Hello and welcome to my podcast My Life and Other Funny Stories. My name is Dagmar Tomášková, I am an English tutor and coach and I created this podcast for English students who want to improve their oral comprehension. As always you can find the transcription of this episode and vocabulary list in the notes of the podcast. 

Welcome back after a small break. I hope you had a lovely Christmas holiday and enjoyed your New Year’s Eve. Today I want to tell you about my holiday because I went to visit my friend Audrey in the United States. She lives in Seattle which is in the state of Washington but we also traveled to her parents in Idaho and then visited her brother and sister in Montana. I will tell you all about it and also a lot of small things that really surprised me about life in the US. As I have a lot to say, I divided this experience into three episodes. This first one will be about my first days in the US.

Are you ready? Let’s go!

Before I start, let me just mention where I met Audrey. Because how do you meet Americans and become friends with them, right? Well, I met her on my Erasmus in France. On my first day, when we had an orientation meeting, I saw one girl just waiting in front of the door of the meeting room. I started chatting with her about the fact that none of us really knew where to go or what to do. Then we found out that we both were accommodated in the same building and on the same floor and we started hanging out. We watched movies, went to restaurants, and visited another city together…we really got on very well. After my Erasmus, when I returned to the Czech Republic, she left for the US, but eventually, she came back to France to work as a teacher assistant. We were still in touch. Writing messages, calling and so on. When she told me that she didn’t plan to go home for Christmas, I told her that she could come to Czechia and we could spend Christmas together. She agreed and came. That was two years ago. This year, she is back in the US and she had an idea that she would return the favor and invited me to come. Of course, I said yes, how could have I missed on this opportunity?

So, I flew from Prague with a layover in Amsterdam. It was a flight that took only about an hour and a half and then I changed planes and flew for about 10 hours to Seattle. The first flight was with an airline called KLM and the other was with Delta Airlines. It was my first time flying so far away and I was quite excited about the flight. We got a lot of snacks and a meal and you had a tiny screen in the seat in front of you so you could watch a lot of movies and TV shows. You also got a blanket, pillow, and earphones. Overall, it was a very pleasant experience so I would recommend both of the airlines. I was only traveling with hand luggage and cabin luggage which means I was very limited on how much I could take with me. I was a little nervous because my bags were definitely a little bit heavier than they should have been but thankfully, they weren’t meticulously checking the size or weight of your luggage so even if it was bigger or heavier, it wasn’t a huge problem. It just has to fit into the overhead bin. 

The one thing that I was a little concerned about was the jet lag. There is a 9-hour time difference between Prague and Seattle which meant that when I came to Seattle where it was noon, for my body, it was already 9 pm but I had to stay awake until the evening so that I would sleep at night. In the end, it wasn’t as bad as I expected but I was certainly tired the first three days. 

When I arrived in Seattle, I waited for Audrey to pick me up. Seeing her after two years was so amazing. She drove me through the downtown so I could see all the skyscrapers and then we stopped at two local supermarkets. The first one was Trader Joe’s. Did you know that when you are waiting at the cash register, they will do all the work for you? You just give them your shopping cart, they will take everything out, scan it and put it into bags. All you need to do is pay. Of course, everything is much more expensive in the US but every time a thought of not buying something because of the price, I reminded myself that I was on a holiday and told myself: “Treat yourself, babe” and I bought it. 

The first day was not very eventful as I was absolutely knackered after the journey so we just hopped into the store and then went to Audrey’s apartment. She lives in a very nice downtown neighborhood. Her apartment is in an apartment complex but all around it, there were very beautiful houses of rich people. Those kinds of people who can choose what type of house they want to build. So it was a collection of all kinds of houses. American style, Spanish style, English style, and very modern style, where the house is just a white box with windows. And all of them were very festively decorated with lights. It was just breathtaking. 

I fell asleep at 8 pm as I was basically fighting myself to stay awake at least like that. I woke up at 4 am as I felt like I slept enough. I went on a walk in the morning because Audrey had to work but in the afternoon we went downtown. We visited Seattle Space Needle which is the main tourist attraction. It is a huge construction with a beautiful lookout at the top. Audrey used to work there so she still knew a lot of people who had their shift that day and she managed to get us in for free. It was quite pricy so I was very grateful. She was the best guide. At the top, she was showing me everything in Seattle, from skyscrapers belonging to Amazon and Google to museums, ports, beaches and rich neighborhoods.

From there she took me to Pike Place Market which is a public market with a lot of restaurants and hand-crafted souvenirs. We walked around all the little stands and I even saw the first official Starbucks in the world. Also, I saw a “gum wall” which is a wall of a local theatre where people started to put chewed-up gums. So the whole wall is covered in it. People go there, take pictures of it and it is a very popular place but in my opinion, it was extremely disgusting and I didn’t want to have a picture of it on my phone. I couldn’t even look at it too closely because it was making me want to throw up. 

After that, we just went to see a view of the local Ferris wheel and then we headed home. I was still very tired so we spent the evening watching movies. 

The next day, Saturday, we went to Target.

When we were there, Audrey told me one piece of information that really left me flabbergasted. Before I get to it, I need to tell you a little bit of background information. Seattle has a big problem of homelessness and drug addiction. I found online that Seattle has around 16,000 homeless people. How terrible is that! A lot of them are addicted to meth so they look very scary when you meet them in the streets. They are called “tweakers” because when a person is on meth, they start “tweaking” which is a state where they compulsively scratch themselves, they are paranoid and have hallucinations. So you have to be very careful when walking past them. That is also the reason why you can find needle disposals in almost all public restrooms.

Anyway, coming back to the problem of homelessness and the fact that a lot of people don’t have money to buy food… we were in Target and we bought a few things. After we paid, we could freely walk around the store, it wasn’t the way like in the Czech Republic where you pay and basically have to leave through the door. I said that it is a bit weird because they can never know if we are not stealing anything. And Audrey said: “Yeah well, shop-lifting was legal here in the past, like a few years ago because they wanted to help the people who couldn’t afford food”. Shop-lifting is when you steal things from the store. So you could walk into a store, take things and leave and it was completely legal. I couldn’t believe it. Then she added: “yeah, a lot of stores went out of business in Seattle at that time so they made it illegal,”.  Unbelievable.

After that, we drove to Audrey’s aunt and uncle and later to her grandparents for dinner. They were all so lovely and funny. Of course, no one takes their shoes off their feet when they walk inside. That was something that I was struggling with so much. What do you mean that I can walk into the house with my wet boots? 

We also drove around and went to see some houses that had ridiculous Christmas decorations. By that I mean lights on every inch of the house, trees and grass. I have to admit that it was very nice but I can’t imagine living in that house and having so many lights everywhere and then people stopping in front of it and taking pictures.

On Sunday we went to an NFL game. That’s National Football League. And no, not our football but American football. It was in Seattle’s stadium called Lumen Stadium where the capacity is 69.000 people.

I am not gonna lie, I know nothing about American football but when we came into the stadium, Audrey explained to me the basic rules of the game. To be honest, I was trying so hard to understand but the rules don’t make any sense. You know, if you watch normal football or hockey, you kinda get the hang of it and understand what is happening after a while. But with American football, it is, in my opinion, quite complicated. But thankfully I was getting some external cues on when to cheer and when to be sad so I knew how to react. I would like to give you a bigger insight into the game but if you don’t have an idea what the rules of American football are, I would only confuse you more. 

It still didn’t stop me from having the time of my life. It had everything. Singing of the American anthem, fireworks, 69.000 people screaming, hotdogs and drinks and a lot of laughs. 

The next day we embarked on a whole-day journey to Idaho by bus. But I think I will talk about my Idaho experience, Christmas day and Montana visit in the next episode.

Just a small taste of what’s coming – I will tell you about how our bus broke down, how I visited a gun store, how I saw American eagles, how I celebrated Christmas and what differences there are in an American household. So stay tuned!

Thank you so much for listening to this episode and don’t forget that you can find the transcription and vocabulary list in the notes. Please give it a five-star rating if you liked it and I will see you next time, bye-bye.