I spent ten months in USA as an exchange student in 2006-2007 and had a great time. This was mostly due to the amazing host family I had and thus as we were planning our RTW trip it was quite obvious that we'd have to stop by to see them. It just so happened that our schedule took us there in the beginning of July when the country was celebrating its independence day. My old host family invited us to join the festivities by taking us to the same campground I visited with them a couple of times eight years ago. Once again they showed their guests a great time and made us feel truly welcome.

Our trip to Portland from Lima took more than 24 hours but we weren't too tired after it so we walked to see my old school from behind the fences. That brought back a lot of memories, nearly all of them good. The weather was hot, apparently reaching as high as 100 Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius) and it remained so for the next few days. We shopped for some new clothes to wear, not wanting to look like a couple of budget travelers anymore. This also meant buying some glue to attempt to put my cheap sneakers back together… After a good night's sleep we woke well rested and started getting ready for a weekend of camping. They say everything is bigger in America and apparently camping is no exception since we drove there in a 31 feet long RV equipped with such goodies as a reclining couch facing a 42 inch flat screen television. After we arrived in our destination the thing transformed itself into a fully equipped apartment, sprouting out additional extensions towards the sides and widening the living room into huge proportions.

At camp we were joined by both of the family's daughters and their families, not all of whom spent nights there. There was still plenty going around all the time. Sini and I entertained ourselves by trying to play baseball in between numerous hearty meals. In a very American way hamburgers were on the menu daily, and we got our fair share of hot dogs, enchiladas and s'mores as well. The weather was still extremely hot and thus we spent a lot of time at the nearby river floating on tubes. 4th of July was eventually celebrated in a very calm way with the major activity of the day being the annual bingo at the campsite. In six consecutive rounds of bingo six boxes full of donated prices were handed out to those lucky enough to claim them. The estimated value of the goods was no less than $3800! Even more impressive was the follow-up game of "blackout", in which the victor was the one who first filled his or her bingo sheet to the last square. Two rounds were played and in both the price was a solid $1000 cash, split between the winners if there were many. On the second round I came within two numbers, but that was still too far…

We only spent two nights at camp, but had a great time none the less. It was great to get together with the old host family once more and to see what had changed and what had not. Eight years is a long time, but everything still seemed surprisingly familiar. Sini enjoyed meeting the gang too for the first time after hearing so much about all of them. Sadly out of the five dogs the family used to have only one was enjoying camp with us. He had gotten a little grey faced but still had most of his old spirit.

After returning to the city we went to pick up our rental RV from Portland, but I'll go over that in another post to leave space for something far more important. In 2007 I attended eleven home games of the local minor league baseball team called the Volcanoes. I was there when they won the regional championship. They happened to be playing at the Volcanoes Stadium while we were in town again, so we just had to go see if they still had the edge. After our hosts had refused to let us pay for anything we were finally able to give something back by buying them tickets also. We had a good time watching the game, which the Volcanoes ended up winning 4-3. It goes without saying that baseball is probably the most boring popular sport there is but still it is not without a certain charm. Admittedly the game can become somewhat monotonous when inning after inning no-one manages to make it to second base, but as one sits there watching it the reasons to do so become clear. You just have to watch because at any given time someone can hit a homerun, as the Volcanoes did pretty much twice in a row. It is also a question about personal safety because the next player batting had a somewhat flimsy grip on things and happened to toss his bat into the audience. The heavy projectile bounced off the roof of the visitors' dugout and was quite calmly caught by a kid sitting in the first row. He had to return his price but was immediately rewarded with another bat, a ball and a great round of applause.

Catching a bat in a baseball game is rare but there are plenty of misplaced balls to go around. We didn't manage to collect any of those either, nor the T-shirts they were tossing into the audience at one point. The only things we were able to grab were a bag of peanuts, a corndog and a monstrous hotdog called "Killer Kielbasa". The last one was just as huge as I remembered and a good thing too since it cost $10 when I asked them to fill it with everything they had. It was messy eating… But to me that was one of the points of going to a baseball game, in addition to being allowed to throw empty peanut shells on the floor for someone else to clean up. It's Americas favorite pastime and we were rapidly beginning to immerse ourselves deeper and deeper into the American way of life. With a month more to go there's no telling how deep we'll get ourselves into…