The love story of Andy and the USA

This is for my English speaking friends or Czech friends, who speaks better English than me and would like to enjoy correcting my efforts. I will try my best – it really sounds right in my head like this!

 

After explaining the culture differences between home and the US in Walmart (alrighty, you can translate it as well as I roasted US a bit), I thought it would be fair to write something nice – still 100% true.

This article will be about my travels to America, my point of view after several visits and already more than year altogether of traveling or working here. I would like to tell the story about how I experienced Americas´ spirit and why I choose to come back.

Have you been in the US before?

Yes, couple times! I was lucky that my father took me and my older brother to the US when I was 16. I can celebrate one decade anniversary this summer. Ew! My dad showed us the beauty of the west coast – national parks, famous cities and theme parks. At that time I enjoyed the theme parks such as Universal studios in LA and Sea World probably the most. Even though I fainted in queue for one roller coaster because of the heat and lack of water. Lol, I just remember my brother saying “Hey, your lips are weirdly white...Andrea…Andrea?…Andrea!” And I cried like crazy while Shamu splashed the first rows of the audience. TOO MUCH FEELINGS. I loved it here, but we “only” got 3 weeks of vacation – that made us tourist, not travelers. Still it was a big opportunity and eye opening experience and I am thankful for that to my dad very much. 

When I was 18, I tried the solo traveling, went to London and worked there during summer break. I worked in Turkish café just with Turks and lived alone, so that’s for my English improvement. Sure I became independent and loved the adventures. 

Two goofs adverturing hard

I met at university my dear friend Martina, with whom we traveled to the United States. Little did we know, how it works and we were just plain “let´s go”. We flew to Miami, in June. And understood, why everybody leaves Florida in summer. It is HOT! We had few wrong expectations about our job options, so in the end, we had to go home after one month. But that month was one of the craziest but best adventures I ever did. I had amazing traveling buddy and we had way too many great laughs. And biiig dept.

Colorado 💛

Following year I was looking for “someone’s uncle that would hire me in Alps”. My friend Monika wrote me, that she is going to work in Colorado, US and I can join her. I haven’t had the slightest idea how that summer will change my life. We worked at Mount Princeton Hot Springs Resort in middle of Rocky Mountains and it was the best summer of my life. I was everyday outside in the mountains, gazing at the scenery, taking gazillions of photos and exploring the Rockies as much as possible. We hiked to the Mt. Princeton top and that really shaped my interests for future. 

On the way to the top of Mt. Princeton, the gorgeous 14er

I am no professional hiker or good sportsman, but I definitely know how to appreciate the beauty of the top of the mountain.  It has something to do with conquering your limits and also changing your point of view on the whole world. I feel like the mountains are huge magnets attracting smaller objects, like people. It was much easier for me in the mountains to understand, how our lives are kinda small and short, so it is a good idea to enjoy it, because even all the troubles or any sadness is just tiny compared with the view you have from the heights. 

Too deep for you? Sorry! I have even worse stories, but that’s for another time. My passion for traveling and mountains kept me going ever since, no matter what life brought.

New Hampshire 💛

They say you can see sea from the top of Mount Washington

It took me few years to come back but when the time was right, I used the exchange program again and applied for dream job in New Hampshire. And it happened to be even better than I imagined. I worked as an Activity attendant at Bretton Woods (part of Mount Washington Resort) and my job was to get tanned outside on the sun while looking at the mountains. I mean while attending activities such as climbing wall, archery, go karts or zip line. How great is that? I have met amazing local people and learned a lot.  And enjoyed multiple hikes as well as beating Mount Washington with very dear friend Karina and a guy from Tinder, who actually saved our lives. 

I still felt it is not enough! I wanted to travel full time and stay longer at various places. So that where the year in a van plan came to the game. We are currently in Colorado and I cried like baby when I saw my bellowed Mount Princeton again. We have whole summer ahead of us (hopefully, cause it’s snowing at this moment in May!) in Rockies – things can´t get better.

The United States are not only about amazing nature, but also about people. I love meeting strangers here. I might be very lucky, but close to 100% people I have met were friendly. I generally believe people are good, so that makes traveling easier and more exciting. In America, people are pretty open about it and they don’t hesitate to be nice to you. And I love that! Sure, in services and shops, it is required. But I have so many stories about strangers, who told us something very nice, helpful or just positive, because it brightened our days. It really fits my personality – at home, I am mostly considered as expressive person but in US I feel shy, because others are way more open.

I always tell my friends in Czech one of the most heartwarming situations that happened to me in US. It is very special to me, but I would say pretty ordinary for Americans. We were traveling with Martina along the east coast with Greyhound bus, from Florida to Maryland. It was way too many hours on the road (maybe 30?). On one stop, we decided to buy a hot chocolate. We were on tight budget, so that was a luxurious decision! We went to the coffee machine, chose desired drink, payed and the machine broke. The cup haven’t fall down where it´s supposed to – so our precious chocolate just flew through. We left the machine in despair and sat on the bench. There was a girl behind us and she saw our tragedy (well we laughed about it but it was for sure unpleasant). After a while, the girl came to us, with extra cup of hot chocolate and gave it to us. Just like that, because… well.. because… because this is what people in America do!

And last but not least - I also love any kind of All You Can Eat Buffets.