It’s been a while since I updated this thing :-) But finally, we got the internet working in our apartment and I actually had some time on the bus (when I was travelling to NYC) to think about what has happened during last 2 weeks…

In short, it’s very busy. Much more than I expected… I am working full-time now (actually, there some overtime hours almost daily) and since I am still trying to keep up with sports, I have no free time at all… And weeks are very short indeed, yet we (me and my summer colleagues) are quite good at making the most out of them!

I am sorry if I haven’t responded to your email or FB message, the number of unread items in my inbox has probably never been higher… But what the hell, it was actually quite refreshing to live offline for a while, and I think I might switch to that mode for the summer as there is something weird about literally living online 24/7 (read this piece from Economist magazine).

But the main reason I am kind of slacking with my responses is the fact that we were quite busy. The pool season is just about to start and the priority number one was to get every single pool through the inspection by Health Department ~ in other words, lot of work „in the field“ and just making sure that everything is compliant to the regulations and different counties’ requirements. And since we are managing 50+ pools in 7 counties, there is lot of driving involved (at least 100 miles on daily basis), which sometimes sucks as the traffic in DC area is f*cked up pretty much all the time.

I will write more about my job position and what I actually am/will be doing here during summer in a separate post. Not sure when, though :-)

I guess that should be enough for now. Here is just a couple of links to pictures of our trips/events we did during last two and half weeks:

• Baltimore trip before I started working. We went to see „my“ pool from last summer and also met the property manager of DeerTree community. He was quite excited to see me back :-)
• Peter Dent’s Memorial Game — sadly, just couple days before I arrived, the aquatics division manager passed away from  cancer (please support the LiveStrong foundation that I am we represented during last year’s HalfMarathon in Prague). His former college class mates put up a sports event that will become an annual traditon – rugby game. We went to see it, which was very interesting as it was the first rugby game I have ever seen… And after that, we joined a boat trip and dinner BBQ, which was organized by one of Peter’s best friends.
• Visit to Harper’s Ferry Historic Park (see official website). Just a short one-day trip with my friends, little bit of trail-walking and hot-dog eating, followed up by visiting outlets in Hagerstown.
• Another BBQ with my friends and bunch of property managers from around Silver Spring. It was very interesting to see people that we work with in a non-work environment and to see them in an entirely different way, if you know what I mean :-)
• NBA game — Washington Wizzards vs. Miami Heat. Even though Lebron James did not play, I had a blast and enjoyed the whole thing like a little kid. After all, my first visit to Verizon Center and my very first NBA game as well…

I put some pics on my Flickr, I will add more as soon as I finish editing them (and trust me, there is quite a lot of them ;-)!

So as you probably know, I am doing an internship in US right now and will stay here for almost 6 months . I have to admit — this is the longest I have ever stayed abroad. I am not really sure what to expect and what will change during my time here, but I definitely expect it to be a great experience in many ways… So far I cannot really write anything about my work – it’s been only a week after all.

If everything goes well, 2012 will be quite funny year for me. So far I have spent 3 months living in Sweden, then 10 days in Czech, and if everything goes according to the plan, by the end of September I will have spend 6 months in States… So all in all, 9 month out of 12 living abroad. Can it get any better? :)

No matter you what think, my opinion is that you are young only once and you’d better enjoy it as much as you can (till you can). And so you should do whatever you enjoy. In my case, it’s travelling, meeting new folks and just not caring about all the serious shit called career, family life etc. But do get me wrong, I will get there, eventually…

But I got a bit off topic.  My first days @ US. What they were like? Just plain AWESOME!

I decided to fly to NYC as the flights were a bit cheaper and mostly because of the fact that my cousin lives there. So I said to myself, how about Easter weekend in New York? Why the hack not :)

I got there quite late – the expected time of arrival to JFK airport was around 9pm (US time), but then you add 2 more hours for immigration check-up, half an hour till you actually get to the train and then more than 75min long subway ride to Manhattan… All in all, it took me longer to get from JFK to my cousin’s place than to fly from Prague to Warsaw. But eventually, all was good, we stayed up quite late and hit the bed around 4am (≈ 10 am Prague time), so I was quite dead.

Next item on the agenda was pancake breakfast… We needed to eat a lot since the plan for Saturday was some serious sightseeing :). And I guess we did quite good with that.

Then we set off to see Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where I have never been to. That place was just amazing and I took more than a hundred pictures. But more importantly, I met up with my friend from Prague – Pavol (NYC Googler). We talked quite a bit, then met his friends, went for a small snack and parted our ways. This wasn’t the last time I saw him this summer, and as he had different plans, we said bye-bye. After the garden visit, we hopped on subway once again and continued our journey to Brooklyn Bridge.

The weather was stunning and I was able to take couple of really nice panorama-pics. Just check them out on my Flickr page!

Once we were done with that, we started arguing about what place to go to for a dinner. After a while, we settled for sushi Tenzan, a place where we have been numerous time already and it’s definitely the best sushi restaurant I have ever experienced! And with crepe cake and hot sake shot in the end, we decided to wrap up  the day.

The plan for Sunday was a bit different – no more sightseeing, rather sporty stuff! Wake up early, hit some bagels with jelly, run 3miles to the swimming pool, swim for an hour or so, than run 4 miles back… lunch, rest a bit and hop on the bikes for a small (50 miles) ride alongside 9w bike-route. And it all actually worked out incredibly well, even though I had some doubts for a minute since my training was everything but not consistent in last weeks… And I just wasn’t sure if I actually could handle that much.

But I did handle it  all, more or less. Running and swimming ware fine, bike ride was EPIC, even though I was hurting like hell in last 10 miles. But my friends took it easy and the pace (because of me) wasn’t any brutal… But the best part ware the sceneries that we drove along. It was just great – beautiful views, perfect (well, a bit windy) weather, no cars, hell of a route! This was one of the best rides I have ever done in NYC and our small refreshment stop at the "By the way, BAKERY” was just the tip of an iceberg for me (had a mind-blowing chocolate-pecan cake).

We got back quite late, just when the sun was about to go down… Once last delicious dinner, couple beers and I started getting ready for the bus ride next day before I hit the bed. All in all, just awesome 2 days in NYC and I cannot wait to get back to that city any time soon!

Next morning was quite easy – get up on time, grab a cab and wait for GreyHound bus to DC. Everything went well, thanks to my cousin, my snack-bag was bigger than my meal-supply for 2 days :). Yet I enjoyed it as always.

Thanks, Martina, for everything!

Check out my Flickr links:

1. Arrival to US
2. Day I @ NYC
3. Day II @ NYC

PS: more coming soon!

So after a bit of a pause, well actually, a bit of posting somewhere else (see my Sweden-dedicated blog on Posterous), this place will become alive once again!

I really didn’t feel like blogging much recently, as there was not much going on except all the shenanigans in Jönköping, which were well covered somewhere else…

But now, I got a big news to share — I have moved to States for next 6 months. And I have decided that I will be covering my time here as much as I could, hopefully more frequently and with more details than last year :).

So far I haven’t told so many people about my plans for the summer — the only reason being that everything just wasn’t sure all the way until I left Sweden. The whole job and visa application was rather complicated and took a much longer than I expected. But in the end, it paid off :-).

Don’t get me wrong — leaving Sweden was hard and I wasn’t happy about it at all. Everything was just perfect there — easy-going life, amazing people, lot of fun. In other words, simply the best 3 months of my studies! Even though I have planned to leave after the first quarter anyway (because of my thesis), I think I would have decided differently had I knew how awesome it’s gonna be…

Anyway, going for an internship in states caused that my graduation from Prague School of Economics got postponed. But do I care? :)

Well, I do, but I have a feeling that the american experience might be worth it. We will see — now it’s too soon to judge anything.

But what I know for sure is this:

CARPE – fucking – DIEM !

More coming later… stay tuned :)