Over the weekend I got to spend some time with Becky Jacobson and Karen Sharir, and they told me all about their recent artistic collaboration…

Becky J had to write a  “Collaborative Recipe Poem”, meaning she had to write a poem with a partner, and the poem had to read like a recipe. Becky asked Karen to assist her with the creative piece, and the result is nothing short of masterful. The girls drew inspiration from the movie, Wet Hot American Summer (a camp counselor favorite!) and I laughed out loud the first time I read it. If you know the WHAS movie, you will be surprised to see just how many references the girls were able to squeeze in to their poem…

Recipe for a Wet Hot American Summer

Cleanse Arty the beekeeper and set aside,
Barbecue a crowned class B dungeon master —
let simmer in a thin sauce of hygienic products.
Add some arts and farts and crafts.

Dice up a talent show and be sure to leave the baggage and attitude at the door,
Because we don’t need it.
Fry it in a pan of “fondue with cheddar.”
Juice the deepest thoughts from your gournal.

Then take some “hey” from before and add it to the mix,
Throw in some dance belts, lycras, et.al. seriously.

Take Arty and his fake summer romance that didn’t even happen,
and spread evenly throughout the hundreds of colored markers.
Add One cup of determination to get McKinley loved.

Blend everything together in one huge piece of the space station coming towards Earth.

Before you put it all in the oven make sure to get the lower camp kids out of the ropes course,
I meant to tell you about that yesterday.

Toss it in the oven and make it your beeswax to get it out at 9:30 to see what it has blossomed into.

If you follow the directions exactly, almost all of your campers should make it out in one piece,
except for the few who are lepers.

But this tastes like burger so I don’t like it anymore.

Have you ever used a camp joke, or the general theme of camp, as inspiration for an assignment or creative piece? If so, email it to me at cara@canadensis.com and I’ll be sure to post it for everyone to enjoy!

Other than the usual weekend dinner with camp friends, life has been business as usual, only it seems that the days are flying by faster than ever, and I truly feel as though I’m going to wake up tomorrow and be leaving for Pre-Camp. I have been coming up with some crazy ideas for camp activities and craft projects over the last few weeks, so I’m really excited to start working on translating my ideas into reality as this month goes on. Here’s one project that Karen and I will be starting:

Recycled Artwork!

This piece is made entirely of recycled materials, mostly magazines and old canvases, and it’s going to be so cool to create our own!

Well, I hope everyone is excited for the arrival of a new month, another month closer to camp, and that all of our Philadelphia/Cherry Hill area campers and friends will be coming out to join us for Canteen on the Fly this Sunday!

Got a question for Eric? Send your questions to JCal@Canadensis.com and we’ll get them to Eric for answers. Thanks again for everyone that has been participating. All questions are worth 1 point. Good Luck!

Welcome to the 2010 Camp Director Fair in Kiev, Ukraine! As some of you may recall, the past 5 years I have traveled to Moscow and some years also St. Petersburg , Russia in addition to many other Eastern European countries. (I can’t reveal the itinerary just yet so you can keep playing along!)

Anyway, this is my first time in Kiev, Ukraine and the first time our wonderful agency, CCUSA, has taken us to Ukraine. It is a wonderful city with lots to offer. In my limited time here so far, it seems that Ukraine is a bit more modernized and the people seem friendly so far. Last night, I had the unique opportunity to go a Jewish synagogue and participate in Friday night Shabbat services. Upon walking in, it was almost like going to a temple in the US! This one was orthodox, so it’s definitely more Hebrew than I am used to, but once I found the page (which admittedly took about 3-4 minutes!) I participated in the services. Because this weekend is also the Jewish holiday of Purim, the services were extra festive and after one prayer the men marched around the synagogue about 20 times singing and clapping. I of course stood to the side, but for one rotation around I got dragged out there! Trust me, when I walked back past my seat after that, I hid the rest of the time!

Otherwise, today is the Ukraine hiring fair. Over 200 applicants will be walking through the door hoping to secure a job at a summer camp this summer. There are about 25 camp directors here representing their camps. Of course anyone who doesn’t get hired here in person, can still get placed at any of the over 1,000 camps our CCUSA Agency works with who haven’t flown over here.

One final note: I often get asked why do I bother flying all the way around the world to hire our staff? Besides the fun and vacation (haha, j/k), there is a tremendous value (in my opinion) to meeting our staff in person. From our counselors in Australia to our kitchen/laundry/maintenance staff in Eastern Europe, meeting our staff in person means we will get the BEST staff for the BEST SUMMER EVER! All of our staff are extremely important to running such a successful camp and by flying over here and meeting them in person, it shows our staff that we value them and want them to succeed at Canadensis.

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the snow. Ironically, we have less snow in Ukraine than you have in NY/NJ/PA!

I hope everyone is enjoying their SNOW DAYS. We are happy to again be receiving all the great Canadensis Snowmen pictures! If you make a snowman or have some winter fun pictures to share email them to jcal@canadensis.com and we’ll post them on the blog! Have a great weekend and remember to continue to check my twitter, www.twitter.com/whereisforti. Also, for every snowman picture we receive it’s an additional 2 points in the Where in the World is Eric Forti Contest.

No, I haven’t had a hot chocolate from the world’s best chocolate shop here in Poland yet, but hopefully in a few hours!

Good morning from Warsaw, Poland! Right now we are having our staff hiring fair and I have hired 4 wonderful staff members! Maryla and Mateusz will be working in our kitchen and Sandra and Ageta in our laundry/housekeeping department! All 4 are so excited to travel to the US and Maryla promised that she will make Russian pierogies (potato and onion- no meat for Robin) and Wedel hot chocolate. Wedel is the chocolate shop I blog about every year here in Warsaw. They have the world’s best chocolate hands down and the hot chocolate (also called “drinking chocolate”) is literally a chocolate bar melted into a glass. Hopefully I will leave this fair in the next hour and run to the mall next store for a hot chocolate! Tonight we are doing an evening tour of “old Warsaw” pre-communism times. Should be interesting.

It's always good to follow up a hot chocolate with the WW, Wedel's version of a KitKat (like 10x better than a kit kat!)

The flights over were fairly uneventful. We were delayed a bit leaving Newark, which worked in our favor because Randy from another camp coming in from Boston was quite delayed, but she made it in the nick of time. Flight was about 8 hours and I slept about 3.5-4 hours of the flight. We arrived for a 5-hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany where we walked around a bit, checked some email, and played Spit (cards). 2 hours later we arrived in Warsaw.

If you haven’t yet checked out the twitter (www.twitter.com/whereisforti), we flew with a double silver medalist in Ski Jumping from Poland. He was returning from Vancouver with his coaches, trainers, and the rest of his team. It was real exciting when we landed and there was a large reception waiting for him. Of course, I naturally thought the tv news cameras/photographers were for the Camp Directors who flew all the way to Poland to hire wonderful Polish students, but I was wrong.

Otherwise, back tracking to last weekend, special thanks to all of the families who came to our first annual (can I tell people that we will be doing this annually??!!) Canteen on the Fly. It was a HUGE success, seeing tons of families in Long Island and North Jersey. Our Syosset location at the Carvel turned into a block party with families inside and outside. Everyone was talking camp- stories of camp, catching up on what they do to pass the time between summers, and everything else. There were alot of camper reunions there. Also, a bunch of future Canadensis campers (hopefully!) stopped by to learn more about Canadensis. What better way than seeing other kids their age interacting with all of their camp friends. So, thank you to everyone who went out of the way and rearranged their schedule to stop by. Special mention of Ilene Calabretta (jaycal’s mom who doesn’t get enough shoutouts) as well as Matt Unger’s parents who all stopped by Carvel. It was great to see all of you!

If all this talk about canteen on the fly excites you, but you missed out on it, don’t despair because Canteen on the Fly is making it’s way to the Philly area on Sunday, March 7! We will be in Cherry Hill late morning, the mainline in the early afternoon, and Newtown in the late afternoon. So, we hope to see you at ones of those locations!

Well that’s all from here in Warsaw, Poland. Time for a hot chocolate- my mouth is watering, but weight watchers is telling me no!!!! Keep checking the twitter for tons of updates and clues for my next destination soon!

I am flying out tomorrow to our next location- destination UNKNOWN:)

UPDATE: Eric got his Hot Chocolate and chocolate bar!

Here is a video of Eric from last year’s trip from Warsaw getting his favorite Chocolate

Where in the World is Eric Forti Round 3 has begun! Late this afternoon Eric jetted off to his next Destination. Throughout the next 2 WEEKS Eric will be posting new clues on his twitter page and on the blog. Make sure to check both daily and send your answers to CONTEST@CANADENSIS.COM.

If you haven’t participated in the first 2 rounds don’t worry, it’s not too late to start playing! GOOD LUCK!

WWW.TWITTER.COM/WHEREISFORTI

We had so much fun yesterday at our 3 stops on our Canadensis Canteen trip to Long Island and North Jersey. Here are a few pictures from the event. Will post more throughout the day. Thanks to everyone who came out!

Please scroll down to check our more information from camp as the blog has been updated EVERYDAY this week with new stuff!