We were supposed to hit Six Flags theme park one more time as a company retreat, but due to the bad weather it was postponed to mid September… which made it impossible for me to attend, as I had already booked some flights to Miami, FL. Yep, that’s what lifeguards do :-D.

To be specific — we finished work by 9th September, my first flight was scheduled on early morning 12t September. So I had 3 more free days, which we really enjoyed with our friends from the pool. We went to a steakhouse (Outback), a pancake house (iHop)… It was all about eating, packing, and eating once more.

The very last night spent in Baltimore was as easy-going as possible. My friend Neeraj helped me out and let me stay at his place. And since he got new DSLR, we went our for a short walk in the harbor. And man, we took a lot of pictures :-)

Catching the flight in the early morning next day was easy — the transport in Baltimore is superb and after hopping on the first light rail (= train), I got  to BWI Airport a way sooner than I actually needed to. I was a bit afraid of the security checks and everything else, but as it turned out, nobody was really pushy and I was even able to „smuggle“ some  cosmetics I wasn’t supposed to be carrying :-).

I got to Miami right before lunch time and the only thing I had to do was catching a ship — yes, that’s right: We were supposed to go on a CRUISE :-). So I jumped on a blue van (service called SuperShuttle), paid 20$ and got to Miami Port. Once again, way sooner than I actually needed to. But it was a smart choice since there was a buffet lunch being served on the pool deck :-). Right after that, I waited for my friends to arrive… and then we left for BAHAMAS PARADISE!

The itinerary of our 4-day cruise adventure was as following:

• NASSAU @ Bahamas
• COCOCAY @ Bahamas
• KEY WEST @ Florida

Sounds amazing? It truly was! To describe my first experience to someone who has never been on a cruise, that’s almost impossible. Let’s just keep it to „the most awesome 4 days in my life“. Everything was taken care of, you didn’t need to do anything apart getting (at least) some sleep before another day full of eating and partying began. All that mixed with snorkeling, jetskis, gym, jacuzzi, and ordering room service at 2am :-).

The stops we made were great. It all worked like this: you arrived to a port in the morning, went for a breakfast (well, more like four breakfast meals in a row :-), then got off the ship and spend a day on Bahama island doing whatever you pleased, then got back, ate a snack, went to gym/running track and got ready for a rather posh dinner with several dishes (and deserts)… some rest afterwards before evening program (=parties) kicked in :-). That was it, 4 days in a row. We were „genuinely smashed“ — to quote our Aussie friends during the very last breakfast buffet.

In the end, I have to say I was really glad the cruise was over :-). Once we were back in Miami port, we jumped into a taxi and drove over to our hotel in South Beach. Even though we had some plans to see the beach etc., we all went to bed instead and slept for several hours. That was the aftermath after our cruise — it literally destroyed us, yet we had the time of our lives :-)

The only thing we needed to do that day was to pick-up my brother who was arriving from Tampa. And after that, another party. This time at Miami Beach with a couple of lifeguards from around Maryland and also 2 girls from Virginia, who were on W&T as well and also happened to be our high school friends.

As a part of our preparation, we went to liquor store and „got ready“ with some rum. Which was a bad decision to make :-) Right now, that night is often referred to as „a night we will never talk about“ since a lot of bad things happened. No one got injured (or arrested), fortunately, only „material damage“ :-)

After the „night we will never talk about“ we still had almost full three days left before our flight back to Europe. Even though we made a very thorough plan, we had to make a lot of changes as well since everything was a bit different from what we expected. Also, thanks to our wild party on Miami Beach, we lost like half-a-day that we spend in the bed… recovering :-).

So the next day was about sightseeing in Miami, and is there a better way to do it than with a bike? Sure not! To summarize, we biked for more than 40 miles and our main goal was to see Key Biscayne, which was one of the best things we could do! It was beautiful, stunning and we got to see some EPIC houses of american rock-stars and whatnot.

We got back just a couple of minutes before the bike-rental shop closed down. It was very adventurous (and tiring) ride, we got one flat (thanks to bad karma, of course :-), but we enjoyed ourselves like little kids. When I was selecting which pictures to include in this report, I almost started crying and wanted to go back right away :-). We had an unforgettable day, one that I would put among the best ones during summer 2012.

And to make things even more interesting, take a look at this video!

That was our last day in Miami. It was also a very first time we went to bed before midnight and instead of a party we went for a nice meal in a „local“ Cuban restaurant. We needed to get some rest — a long drive to Orlando was on the itinerary the very next day :-).

And it all started rather boring — a taxi drive to Avis car rental, getting another SUV (we ended up with KIA this time) and setting off for yet another fascinating adventure. It was a very long drive and we planned to make some sightseeing breaks. But, as always, we had to change plans :-). This time it wasn’t our fault entirely — our GPS broke down and we had to drive to Miami Airport to replace it, which caused us to cancel the trip to Everglades (national park with alligators and everything else). … I was actually really looking forward to seeing it all, but what the heck.

This wasn’t the last time we went to Florida :-).

With a new satnav (and some extra miles), we headed to Palm Beach, where we got a short rest and went for a „swim“. It was one of the nicest summer places and it had huge waves too, so we played — once again — like little kids!

After that, another 100+ miles to Cocoa Beach, our next destination. We were supposed to see Kennedy Space Center but somehow missed the opening hours… :-) So instead, we went to Ron Jon surf shop, one of the most famous surf places in the world. And since we were in THE surfers’ city, we had to hit the beach and grab some pictures too.

With Cocoa Beach crossed off of our list, there was one very last thing to do. It is actually related to our very first day in USA — when we arrived and got rid off all the responsibilities and paperwork at the aquatics office, we went to Domino’s Pizza for late dinner. And we made a deal that we would do the same thing on our very last day. So guess what :-)

Bellies full Domino style and everyone was happy. That was the very last evening in USA. But we were still more than 1 hour drive from Orlando Airport and had an (very) early flight to catch. Once again, to make a long story short — it all worked out, surprisingly we didn’t crash the car and got safely where we need to be. Then, it was just one very long day and we covered more than 6 thousand miles that day. Awesome? You bet…

True story! :-)

And now, 2 months later, I finally found some time (and motivation) to wrap up this diary. I will be repeating myself this time, but the summer we spent in Baltimore was one of the best times of my entire life — mainly thanks to the perfect work conditions we had, great group of people around us (mostly from high school) and absolutely laid-back lifestyle, which is something I miss the most right now. But what can you do… Life goes on, summer paradise is over and school/work schedule is fine too, only different.

Trust me, if you ever get a change to go on W&T program (lifeguarding or anything else), go for it. You won’t have time later on, that’s guaranteed… And if you take care of things soon enough, you will have an epic summer that will probably change the rest of your life :-D If you are not convinced yet, take a look at this photo collection from our whole summer!

So this is the last report from our Work&Travel summer spent in USA. I would be probably repeating myself now… but who cares:

It’s been one of the greatest summers ever; and the decision we made with my brother and other friends to go there… I consider to be one of the best I’ve ever-ever-ever-ever made in my life!

Last week at work was kinda different. I and my brother were moved to different pool (The Key Landing). We’ve been there already, so we knew what to expect. The pool itself is OK, it’s just that the location is not so good. It’s very far from everywhere… TacoBell, Mars groceries, bus to Baltimore. And since we didn’t have our own car during the summer, that sucks a lot! But as I said, we knew what to expect so we got ready :-).

And the best part is that the group of lifeguards who worked there for the very last week was just awesome and male-only (we weren’t the only ones being moved). So I guess you can say that we enjoyed it!

That’s us watching a movie… at work! :-)

The weather in September wasn’t very good, which was perfect for us as lifeguards– not too many people showed up. I can’t really remember the details now, but I am sure that we had at least 2 days totally off… It was raining lightly, the temperature got down to low 70s F.

So perfect „work conditions“, it can’t get it any better :-)

And we had lotta time for goofing around!

Among other things, I finally learned how to do a backflip. It took me a whole summer and there is still a lot of room for improvement, but at least I am not afraid of going backwards blindly anymore :-).

All-in-all, it went really fast and last couple days lifeguarding were actually the ones most-easy going. We had a great team, enjoyed ourselves tremendously… and just kinda took it easy as the summer was finally winding down.

Post Season

On the very last day of the pools being open (5th Sep) — once we closed down the pool, we started so-called post-season. In the span of next 4 days or so, we were going all around Baltimore and made sure that the pool were ready for winter (hiding furniture, lowering water level, etc.)… one after another. It wasn’t very interesting job, but once again – we had LOTTA FUN!

Not to mention the final after-after-parties only for those who stayed (couple guys), including our very first — but legendary — visit to Hustler Club in Baltimore :-).

After all the work left was done, I had 2 days to pack and say good-bye to everyone we got close to during the summer. We went „celebrating“ to stake house, iHop and couple other places. It all got very emotional and I can’t say that there were no tears involved :-).

I would just like to say one big THANK-YOU to Jule and Neeraj, who helped us quite a lot with everything related to our travels (transport, luggage etc.). Without you, everything would be much more complicated and we would probably get into some sort of troubles. So thanks again, I can’t wait to see you again — hopefully quite soon!

Last night in Baltimore

My last day in Baltimore was amazing. After I finally woke up (which was hard since we had lot of beers to finish before I left :-), I got my stuff ready and left Cockeysville to sleep over at one of our friends in downtown. It was raining almost all day, but that didn’t stop Baltimore Ravens from crushing the arch-enemy Pittsburgh Steelers :-). I didn’t see the game in person — the tickets were outsold weeks prior to the game… But it was just something unforgettable to see everyone wearing something purple and going crazy about the game. That’s just another thing I love about US: sports and thousands (I mean many and many thousands!) of fans cheering up the local team!

We went for one last walk to Baltimore Harbor… then hit the bed as I had to get up quite soon because of my flight to Miami, FL! And that would be the topic of the very last report! Stay tuned :-)

The end of the summer/pool-season was rather interesting. First, we got an earthquake  in Baltimore (!) and then the hurricane warning, instructing us to close down the pool and hide in our apartment during the weekend… Everyone was acting crazy, buying everything from the local supermarket. It really felt like we were about to see the world end…

Well, both of those „disasters“ eventually turned out to be not that serious. Earthquake was over — luckily — soon in just couple seconds. Hurricane did come, but wasn’t as strong as expected. But who could know that, right? My cousin lives in NYC and even though it’s just 3 hours away from Baltimore, it was being expected that the hurricane situation would be even worse… and they were actually instructed to evacuate the Manhattan altogether. Hence the hurricane trip to inland (=state of Pennsylvania :-). And I gladly joined her!

The picture above shows our apartment just before we left. All of the other lifeguards stayed, and lot of others came from other pools. And from what I heard, it got quite crazy as far as partying goes… On one hand, I felt bad that I left my brother and others… but on the other, I was glad I wasn’t part of that :-)).

Below, you can find couple pictures from the various places that we visited during our road trip, taken just before all hell broke loose :-).

Calm before the strom…

Somewhere in the state of Pennsylvania… You can actually see the end of the storm!

We eventually ended up in little town called Johnstown. We decided to go for a beer that night and that was quite a lot of fun as I had to prove with more than 2 IDs that I am actually over 21 :-). It was a small pub, so no wonder… but they were really serious about it! But we convinced them and enjoyed more than one drink before we went to bed.

The next day was all about getting back to NYC by night. So we picked a route that headed up north and one of the main stops was Clearfield. Haven’t heard of that one? Me neither, until we were advised to go there because of the burgers :-)).

Apparently, there is one small pub called Denny’s Beer Barrel and it serves the world’s largest hamburgers. They even have these funny challenges, where you can order 2lb burger (or much bigger, given advanced notice…) and are supposed to eat tho whole bloody thing in 1 hour. As you probably know me, guess what we did :-D.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to eat all of that in time… and actually, I wasn’t able to eat more than a half of it during the whole weekend. So my name is not on the famous-eaters wall of the pub, which sucks.

At least I got a reason to go there at least once again :-). Right after that, we drove over to see Pennsylvania Grand Canyon (east coast version of the famous national park :-). And before the sun came down, we also got a chance to see quite a lot of nice scenic views… After that, it was just one long drive to NYC downtown.

Another day in NYC

We got safe to NYC very late… so we went to bed right away. Since I got one more day off, I wanted to make most out of it.

In the morning, I decided to go for a run along Hudson river to see what damage Irene (name given to the hurricane) caused. It wasn’t that bad, you couldn’t really see anything broken down, just couple sand bags that were forgotten :-).

I ran all the way down to Wall Street, where I checked out almost-finished Ground Zero building, a tad bit later I grabbed something to eat and headed back to my cousin’s. I still had all the afternoon and there was an opportunity to ride a bike, so obviously it was very easy to choose what to do :-). I decided to go on a small trip to Nyack. You have to realize that I hadn’t been siting on the bike for like 3 months… but I wasn’t thinking rationally back then :-).

Apart from that, I somehow confused kilometers with miles and instead of doing 60km, I did 60 miles, which is waaaay more (± 100km)!

And God, that hurt! The course was rather flat and I basically followed 9W cycling path (one of the best ones in NYC!). But on my way back, I started cramping, didn’t have enough drinks/food… basically hit the wall. But luckily, I was able to drive to nearest 7Eleven,got some iced-coffee and chocolate… and then it was all much easier and I returned back „home“ safely, even though more than 1 hour later than planned :-).

That was pretty much all I did that day. We went for a small walk with my cousin in the evening, had a nice dinner and also visited Columbia University (another Ivy League school). After that, I got everything ready for my travelling back to Baltimore the next day…

This was the last time I was in NYC in 2011. I didn’t take any pictures, just this video from the pier by Hudson river, which is one of my favorite places! Well, that is if you actually can have a favorite place in NYC, which is awesome anywhere you go :-).

Make sure you watch it in FullHD! Well, that’s all for this post, the next one will be coming soon :-). I really hope that next time I will be able to visit NYC with my brother. It just didn’t work out this summer, so we’d better fix it quite soon :-))

After a very looong delay, I finally got around to finish my summer reports. Well, to begin with, the whole summer @ USA was absolutely AWESOME! Sure, there were couple things we didn’t particularly enjoy (like moving to another pool at the beginning/end of pool season), but as a whole, I am really glad we decided to go. And quite frankly — I consider it to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life!

So let’s go back now… to New York City, where I spent whole 5 days just because of NYC Triathlon. The whole race weekend was totally amazing, the minute I got to NYC, everything was all about sports and triathlon. And I loved it! Even the expo, where it was kinda discouraging to see all of the athletes picking up race packets etc., and me just staring at them (unlike the year bofore). But what the heck, I got some free merchandise, met my cousin and off we were to get ready for Jamaica Underwear Run!

That’s Friday, and since the race day is on Sunday… I got the whole Saturday free. Well except having to attend „a volunteer briefing“ since I was volunteering on the race day :-). The briefing was quick and I was quite glad to see hundreds of other like-minded people, all of them volunteering for one reason — guaranteed entry for next year’s race… Well, probably not all of them, but every other person told me that they are doing this because of their plans to race NYC Tri in 2012.

For the volunteering, I chose „athlete recovery“ zone, which was in my opinion one of the best places to be (compared to transition zones etc., where nothing really interesting happened :-). I got to see all of the finishers right after they crossed he finish line, provided them with foods/drinks and made sure that they got medical assistance if needed.

The briefing was taking place in Central Park, which was awesome, because one of my cousin’s friends was having a b-day party on sheep meadow. It was probably my first birthday celebration in US, and definitely in Central Park :-). Lots of food, (alcoholic) drinks, people… Fun times, I had even experienced my first Piñata.

With the b-day party done, I spent the rest of the day just walking around and absorbing the NYC atmosphere, which is unique! The race day was next morning and since we had to get up quite early (4am — because of the transtion zone set-up), you would probably expect that we would hit the bed soon… Well, not the case as one of my close friends recently moved to NYC and proposed going out for a beer.

So we went – to Brooklyn :-). It wasn’t just one beer, as usually… And to make long story short, I got back just 2 hours prior to when the alarm clock went crazy. So I didn’t get much sleep, but what the heck. Carpe diem, there will be plenty of time to get all the sleep needed in the grave, as one of my friends likes to say.

Race Day

The race day was just phenomenal. It was very long indeed, the weather was atrocious… but all of the athletes were quite determined and even though the start got postponed for more than half an hour, it was ALL awesome! What could be more descriptive than the official race day video from organizers (if you focus on the guy with umbrella at 1:12, you might find him familiar :-).

I enjoyed working as a volunteer quite a bit! We had a great team, lotta fun and had a chance to see all of the athletes right after they crossed the finish line, congratulate them and even take their pictures and what not. Once the elites were done, age-groupers started coming and it reminded me of the times when I worked by the finish line of Prague International Marathon. Simply awesome, true story!

After the race was over, my cousin and I went for a walk in NYC, grabbed an awesome sushi meal… and just enjoyed ourselves after very tiring day. The next day in the morning I was about to leave for Baltimore very early, so nothing really interesting, except when I missed the connecting train and got late to work, which was sort of a tradition for anyone travelling to NYC :-).

Next post is coming tomorrow and it will be a small follow-up on our one of the last trips to Philly & Wash DC. Right after that, it’s Miami time, baby!!!

It’s incredible how fast the time goes. I don’t know why there wasn’t any blog-update sooner, but that’s just how it is :-)

What has happened from the last blog-post:

• Numerous heat-waves (having 40° in the shade is kinda normal for us now)
• Ohiopyle White Water Rafting
• Visit to Pittsburgh
• Black Eyed Peas gig
• Lots of BBQs, Pool Parties and also one B-Day celebration
• Lots of shopping, both online and offline :-)
• New (totally awesome) waterproof camera
• Finally got a working internet connection

I hope I didn’t forget anything. The days are just literally flying by and keeping track of what did or did not happen is somehow boring :-). We came down here to enjoy the summer, not to write a book about it…

Having said that, let me start with the white water adventure we took a week ago. It’s been the best day so far. A friend of our friend recommended it as a part of trip to Pittsburgh (most stunning night-city view I’ve ever seen) and we will thank be grateful to him, well, forever.

We did Lower Yough rafting trip, which is medium difficulty (Class III & IV). In other terms, the drop per 1 mile is ± 25 feet. If you compare it to  Class V rapids (over 100-foot drop per 1 mile), it’s really childish :-). But since this was the very first experience with white water rafting for most of us, I think it was perfectly suited and we all just had the time of our lives. And we didn’t even mind it was pouring all day long, as it made the river a bit more wild. We all ended up in the freaking cold water anyway – not because of major rapids, but because of the very infantile game we played when we were pushing each other of the raft :-).

The whole trip took more than 7 hours (not to mention the 4-hour drive to Ohiopyle State Park) and we even had a picnic-style lunch in the middle of it, which finally convinced most of the guys that PBJ sandwich is a thing of delight :-).  And once we got back and took a warm shower, off we were to see Pittsburgh.

We managed to arrive at around 8pm, but that was OK since we were planning to see it at night and our only item on agenda was Pittsburgh Penguins Arena. We made it eventually, even though the way was a bit “jumpy” and included a lot of highway crossings :-). The other thing we did is called The Duquesne Incline, something like a Pittsburgh-version of Petřínská lanovka :-). Having done that, we got back to car and headed back to Baltimore, which was more than 5 hours away (mind you that it was 1am already). We arrived back and safe at 5am. Hell of a day with way to many things happening (“too much drama” would be a Columbian way of saying that :-).

Simply, one of the best days of my life so far.

The only thing left was the return of our car, which happened to be a 4-wheel drive Toyota Rav4. Renting a car was actually a funny story which included lot of hick-ups. But we were not responsible for any of those and since everything worked out really well, I think we can just skip that :-). So when we got back, we drove to the 24-hour parking lot, tried to clean coffee/ice-cream of the seats and then dropped a key into a drop-off key box. So that’s for my first-ever driving&renting-a-car experience in USA. Everything went well, we didn’t get charged any extras..

The trip mentioned above required quite a lot of planning, which in effect meant that we didn’t have a chance to go somewhere else during our days off. And the other thing is that the weather in Baltimore area in last couple of weeks was just crazy. Too much heat to do anything outside, so we were mostly chilling at the pool or in our air-conditioned apartment. I don’t remember a recent month that I was as lazy as I am now… But what the heck, we live only once!

Another thing worth mentioning is Black Eyed Peas concert, which was stunning. It was held in a place, where they actually started their career more than couple years ago – MerriWeather Post Pavilion. We got the cheapest tickets, so our viewing-spot wasn’t that fancy… But what the hack – we could still (sometimes) see the stage, Fergie… so everything was awesome!

Other than that, usual stuff… we did some BBQs, had a B-Day celebration for one of our team-members, went clubbing couple times — especially to our favorite — Padonia Station (well, that’s the only place in our “suburb”), where they have Thursday specials: Dollar Beer Night. The average spending is around 15$ / person, so you do the math :-D

Ouch, one more thing – we got a new underwater camera! It’s Panasonic Lumix TS3, outdoor waterproof camera… And it’s just awesome. If it wasn’t for some issues with the back-display, forcing us to return it and got a replacement… All would be perfect. But I’m sure it will work out and in the end, we will have splendid memories captures on both image and moving-image :-) And the best thing, it shots FullHD videos!

I was about to mention my trip to NYC, where I volunteered for Nautica NYC Triathlon that I competed in last year. However, that spot is gonna be quite lengthy, so I guess it will be better to separate it from my (i)regular reports!

Take it easy, ya’ll!

What’s planned? :-)

• Trip to Philadelphia and Washington DC
• One more visit to NYC
• Then some post-season work
• And then, FINALLY, awesome traveling in Florida !!!
• As usually, all the pictures are to be found on my Flickr account!

• Quite simply: A LOT! (hence no blog updates for quite a while)
• Trip to Baltimore Aquarium
• Baltimore Orioles baseball game
• Trip to Annapolis
• Night out in Hunt Valley and seeing X-Man: First Class
• Celebrating 4th of July (NYC visit for my brother, work for me :-)
• Hell of a BBQ party
• And… still no internet connection :-(

When I started writing this update, the very first sentence went like this. “This week, we will get finally connected!” Wel, that’s not true anymore… The reason being Verizion trying to fool us and give us a contract with huge penalties for early termination of the service. So we finally decided to stay without stable connection in our apartment an instead use free public library WiFi. At least we will do something else too :-)

But back to our adventures in US. Work is kinda OK, nothing really new – sometimes easy, sometimes busy… all-in-all, it’s OK and since our friends from high school arrived a week ago, we have a lot of fun at the pool. And lot of playing around the diving board as well (see Facebook profile from Petr S., he has the most hilarious videos shot with waterproof camera :-)

On our days off we try to travel as much as possible around East Coast so that we can do something really BIG in September (West Coast, Caribbean Cruise? :-). On our “bucket list” were among other things The National Aquarium in Baltimore and baseball game. We did both on Friday 24th June and we loved it.

National Aquarium is basically a huge building filled with fauna that is at least somehow water-related. Apart from sharks, stingrays, all kind of fishes… you can find there tropical frogs, reptiles, jellyfishes, birds. Just like a ZOO, only water-specific. We got our combo-tickets with 4D IMAX theatre movie and also a dolphin show, which I enjoyed the most (despite what I learned after watching The Cove).

As for the baseball game, we got a chance to see the match between Baltimore Orioles (= O’s) and Cincinnati Reds. Not a very prime game, but what the heck. We got our tickets for 6$ (students’ discount on Fridays) and as those were the cheapest ones, our seats were not really that good :-). But after first 4 innings (= something like a set in tennis games), we decided to go and see if there are any better ones by the playground. And boy, we got lucky. We moved to a place located right above the batter and people sitting around us were the most dedicated fans, so we had an amazing time screaming, chanting and high-fiving. What a truly American experience :-). As if this was not enough, the game ended as a tie by the end of standard 9 innings, so there were extra ones. In 12th inning, Reds almost scored against the home team, but O’s prevented that from happening by outing the player by less than a couple of inches before he reached the fourth base. And right after that, O’s hit a homerun and the whole stadium went berzerk :-). The only thing left was a winning celebration fireworks at the very end of the game… Ohhh wait, that happened too! :-) Well, it couldn’t have gotten any better!

And all that took place in just one Friday :-). After that, it was a work-weekend for us, but that was OK because we were planning to go to King’s Dominion on Monday. So we have quite something to look forward to… Unfortunately, that did not work out as our supervisor got sick. But that’s not a reason to whine and be sad.

We decided to stop being sad and be awesome instead, true story :-)

And we also decided to go to Annapolis. Even though we didn’t plan anything, we were surprised how beautiful this (once-capitol of US) city was. Apart from some important historical buildings and sights, which do not interest me that much, I was stunned by the US Naval Academy (= university for naval officers). It was huge, outstandingly beautiful, historical and very sport-related. The facilities for all kind of sports were just huge – I bet there were more playgrounds, running tracks, gyms etc. than in all Prague :-). I even started thinking what would it be like to study there…

Apart from Naval Academy, we also gut lucky and  were able to cheer up the very last rider of Race Across America (3000-mile long “race” with 170 000 feet of climbing, see official RAAM site for more info). He crossed the finish line walking with his son and it was very emotional and inspiring. The craziest thing is that the winner covered the distance in 8 days and 8 hours. And yes, I am not denying that I won’t do this crazy race one day :-). After our arrival back to Cockeysville, we decided to go to Hunt Valley and catch a movie (new X-Men: First Class). Of course, that meant that we had to go to Chipotle too :-)

Well, I guess that’s all for our travelling in recent days. Even though there was a huge celebration across all US – The Independence Day on 4th July. My brother went to NYC and met up with our cousin for 3 days… and based on what he said, he got the most amazing time ever. First time in NYC, what else would one expect :-) Well, and for me… not so sparky. I got to work on 4th, and since the transport to Baltimore downtown was a bit complicated in the evening, I decided to stay and enjoy the fireworks/celebration in our very tiny village Cockeysville, and catch up on le Tour. I was in NYC for the huge celebrations last year, so I bet Baltimore wouldn’t triumph that… :-)

The very last thing I want to mention is our (only!) second BBQ. A lot of people from around Baltimore came (thanks to our supervisor who worked as a taxi driver that night :-). We got lot of food, lot of booze… and a whole lotta fun. I hope the next one will happen a bit sooner.

That’s all folks. I hope ya’ll are enjoying the summer like we are. The time is flying by and only a few weeks left… and before you know it, we will be back in Prague (on 20th Sep)!

Related links:

• Photos from Baltimore and Annapolis on my Flickr (whole USA collection).
• My brother’s note about week 5 on FB.
• The Wire – an interesting TV show about life in Baltimore :-)

I’m going to close with our plans for the rest of the summer. Nothing specific planned, but this are things I’d like to do in the upcoming weeks:

• Trip to NYC and volunteering for Nautica Triathlon that I competed in last year.
• Another trip to Washington D.C.
• Trip to Six Flags with our LiveStrong supporter from Czech Republic.
• Rent a car and go to Ocean City & Atlantic City.
• Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland.
• Trip to Philadelphia and participating in LiveStrong challenge over there.

• Crazy weather (had more than 40° in the shade)
• Internet connection coming to our apartment, finally!
• We went to see Washington DC (and we will go there again :-)
• Flea-market rocked our world for just 12$
• Chipotle rocked our world even more :-D

It’s incredible how time goes fast. Tomorrow, it will be 4 weeks for us in United States. Now that I mentioned that, I realized that so far I haven’t kept my desired “blogpost ratio” (1 post per week), but don’t worry… I’ll make it up as soon as we get stable internet connection in our apartment. You see, so far, we were able to catch free WiFi which was awesome. But for some reason, it stopped working :-). So I am dependent on the connection at our swimming pool, which is kinda OK, but not very fast.

That’s for my apologies why my blog was dead for last 10 days or so. I can’t wait to get the connection installed – it will be fiber optics (kick-ass fast) from Verizon, with HD TV channels (that can be watched on PC!) included… which I love most because of the upcoming cycling events (le Tour de France, la Vuelta a España).

My parents kept emailing/texting us about what have we been up to… Well, a lot! :-) Even tough last couple of days were (as usually) incredibly busy, we managed to get some trips planned and went to Washington D.C. That’s probably the best thing we’ve done so far. We had a flawless plan for all the sightseeing places, but somehow, we did cover like 1/3 of it :-). There is just too many things to see!

We spent more than half a day in Natural History Museum. Even though we originally planned to stay there for 2 hours tops – obviously, we didn’t know that this much time will be required just for the breath-taking ocean life exhibition…

Do we regret it? Not at all, it was just awesome and one of the most interesting places I’ve been to in last couple of years. And as there is lot of places left that we “missed”, we got another reason to go and see DC again :-). Check out all of our pictures in the dedicated photo album on my Flickr account. Our trip to Washington D.C. was a whole-day “event”, we set off at 6:30 am and got back at 11pm. Man, we were tired like hell… probably because of the distance we walked – more than 10k.

Next time, I’ll bring a GPS tracker so that we can measure the distance more precisely and share the exact route we took. One more thing I’d like to mention about our trip: lunch at Chipotle. The best Mexican fast-food place. It’s a little bit pricier than Taco or McDonald, but still quite OK for us foreigners/students. And it’s freaking amazing :-)

So having the trip to DC behind us, we got few more plans. And a good thing is, that even though we live in quite remote suburb area (village Cockeysville), travelling to other places is not that bad. From the front door of our apartment, it took us – using public transport – just little over 2 hours to get to National Mall in DC . Travelling to Philadelphia and New York should be similar, so I hope to “cover” most of the cities on East cost during July/August. And then, in September, we will most likely do some kick-ass cruise to Hawaii or Caribbean :-)

I think this should be enough for our travelling. Apart from that, most of our time was spent at work (= pool), than relaxing and than sports (swimming, running, basketball and frisbee). Keeping up with the hours-per-week of sports I used to before I left Prague is quite difficult, but I reconciled myself to doing less. It’s just not possible because of weather conditions (40° in the shade is quite a standard here :-) and all the temptations that are at hand :-).

Carpe diem! Right now, it’s all about enjoying our stay here, and living/working with my brother is just incredible and I can’t wait for all the adventures that are awaiting us in upcoming weeks!

One of the last things I ‘d like to mention is flea-market we went to just 2 days ago. Our plan was to get a microwave and a coffee maker as we weren’t provided with these at our apartment. We didn’t really think that we could get them for reasonable prices, but boy, we made quite a deal :-). First, we got a coffee maker for 2$ (sic!) and then almost brand-new microwave for just 10$. I can’t imagine the same thing happening in Czech… But anyway, our kitchen is “ready” and our lives will be a little bit easier from now on :-).

That would be all for today. Got a long day ahead of me, so take it easy. Not sure when the next post will be published, probably in a week or so. We are planning to “do” Baltimore on Friday, when we are off of work (we will probably visit the aquarium in the morning and baseball game of Baltimore Orioles vs. Boston Red Sox later). And I can’t wait for the the next week, which will be about all about theme parks – on Monday we will go either to Six Flags or King’s Dominion. And the other one that we don’t visit this time, well, we will go there in July :-).

Love it here! Take care ya’ll!

Related and interesting links:

• My brother’s memo about our trip.
• Our pictures from Washington.
• Collection of all our pictures taken so far. More pictures coming soon!
• Noora – fellow lifeguard posting from NYC.

Reason quite simple: not enough lifeguards :-). On one hand, we weren’t that much happy about that since it meant packing/unpacking our stuff over and over again… but in the end, it was lot of fun. And also, more working hours, ergo more benjamins…

And so we got first working experience – it all started last Saturday (May 28th). Our very first day was quite interesting; and incredibly busy. We got more than 200 people and believe me, it was really crazy. We didn’t have time to go to toilets or get snacks… but somehow, we survived it and thanks to our great team, we even managed to enjoy it. And of course, no incident thanks to our diligent work :-).

The opening weekend for us was a little bit strange as well – we spent it somewhere else than we originally should. As I mentioned earlier, I and my brother will be working during summer at DeerTree pool. But due to the short-staffed situation, we were moved temporarily to KeyLanding, which is not that far away. Here are the panorama-pictures of the pools:

Key Landing

Deer Tree

They’re not that much different. Well, the shape is exactly the same, but the size is half as big as Deer Tree’s. Plus DeerTree has a diving board, which is a huge advantage :-). So the pools are the same, but what differs quite a bit is the surroundings and environment. Whereas DeerTree has a beautiful area around the pool with shops and everything else within 3-minute walking distance, Key Landing has (almost) nothing and the surrounding houses are a part of a ghetto, where you really don’t feel that safe when walking at night.

No surprise we were quite happy when our supervisor told us we’re moving back and staying at DeerTree for good. Yesterday was finally our first working day at DeerTree; and man, the day was simply perfect.

We slept in, had the most delicious cereal breakfast by Quaker Oats, watched a movie, prepared snacks for our shifts and headed to the pool (we open at 12:00, so really no rush in the mornings). I spent first two hours cleaning the pool with vacuum pump – and as there is 12ft deep-end, it meant diving in which I enjoy the most :-).

Then another hour or so in the pump room with supervisor, making sure everything is working correctly and water-chemistry is in order with local regulations. On the whole, today was very laid-back and mellow day, mainly thanks to the weather – warm, but quite windy. This combination keeps residents at home. Maybe it was a little bit too boring, but at least we got enough time to clean the pool perfectly for upcoming inspection, and also got some time for practicing on the diving board :-).

I pretty much mastered the frontflip with straight legs, now it’s time to move to backflips and inverted flips. We will have the whole summer for that, and I can’t wait… Good thing is that water is much “safer” than snow, so hopefully I won’t tear my ACL as in December 2009.

Few upcoming days are gonna be quite busy as school holidays are about to begin; and on top of that, we’re now on 6 working days/week schedule… so really no time for travelling or fooling around. But you would be surprised how enjoyable working at the pool can be. Most of the time, I wouldn’t really call it a work :-). The best thing about it is the fact that you are dealing with people all day long. Not only your team members/other lifeguards, but mainly residents that come to the pool. When you stay at one place for some time, you get to know them. Some are quite, but mostly they are just nice and easy-to-talk-to. They start calling you by your name, invite your for a beer or fishing, buy pizza for you or offer a guided tour around the city. Since we were moving back and forth, the community at DeerTree is still rather unfamiliar to us, but I’m pretty sure this will change quite soon!

Other random tidbits and thoughts collected throughout the week:

• TacoBell is just awesome! So far, our choice number one as far as fast food restaurants are concerned. Cheap and (relatively) healthy mexican food, tasty beefy burritos for 1$ cannot be matched with anything else :-)
• Everything is either same or cheaper than in Czech. And I am not talking about gas, but food, clothes and other pretty basic stuff. Shopping in huge supermarket is one of my favorite activities – especially picking cereal boxes from tens of different brands and tastes. And blueberry bagels are my most desired little cravings.
• It was f**cking hot in here last couple of days. Kids even got off school early, so that they can go to pool and cool down a bit. We were of course very happy because of that :-D.
• Time flies pretty fast. It’s been 10 over days since we arrived. I love it here, nothing to really worry about – just people at the pool. No e-mails, no assignments, no deadlines… just chill, game and sports. We will see how this will change during summer.

All of the pictures we have taken are to be found in Baltimore collection at Flickr. We will keep updating it :-)

So we are in US, hooray!

Our travel plans from Prague to Washington went well after all. It was a long and exhausting trip, but I enjoyed it and can’t wait to be flying over the Atlantic ocean and drinking (lots of) wine once again :-).

There was one small incident though, and it really made me. As you can guess – it was caused by my little brother. He – for some unexplainable reasons – manage to screw up visa paperwork. We are are gonna be working here as students, so we were applying for non-immigrant J1 visas. The process of getting them is quite tedious, but thanks to many on-line resources and specialized agencies, it’s mission possible :-). After many applications filled, letters sent etc., we received the most important document (named J1) that we’re travelling with and that allows us to work legally in US. The next step was to pass the interview at the US embassy in Prague, where among other things J1 gets approved and signed by one of the consuls.

All went well, except that my brother gave them A COPY instead of the original. They verified it, which I find quite strange, but anyway… Funny thing is that he did not find out about it until very late night before departure. And so the worrying began :-). I probably don’t need to tell you how scared we both were (and how badly I wanted to punch him really hard in the nose :-). Just the image of him being sent home by immigration officers and me staring helplessly… it would ruin the whole summer. But screw that, we’re here now, everything is perfect and I’m pretty sure that something like this will never happen again in my brother’s life, never ever :-).

After our arrival do International Dulles Airport, we grab a shuttle van and went to our employer’s office to finish the remaining paperwork. We are applying for social-security number in next few days, which was the main reason for us to go there… It was nice to meet people we only “knew” via e-mail, they all seem quite happy and are funny as hell. Everything went well, and almost everything is done for now.

In the evening we were moved to Chateau, place we’re staying for 2 nights. Then we’re gonna move once again, this time to our final destination for the whole summer. It should be DeerTree complex for us, where is the pool we will be guarding as well. I am really excited, and can’t wait to put my bright red LifeGuard shorts and tee on :-)

So that’s it for our first day, I plan to keep up these posts coming (with pictures, videos etc.). But right now, I‘m starving so I’m gonna enjoy the rest of breakfast (on the picture below – all-american double foot-long sub), and drink tons of Dr. Pepper, which is the most awesome coke on planet Earth :-)