The beginning of our round trip - foggy San Francisco

I managed to pack my stuff, which took me very long time. I told bye to my friends (btw. even to John and Tim, with who I had an argument couple days ago) and could head to Omaha to stay in my friend's house over night and in the morning fly through Las Vegas to San Francisco.

So, that's the crack, as the Irish with who are we traveling would say. We (5 Czechs + 3 Irish + one British) spent three days in San Francisco and tonight we are staying in our friend's house in Davis near Sacramento. Rudy is our Dutch friend who studied with us in fall semester in Lincoln and for the spring semester he moved to California to finish his study abroad with studying at University of California, Davis.

What to say about San Francisco? I can't get rid of the comparison with Lisbon in Portugal. San Francisco is as Lisbon located on the hills, it's mostly white colored, there are riding the similar trams across the city and the city is lying on the coast of the ocean and is connected with opposite coast with long bridges exactly as Lisbon. Last but not least San Fran is much more European than other American cities. But what differs San Fran from Lisbon are fogs. There are there almost all the time. And the pride of SF - the Golden Gate Bridge is most of time covered by fog.

San Fran is liberal city. Much more liberal, than for example Nebraska, when I spent this year. In SF there is a big gay and lesbian community. They have here even their own part of the city - Castro. The freedom you can experience just when you are buying the alcohol - mostly they don't ask you for your ID, which would be in Nebraska unimaginable.

Lots of people are excited of living in San Francisco. I say, it's a beautiful city, but for me, it's something between American and European city. And why to make a compromise, when I can live either in American or European city? However, definitely I wanna come back one day...

So, what's the plan for upcoming days? Yosemite National Park, Death Valley, Sequoya Nat. Park... As soon as I get online I'll let you know how it's going...

Finally, done with the finals...

I had my last exam today. Spanish test was the last exam I took here at UNL. I'm so glad that's over. I mean my exams, not my stay here. For that I'm still kind of sad, even I start feeling that I have to move again. It was gorgeous year for me, but I'm ready to experience again something new. I'm ready for summer! And guess what? We are going to travel for almost three weeks.

California, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, prepare for us! Next Tuesday we are gonna jump out on you and start another adventure over there...

And just quick note for the end - my sickness is hopefully over. Just you to know ;)

Mystery of Mrazek pond revealed

I finally know the story of Mrazek pond! Mr.Wilcox, park ranger in Everglades National Park sent me the history of this small lake:

"Mrazek Pond was named for Vincent J. Mrazek, park ranger at Coot Bay Pond, and later a park naturalist for five years at Flamingo between 1962 and 1967. This pond was formally known as Barney’s Pond for Barney Parker, the first ranger at Everglades National Park."

So, now I know that unfortunately it wasn't named in honour of our relative so I can't request returning this gorgeous natural place back to my family ;). Anyway, it showed me even something more important - how are some people here nice and worry about others. When I was talking to some park ranger in Everglades and asking her about this place I really didn't expect that she is gonna ask another ranger and he will shoot me a mail with the history of this pond.

I just can't stop wondering what's going on here sometimes, every day some new surprise and learning... Have a great day and hopefully you will meet such helpful people as well.

Califronia is waiting for us...

Yosemite National Park

So we finally bought the air tickets to San Francisco today. Me, Czechs and 3 Irish guys are going to explore the beauties of San Francisco, California national parks, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Salt Lake City and Yellowstone National Park (and I probably forgot much more stuff ;)). It's gonna be a long trip while we are flying in 8th May and planing to stay there till 26 or 27th May.

I'll let you know the details of our trip later. And I'm finalizing my summer schedule, so hopefully I'll tell you the final version soon. However, it looks like I'm gonna stay in the U.S. for whole summer and maybe till September. So, who wanna see me before September, just come here, you are more then welcome ;) Have a great day!

Finally - all pictures from Spring break in FLORIDA

I finally found some time and upload the best pictures from our trip to Florida. There are a lot of pictures so take a rest for a while and imagine that you are in sunny and warm Florida. Enjoy and let me know how do you like the pics or share whatever else you wanna tell me ;) Looking forward on your feedback...

Confused what to do during the summer...

I have just one more month here and when my stay is coming to its end I'm getting more and more nervous and confused. I just don't wanna leave my friends, college and surprisingly Nebraska as well ;) But I know too that I have to leave and move to another life experience and adventure.

However, when I have this huge opportunity to be in the U.S. (and Czechs and other people who need visa to get to the States know what I'm talking about) I don't wanna leave so soon and I wanna stay here at least for this summer. It's not so easy, because I need to get internship or some work to prolong my visa otherwise I have to leave one month after my current visa expires (at the end of classes - May 4th). And believe me, it's not so easy to get the qualified internship here, especially for foreigners. I applied for some internships, but unfortunately not for many (time is just thing which I miss here ;)) so I start loosing my ideals to get internship for summer in advertising agency, which would be my dream work. I got great interest in advertising after my arrival here and advertising became my major here. Most of my classes are advertising classes...

Another possibility for me to stay here is to go work to kids camps. Two friends offered me that I can go work with them there. To one camp to work like help staff and to another one to be children counselor (which could be probably better, because it's maybe better work, I would have weekends off, it's close to New York; but on the other side this work starts in the middle June which is kind of late and I don't know what I would do here till this time...).

I would like to travel for a while to Washington to work on my bachelor thesis (hopefully I'll write my thesis about American visa policy towards new members of the European Union). I talked to our ambassador Jaroslav Kurfurst who I met here in Nebraska (I posted about it here) and he could help me to find some cheap accommodation and give contacts for some people I could talk to about it...

However, after classes end I wanna travel for a while. It looks that we could go to California and then through Utah to Wyoming to Yellowstone park. So cross your finger for us to manage it ;)

And what are you planning for the summer?

At John&Tim's home - Harvard in Nebraska

So here are some pics from great weekend in Harvard. I'm very happy that my friends brought me with them and showed me their home. Nice to experience family atmosphere after a long time ;)

Me and whole Turnquist family

Tim trying to show how he likes his mom ;)

Dad walking on the roof...

Tim inside of the very nice house...

The house from the front side

Back side of the house

Cat aren't definitelly the favourite animals at Turnquists' house...

They are always behind the "wiener dog" ;)

The dog didn't love me so much, he just does it to everybody ;)

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...