Getting to know real Nebraska countryside and American family life

So, I got off Lincoln for the weekend and went with my twin friends Tim and John to visit their home. They live in Harvard, small town with about 1000 people living here and it's about 70 miles far away from Lincoln. Nothing big is going on here, but it's nice place to live in - kind of quiet but with community life and people knowing each other.

Anyway, it's very nice that my friends brought me with them and enabled me to have a look like the American family life looks like ;) So I've talked to their mom and dad who are both very nice and played with their cute wiener dog. Tonight we are going to close larger city called Hastings to have a dinner and just hang around. So nothing so special, just chilling out after this stressing week.

Btw now I'm in the computer room at Harvard's high school and the whole building looks like the typical high school from American movies ;) Cool experience. Thanks for that!

Have a great weekend...

New Robitschek scholars selected - Congratulations!!!

So, that's it, the sad time for us, the current Robitschek scholars and the time full of excitement for new people. We have to leave and new four people will come. This Monday were the new scholars for year 2007/2008 announced.

Dominika, Mariana, Jakub and Tomas congratulations!!! You can looking forward to year which you never forget about. New people, new country, new culture, new collage... But without your family and old friends. However, you have here the support of three great people, our advisors - Carmen, Alan and Larry.

It's my pleasure that one person of these four is from Brno, my lovely college city and accidentally from the same faculty as I am - Faculty of Social Studies. Other three are from Prague.

I'm kind of jealous that you have this awesome experience ahead, but I wish you all the best. Enjoy your time here as you can and if you have any questions just let me know...

Czech Ambassador Dr. Jaroslav Kurfurst in Lincoln

This guy was very nice. We talked to him for almost hour about visa problematics, our impressions of America and a lot of other stuff. He wasn't cold and diplomatic typical diplomat at all ;)

Nice tradition - Czech Queens

Me and Lincoln Czech Queen

And this is the Czech Queen of whole Nebraska that represents Nebraska in competition of all Czech Queens from all around the U.S. (and next to her Czech King of Nebraska ;))

This time we didn't have to work and we enjoyed to be served...

We were invited by this lady. She still speaks very good Czech and is excited about Czech Republic and Czechs especially ;)

Banquet of the Czech Language Foundation in Nebraska - 100 years in Nebraska!!!

It's very nice to be Czech in Nebraska. As there are around 10% people with Czech heritage here, they are still very interested in the Czech Republic (but mostly they still think of it like Czechoslovakia). This week there was Czech week on campus. They released Czech movies (Dobry vojak Svejk, Cesky sen), had some presentation about living in the Czech Republic and the Czech Beer festival where you could drink Czech beers (Pilsner Urquell, CzechVar - American brand of Budweiser Budvar, Kozel, Radegast).

Today, the Czech week ended with the Czech Language Foundation banquet. This foundation supports the teaching of Czech at University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Otherwise, there couldn't be any classes of Czech without this support and private donors. However, there weren't just stuff related to this foundation. We saw some music performance, Folk Dance Presentation - one couple in traditional Czech costume (kroj) danced Polka, but the did it very well in way I haven't seen it before.

For the celebration of Czech heritage came to Lincoln Jaroslav Kurfurst, ambassador from Czech Embassy in Washington. He had very good presentation about Czech-American Relations and had couple right points. I wanna pinpoint especially one - when I see this enthusiastic people trying to keep their Czech heritage and it's traditions and when I see all the stuff they do, I'm really PROUD TO BE CZECH!!!

Boat trip in Everglades - Florida

Because we had just one day for Everglades National Park we couldn't do canoeing as we firstly wanted. But we pick alternative possibility - to drive through Florida water canals and see cost by boat. It was relaxing, just sitting on the boat and look around at mangroves and random crocodiles swimming around. However, with kind of boring guide retired woman and German tourist around, it wasn't so excited as it could be. But still, we enjoyed great Everglades nature beauty.

From here we set sail...

Eva and Lucy with random German models-tourists.

Our truly international travelling group - German girl Tabea and Czechs Lucy, Eva and me...

From water canal to the lake-sea.

This one we wanted to do firstly - canoeing.

Mangroves all around.

Everglades - it's crocodiles and alligators all around you...

Alligators and crocodiles in Everglades - Florida

One of the largest attractions in Everglades are crocodiles and alligators. While many people don't differ between these two species there is kind of big difference. Crocodiles live in sea and salty water near to coast of Florida and they are quite rare. There are not many of these unique animals left in Florida. The better situation is with alligators that live in freshwater areas of Florida. There is also difference in teeth of these animals. However, I'm not so good at biology so if you are interested go here.

This is our first crocodile. He waited on us just couple meters far away from Visitor center...

And I guess here start alligators. Correct me if I'm wrong, I didn't study it so much ;)

This one is like a pet. But still I wouldn't pet him at all...

I wouldn't like to fall down to this pond...

Alligators, birds and who know what else in Everglades in Florida

Everglade National Park is on of the most beautiful parts of Florida. Known for its alligators, crocodiles and birds population is unique collection of animals and plants. We arrived to Everglades in the night and kind of afraid of building our tent in the middle of unknown country full of alligators drove to a campground in the south Everglades. Fortunately in the camp there were many people and for the first look no alligators. So, we could build our quality tent from Wall mart for $50...

Next day it was nice weather, sunny and warm as every day of our stay in Florida. So we went to explore beauty of Everglades...

Mangroves are most typical plant in Everglades which is a swamp originally. "Walking Trees" have roots in the water and there are couple of species of mangroves.

And on the mangroves there are some weird kind of plants related to pineapple...

In Everglades there are different kind of birds...

We of course met some alligators, took a boat ride in Everglades canals and much more. Look forward on pictures tomorrow...

I'm back from the Spring break - trip to Florida

After 10 days I'm back in chilly Lincoln. We had awesome time in our round trip around Florida. We enjoyed the sun, ocean, beaches, Florida cities, national parks, Sea World, Kennedy Space Center and much more. Unfortunately, it was so exhausting that I'm not able to write it all to you now. So, this is just the beginning and much more you can read tomorrow.

Well, another reason why I don't have time right now is that I'm going to Downtown Lincoln to some bars, because there is a St. Patrick's Day celebration, the large drinking day. So I can't miss to be there and see it. But just for a while, I promise ;)

So here is a little taste of Florida. Stay tuned for tomorrow.

There were a lot of palms, sun and sand beaches...

I didn't know that I have some relatives (my last name is Mrazek) in Florida and that they are pretty rich. We have our own pond with one alligator and couple birds over there :-D

Who was stronger, me or the alligator? To be continued...

And what did we see on the horizon? Stay tuned...