Scout Jamboree USA 2024

USA ZLOT

My mum wakes me up at 12:00 am she says its time I’m like all tired I’m like “What??” and my mum says to me “you need to get up the plane won’t be waiting for you, will it?” and after I realised that it’s the day, the day I finally fulfil my dream of when I was a kid!  

I get dressed into my camo jacket my camo trousers and my mum drives me to Maciek’s house and when we arrive there was a mini bus were there was a line of scouts from Perth boy scouts and girl scouts and I realise that Maciek is wearing full camo like me so I sat next to him on the “bus” I turn on my phone and I open sound cloud, then open my playlist my polish weekend (my actual playlist name). Maciek tells me that my music is too loud, and I showed him the reason “my headphones were wired plus they were made in 2016 by Samsung a.k.a. earbuds 6 edge plus” so that is why my headphones are so loud I mean not loud but not very soundproof.

“Any way continuing on about the story,” when we arrived at Edinburgh airport, we waited for like 30 minutes which is not that long to get into the line to British airlines to Hithe row in London. So when we passed security and that we were in the waiting area we had 1hour and 30 minutes, so I was partnered up with Dawid (David but spelled in Polish), so me and Dawid do have a little back story so we don’t really get along so well, so we sat down in the waiting area and ate the food from our bags that we prepared the day before. He finally stood up and said “Przemek come on I’m thirsty and Druch Simon (Edinburgh) said we have to stay in twos, so I stand up and we wonder off into the airport looking for a shop with food and drinks so I bought us a Gatorade for Dawid and a Toffee late Starbucks coffee and we go back to the waiting area happy with our purchases and everyone changes to a different area so we go there and the second we get there our gate to our flite opens and we had to stand up again luckily we went in fast into the plane, and I sat next to Victor And Szymon (Glasgow) again, on the plane we got a long blue blanket and a white stuffed pillow. The flight was 7 hours and 45 minutes.

When we landed in New York we went through security again they asked me where I was staying at, and I answered trying not to smile “Camp Raven Knob.” After he told me to go I went to get my bag, and I was greeted with a massive American flag hanging from the ceiling, after we left we found our coach and Szymon (Edinburgh) said we have 30 minutes to go to shops in the airport and me and my friends; Marcel p, Maciek, and Marcel . As we went in the airport we went to Dunkin doughnuts, and we bought a mango and pineapple drink, and marcel bought a kiwi and strawberry drink I tried both considering I am allergic to kiwi.

So, after we left the airport again, we entered the coach and we drove to our hostel called YMCA on the west side of New York, when we went off the coach our bags were all in a single file leaning off the wall of our hostel. We all take our bags, and we go into a small hall where we all sit down with our friends, the people started shouting out our names checking if we are all here. After they checked if we are all here, they started calling out groups of twos, threes and even fours, and gave them the cards to their rooms. Finally, they called my name and my friend Cornels name, we got our card to our room. OUR ROOM WAS ON THE 17^TH FLOOR! We were shocked, we heard that there’s stairs somewhere, but we were not bothered walking up all those stairs, so we took the lift (Elevator) instead, because it would be faster any way. So, after me and Kornel got of the lift (elevator) we looked for our room we walked down the corridor and turned right and took a few steps and we found our room as I tapped my card on the reader our door opened, we looked inside and there was a bunkbed a desk a lamp and a little tv hanging in the wall (that barely worked 🙁). So, me and Cornel decided who sleeps were, I decided to sleep on the bottom and Cornel on top, so after we decided who slept were, everyone from the UK scouts had to go down to the main hall.

 Druch Szymon (Edinburgh) he said to everyone to make groups of 5, so me and Kornel were looking for a three to join but we found a small group of 2 people (Oliwier and Filip), which both were from Glasgow, so we started to look for our last person and we found Mikolaj. They told us that we are going in groups to Time Square (we had 1 and a half hours) to go with our groups and have dinner, so my group went to Mcdonalds, and we bought a meal deal (a.k.a. the cheapest thing on the menu). So, me and Kornel tried to go up but the stairs the security stopped us, he asked if we bought food we said “yes, but our friends are waiting in the

line” the security guy said, “what friends?” so me and Kornel pointed at Filip and Oliwier while shouting for their names and the security guy walked up to them and asked “Are these boys with you?” and they agreed, so the guy let us up, me and Kornel finally went upstairs and looked for a seat but it was crowded, but eventually we found seats for our group plus we found another group, but I only spoke with Marcel and before the rest of the group  marcel and his group left. When my group came with our food we quickly ate because they were waiting in line for the food. After we finished our food, we went to a gift shop to look at magnets. So, after we finished looking and Oliwier bought himself something we went outside to go to the place where we were supposed to meet up. After we all got to the spot where we were supposed to meet up, we went back to the hostel. After me and Kornel went back to our room we unpacked and put all our valuables in the safe, and after a while we went to sleep.   

When I woke up at 5 am I started packing my things into my bag and I just watched a movie until Kornel woke up, he started packing his bag and after he finished, we went downstairs to put our bags to the place where we were supposed to drop it off. And we went down to the main hall, and we walked to a small ship, and we sailed off to the statue of liberty to take pictures of the statue and we went to the museum that was full of information about the statue of liberty and after we went to a Chinese restaurant and the food there was amazing and there I met Wemba and we became friends, and after the restaurant we went on a long walk to a place called the edge. And we had to be in groups of 4 and it was me, Wemba, Kornel and Kristoph and we split into 2, Kristoph and Kornel and me and Wemba and we went to the candy shop, and we bought ice cream, and after we went to the top of the tower for 1 hour. In the afternoon we came back to the hostel our coaches were waiting for us, and we had to bring our bags to the coaches and pack them in and we drove for 2 days to the border between America and Canada to Niagra falls it got so wet the ponchos that maid of the mist gave us are not waterproof and I came out the boat soaking and after we drove to a stop point at Walmart and me and Wemba bought a ton of cool aid which was funny and we went back on the coach and we drove for 2 hours and we made it to camp raven knob and we walked to our camp and we started our camp it was fun spending 2 weeks there our gate that we built was pretty cool and I met so many people from Canada, Australia, America and Irland and you know people from England. So, after camp finished, we went drove to Washington and we stayed in a nicer hostel, and we had to go in groups to have lunch and we went to subway and me, and my friends had a footlong cookie that had 1,600 calorie’s and after we finished eating, we came back to the coaches and we went to a game and watched American baseball. The next day and the last we went to the church and then we went to the Washington memorial, after we ran to the white house (because we had little time, and we had to go to the airport so then after we took our photos we speed walked to the hostel got on the coaches and we drove to the airport, and when we were waiting, we all realised that we are going on a double decker plane it was a long flight but time flew by fast and we landed at Heith Row, London. And we had to say goodbye to our friends from England, but we had to keep on going and we had to wait for our last flight to Edinburgh, this flight was fast 30 minutes to be exact.

So, when we landed, we had to pick up our bags and we finished the trip off with a song that we usally sing after any event.

David’s report:

Hello my name is David Pietrasik and thanks to your donation I was to participate in the polish scout jamboree 2024

Main activities were to build a gate and tower connected too each other while persevering the trees so only ropes that would take a couple hours through each day for 4 days. Just before lunch we would go to the lake nearby to go swimming almost everyday.

I wish I had pictures of the main place but my scout leader took our teams phones for the whole duration of the camping while all the other teams from all around the world had there’s which annoyed me allot But apart from that we learned some new knots some different stuff from different countries different chants different songs and church songs aswell we had mass on the weekends and like a assembly in this big colosseum which would over look some of the lake

Going of the teams from around the world there were over 1500 people there for the whole jamboree

Here are some of my favourite photos: