to teach the kids at camp. All I can say now, is that I wish I
could still do song circle every single day during normal life because it's
just so much fun!!
Training also
consisted of teaching us all the games and teaching techniques that we would
use at camp, as well as performing other tasks that would be of use to us. One
of these tasks was to re-write Happy by Pharrell Williams in a group in SEVEN
minutes and come up with a dance, too. Of course, my team were brill and we
won!
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| Maeve and Olivia, camp tutors in training! |
During
lunch breaks and after training, we were free to do whatever we liked, so I
mostly spent this time loving life in the pool! Some days, during training we
were required to plan our individual lessons for camp. This could be done
wherever we liked: by the pool, in our rooms, in the mosquito pit, in the
basement (for delicate skinned Louise) or on the beach, where I was found doing
everything BUT planning. Norty. But not that norty, if that's what you're thinking. Sickos.
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| Fun times in the mosquito pit with Tom |
Whilst
staying at Blue Beach for training, we were provided with our accommodation and
food which was brilliant! So each day we would all head down to the cantina for
our food and eat together, in true Italian style. One evening, we had a BBQ by
the pool accompanied by a live saxophonist, which was lovely. Everybody was dressed up nicely for it, and I had on
my pristine white dress. It was really lovely of the pool guy to bring us round
glasses of sangria, however having a whole tray of it dropped over me was not
so brilliant. In a white dress. The
poor man clearly felt really bad and gave me a bottle of wine on the house
which I thoroughly enjoyed after I had successfully washed the purple stain out
of my dress!
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| What an AWESOME bunch! |
On
our last night of training, we all headed up the mountain to a town called Bussana
Vecchia. It is a former ghost town which was abandoned many years ago due to an
earthquake. A bunch of artists and hippies moved there and repopulated the
area, and now people live there very simply. The place we went to shows this by
providing food and drink for visitors like us and only asks for any donations
to keep them going. It was a really nice place to visit on our last night, as
we enjoyed their homemade wine and very strange conversations with men with no
shoes and extremely long beards. I really want to return to this intriguing place one day, and I hope it retains its special-ness.
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| Going our separate ways for camp! |
The
next day, we had to be up at the crack of dawn to leave for camp! We had all
been split apart because the camps were located in different areas all over northern Italy. Louise and I were
off to Cremona with three other tutors and we were going to be in charge of a
camp of about 60 children.
On
the train to Cremona we put on our camp T shirts so that our host families who
were waiting at the station would know who we were. It all got very real in
that moment and I remember looking at Louise and saying "don't really
fancy this anymore!" But we got on with it and soon fell into the arms of our
host mothers as they waited excitedly for us on the platform!
To
see how we got on living with a host family and at camp in Cremona, keep a look
out for my next post :)
A
presto!
Olivia
xx
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