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. 

This will be part two of a three-part series where I talk about my holidays in the US. If you haven’t heard the previous episode, I recommend it before getting into this one.

Okay, so let’s pick it up where we left off. 

We came home from the football game, packed our suitcases and got ready for a long travel the next day. Okay so where were we going? We had to go from Seattle to Spokane, Idaho where Audrey’s dad would pick us up and we would drive another hour the a very small town called Athol. 

The bus ride took 8 hours. I know, quite a lot, considering we were going only to the next state but as many of you might know, the United States is huuge.

The original plan was to take a plane but it was super expensive. For reference, it would cost me maybe like 70% of the ticket price that I paid to go from Prague to Seattle. Audrey also didn’t want to spend that much money so the alternative was driving a car. The issue was that Audrey was quite worried about driving in the winter. There are a few mountain passes where there is a lot of snow and you have to put on snow chains and everything so we eventually decided to take a bus. 

Bad decision, bad decision, bad decision…

When we arrived at the bus stop, I already knew that it was going to be a long ride. The bus looked like it drove here from 1970s. It was so old and very smelly and yes, there was a toilet at the end of the bus but…you really wouldn’t want to use it, trust me.

Anyway, I am no doll, so I just sucked it up and sat in my seat. Everything went okay but as we were about 6 hours into the journey, the bus started to slow down and slow down and slow down…until it eventually stopped. Me and Audrey looked at each other and nervously laughed. “What’s happening?”.

Turned out our bus was actually really old. So old that it couldn’t handle this journey and it just broke down. Great. I was getting a bit nervous because if it can take about two hours in the Czech Republic for a bus to come and rescue you, how long could it take in the US? 

Well thankfully, we had been already an hour delayed which is a fact that is usually annoying but this time it was great news because there was another bus right behind us that was going directly to Spokane without the stops in small towns. So we just took our things and changed the buses. Amazing…but… I can’t even begin to describe the smell of the other bus. I don’t think anyone cleans the toilets on the bus. Buses are just transportation for poor people in the US, that’s for sure. 

But after almost 9 hours, we arrived in Spokane, finally. Audrey’s dad picked us up as promised and I could rest a little bit in the backseat of the car. In comparison to the bus ride, it was heaven. 

We arrived at Audrey’s parents‘ house in the evening. The house was in the woods, there were neighboring houses, yes,  but each house was about 200 meters away. It was literally in the middle of nowhere.

We were really exhausted so we just went to sleep. Then the next days were very beautiful although a little strange for me because the 24th of December is really not a big deal in the US. There is dinner in the evening, but the day is like every other day. Everything was open so we decided to visit a gun store.

Yes, this was quite a little town in the middle of nowhere and it had a huuuge gun store. Of course, we had to go. As I said, it was a huge place where you could just walk in and hold the guns, take them into your hands  and buy them with no problem. Or, I mean, I guess you need to be an adult but otherwise you can buy it like a pair of new shoes. They even had kid guns that were smaller and pink and all cute but they were real guns. Can you imagine? 

The next day it was the main event of Christmas – the Christmas day. We had a very slow morning and then we unwrapped the presents. It was really lovely to see how it works in an American family. After that, we were watching a little bit of football but eventually decided to go to a nearby lake for a walk.

We had to drive because literally nothing was within walking distance of the house. The lake was really beautiful with a small pebble shore where the pebbles were of all kinds of colours. A pebble is a type of stone that is very round and usually near lakes or ponds.  I also saw a lot of American eagles – White Bald Eagles which are an official animal of the United States of America. It was crazy, I saw like 20 of them. Audrey is a big bird enthusiast so she had binoculars in the car trunk and I could see them all really closely. Awesome experience.

In the evening, we had the main dinner which was ham with mashed potatoes but because I don’t eat meat, I got to eat butternut squash with roasted vegetables and mashed potatoes. Audrey’s mum was an incredible cook so I felt really lucky to get to try her recipes. 

The days at Audrey’s parents went really fast and suddenly, it was Friday and we were preparing to go to Montana. Well, why did we want to go to Montana you ask? Her brother, Austin came to visit with his girlfriend Tyra but Audrey’s sister Lo unfortunately couldn’t. And since I really wanted to meet her and Audrey wanted to see her during the Christmas period, we decided to drive down to Montana for one night to say hi. 

The drive was a little nerve-wrecking because it normally takes three hours but it was quite snowy and the roads are not the safest place to be in the winter, so we were driving a little slower. Eventually we got the Audrey’s sister who lives with Austin and his girlfriend in a town called Missoula. They own the cutest house in the cutest neighborhood where the names were connected to Harry Potter story. They lived on a street called the Muggle street and right next to it was a street called the Potter Park and also the Hermione Lane. Isn’t it just the best? I wish I could live there. 

We arrived quite late but the next day we went on to see a little bit of Missoula. We visited the local university and the campus, we got donuts which were the biggest and heaviest and sweetest and most sugary things I have ever put into my mouth, we went onto carousel (and by we I mean Audrey, her sister Lo and Lo’s girlfriend Lilly as I was watching because to me honest, fast circular movements make me want to throw up) and then we walked a little bit by the river. It was a really pleasant day but as we were travelling back to Seattle the next day by bus, we needed to hit the road once again and come back to Audrey’s parents’ house. 

And so that was the end of the Idaho- Montana experience. The next day we embarked once again on a journey back to Seattle which was even more hellish than the first one. I mean, the bus didn’t break down but we had more than two-hour delay, the driver had to put on snow chains on the wheels of the bus in freezing cold and darkness as we were all just waiting on the dark bus, it was just a bizarre experience. What I really liked, however, was the attitude of the people on the bus, they were all so cheerful. When the driver finally put the chains on the wheels, everyone was so happy, clapping, laughing and all. That would never happen in the Czech republic. Overall, Americans are much friendlier than people in Europe which I was enjoying a lot!

Alright, and that’s all for today, once again. The last episode will be about my few last days in Seattle, about my day alone in the city, visiting a nearby island on a ferry and celebrating the New Year’s Eve. 

I really hope that it is not very boring but if it is, you can just turn it off, you know that, right? 

Alright…

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.