After 15 days - the first compare and experiencies

I’m thinking where to start I’ll probably start comparing some different things between Czech and US. Everybody here use their cars. Seriously cars are everywhere and the most interesting thing is that there are a lot of trucks (you know big pick-ups). The majority of cars only have one person! It’s totally different from Czech. We have a really good system of public transport and when we want to go somewhere with friends we only make decision where, when and we take train or bus and we go there anytime we want without our parents help. Here until you have a driving license you must ask your parents (or friends who have) for help. But on the other hand you need car here because the distances are pretty long and the gas is cheaper.

Now a few words about the weather – It’s pretty hard for European to get used to it. Every day there is a hot weather. It doesn’t matter what time a day or it’s rainy weather, it is still hot. I usually run in a gym but I ran outside too and it was more exacting. Thank goodness has this country air-conditioning! Everywhere there are air-conditionings. You usually go from building to building with air-conditioning to avoid the heat. Another way to stay cold is ice. Every drink there has ice! You can also buy ice in shops along the roads!

Eating – The first difference is that the main meal in the US is dinner not lunch, like in Czech. People here eat more fast-foods. Actually when you say fast-food in Czech everyone just imagines McDonalds and KFC. Here, there are a lot of kinds of fast-foods and they cook really good meals which are tasty and look healthy (I hope there are too). Nobody here has problems with eating in fast-food restaurants. A meal cost usually from 7-10 bucks and is filling. I really like Whataburger, Panda, Chicken-fil,… but I haven’t been in US McDonalds yet. I think I must improve it… In my family host-mom cooks I think normal kitchen which hasn’t any absolutely exotic tastes so I like these foods too! (I must exercise more often or I’ll come back with other 10 kg…) The last thing what I want to say is BBQ sauce! In Texas you eat this sauce with almost every meal! *nom* I’m a “sweet Baby Rays” fan.

When I came to Texas I was really fascinated about the people here! They are friendly. They have time for each other and they are able to talk with each other even with people they hardly know. It’s actually really nice. I don’t know why random people in Czech for example in shop don’t ask you: “how are you?” or something like that. In any case when I visit some public place I have to talk about where I am from and yeah this is nice. You don’t have the feeling you’re alone or you are a problem for other people. Sometimes when I go to shop in Czech I have the feeling that I’m burden to people who wants sell me something… People here are really proud that they are Texans (not US). They say we speak Texans not English and often use y’all [jo:l] (you all) :D

People here are so friendly my family can’t be different. I feel in this family like a member not like an exchange student which is totally great! I’m glad I’m in smart family. Because host mum is debate teacher (so everyone is encouraged to debate) you can say your opinion and they are good with your opinion even when it’s different then their. They could see things from different views and they help me with English because they often talk and debate with me. What is most important they have patience which is necessary when they talk with me. It’s true when you learn language in friendly and non-stressful place it’s easier than in school in CZ where everything has mark. 

The Dynamo's match

My family took me on Friday to the match between the Houston Dynamo and Philadelphia Union. The BBVA Compass Stadium is near Downtown Houston so we went there by car. The first very nice thing was tailgating in the parking lot. They set up grills behind their cars and cooked. They looked friendly and you had feeling that there was not only a soccer match but a nice time when people who like each other shared time together. We found our seats and started watching. Show started with cheerleaders… Seriously I don’t know why we don’t have them in Czech. Pretty nice show!! After that they presented Houston Dash, women soccer team in Houston. I don’t know if they can play soccer but they looked nice! When they finished the girls presentation I went to buy water (because there was minimal a million degrees at 8pm)  – 4.25 bucks for water… It’s something different between beer for 1.25 in Brno (Beer in Houston 11.25 bucks).. :D After all I came back to my seat then came the national anthem and finally the match started. The first half finished 0:0 but Houston had pressure. In the second half they scored 2 goals so the Dynamo won. I must say I was surprised about the atmosphere on stadium. I think the Dynamo have great supporters who make noise throughout the match!  

The Family

The BBVA stadium

Chearleaders

Support

Trip to San Antonio

From 9^th August to 11^th August we were in San Antonio! Me, Mark and Glen had a boys trip. We stayed in one nice hotel near to city center and every day we started trip from there.

The first night we went to the Alamo. It’s a very interesting building and area for Texans. Battle at the Alamo was beginning of the Texas’s revolution. In Alamo there were circa 150 US people on a religious mission and Mexicans attacked them. So William Travis gave a command to defense the Alamo against 2400 soldiers from Mexico. They defensed the Alamo for 13 days and then they lost the battle. The Mexicans lost a lot of men. Yeah I know the history lesson is boring so I said a few words about that and let’s move on. The main reason why is the Alamo famous is because later a part of Mexico started be Texas and 40 years later the Texas republic became a part of United States. The end let’s move on. After the Alamo we went to the Riverwalk, really nice place in San Antonio. There is a river in the center which makes a circle, along the river, sidewalks along both banks. The riverwalk is famous because there is one restaurant next to other and also hotels and theatre. I had the feeling the riverwalk is mix of US and Spanish culture (but why not San Antonio is not so far from Mexico). It is a really lively, charming and nice place which never sleeps. We walked there and had dinner – my first Mexican food a burrito. It was pretty good! (The photos you can find at the end)

The next day we went to Six Flag Fiesta Texas. It is an amusement park and this was the most exciting experience from trip. I’ve never seen rollercoasters like that before! Prather (amusement park in Vienna) looks puny when you compare it to Fiesta Texas. The first and the second rollercoaster we went on together but at the third we went without Glen because he didn’t feel well. Then we rode some waterslides, free fall etc. It was so great that I didn’t mind waiting in the long lines. We spent
6 hours there and we were all tired because the whole day the temperature was 100°F (35°C). It was hot even in the shade.

On the last day we went to waterpark named Schliterbanh. It was Monday and the lines there were really long. But we had a really great time there (for 8 hours). The best rides were Masterblaster and Discover Congo because they were both an adrenaline rush. I lost my sunglasses on one of them (I had these sunglasses only 2 days :( ). The last thing what I want say about going to the waterpark is about shoes. It’s little bit weird for me but everybody there had shoes (some had watershoes but some wore normal tennis shoes). People traveled through the parking lot and then they got into the water with these same shoes. Yeah for me it was little bit weird. The waterpark is really big, we rode a bus to get to the other rides, perhaps there is not another choice. (I haven’t any photo from waterpark)

On the way back home we saw a really nice lightning storm! It was a great trip. Totally!

The first one

The best one

The Alamo

The riverwalk

The jungle in San Antonio

The supermoon and the Alamo

Setting up

When you come to U.S. you need set up a few things.

• The first thing which I set up was my phone. You need phone number and U.S. card. So Debbie and Mark helped me a lot and now I have card from AT&T and I pay 15 USD every month for unlimited messages (also to Europe), unlimited calls and internet . Absolutely great price! It’s because I have joined my family’s plan at AT&T. 
• Another thing was physical record. When you want to play a sport in school you need a physical. We visited one small clinic (many Hispanic people there :D) and I paid 20 USD to get the right signature from the doctor. This is essential for me to play sports at school. 
• The third thing that I need was vaccination. I had all of them except meningitides vaccination. I must thanks Alfa and CCI because I was really well prepared for this issue. So than I paid 20 USD for that. 
• I set up my bank account in Czech. I have Unicredit bank and I have free withdrawals from ATM and my Visa card works there too. 
• In school I must choose 7 classes (subjects). So I chose English III K (K-means the hardest level), Pre-calculus (Math) K, U.S. history K, Physics L (L-means lower level), Soccer, Teen-leadership/Economics K (1. Semester/2. Semester), Human Geography AP (AP-means the hardest level, when you take AP level you have credit also for university)

I’ll see if this will be my schedule. Perhaps I’ll change level between US History and Physics.

So I need set up these things only. But I don’t know if I will need exercise book for school. Or something like that. For now it’s all.

Yeah, the school is a little bit bigger than GYREC

The first meet with family

We met at the airport and they had made really nice placard for me so I didn’t have a problem with finding them (Mark host-brother at the same age so I’m excited about that, Debbie host-mom, Glen host-dad). Then we took the first picture of us and went to home. We talked a lot and I thought my brain probably would explode because English was everywhere. I was hungry after journey so we stopped for a BBQ meal. I had a big potato (really big) with beef of course with BBQ sauce and other ingredients. It was really tasty and at dinner we talked. About U.S. about Czech about everything. We compared this style of life and it was great! Then we continued our journey to home and they told me many times: “we had would be at home soon”. They told me this at the least 5 times! :D And then I realized Houston is really big city. From airport to home (with dinner) it took 1:45 hour. At home we changed gifts. Mark showed me the house and after all I went to bed and fell asleep. 

The first photo with family (they have this photo)

Really big potato!

Journey

My journey started in Brno at 5am. Then I went to Prague airport for my flight to London, Heathrow. On the way to Prague there was complication in the form of car accident which gave to us (me and dad) a few new wrinkles. But fortunately we had time reserve for this kind of complication so we arrived on time. At the airport I said bye to dad and I have started my year’s challenge. When I was alone and waited for my flight alone in departure gate I said for myself: “What the hell I was doing?”, but later when you were in the aircraft everything started be good and I was exciting about my exchange year. 

I had 1:5O for the change of my flights so when we landed and our aircraft hadn’t parkplace I starting to be a little bit nervous. When we parked I went to terminal 3 by bus. Then I must found my connection to terminal 5 where I had the next flight to Houston. But I must say that the London Heathrow is great airport to transfer flights. Really great signs there to give direction! I only followed purple signs labeled “connection flights”, used another bus to terminal 5 and I was there. Whew! But just there the race began. I waited in one queue to print my new boarding pass to Houston, but fortunately there were two lines. The first (bigger) for people who already had boarding passes from another airport and the second (really small) for me and people like me who didn’t have boarding pass yet. I spent time in the line talking with a strange man from India who was going to Arizona to college. I had 25 minutes before the gate closed when I got the boarding pass. Then I quickly walked to security. There was a long line! In this place I started be a pretty nervous. When I finished this control I had only 10 minutes for finding the right gate. I ran, used underground (underground in the airport – in one terminal! That was fascinating for me) and at the end I caught my flight! Whew!

The flight to U.S. in the big aircraft Boeing 777-300 was really comfortable compared to the European flight in “small” Airbus A320. At the beginning of the flight I thought about experiences from London’s airport. I had ridden the bus for 20 minutes to get between two Terminals. We had stopped at traffic-lights. Traffic lights on AIRPORT (what the hell)!!! Then I thought about underground, etc. Simply I thought about city within the city which Heathrow absolutely is. Then I fell asleep (because I thought too much), watched some films and happily landed in Houston. 

In Houston I waited 1 hour in line to visa control. Collected my luggage and finally after 21 hours I met my family!!! 

At the Prague airport

Landing in London

The first steps on US soil

Something about me

At first I want to introduce myself. My name is Martin Mužík and I’m an exchange student from Czech Republic. During the next year I’m living in famous city – in Houston (for people who don’t know where is it, it is in Texas). Not exactly in the center but 25 miles from Houston, in Cypress. 

I’m writing this blog for several reasons:

1. I came here to improve my English and if I want to move to the next level I must speak, read, listen and also write. So this is the part about writing.
2. Before I arrived here I read some similar blogs to help me get ready. I think it’s a very useful thing which you could do to gain knowledge and to help you discover/explore what you want to learn.
3. I have many friends and someone of them want to know what I’m doing. How it works in U.S. and these things so I can let them know at the same time. 
4. Finally, when I go back to Czech I’ll have nostalgic moments so I can remember what I hope is an unforgettable year.

Perhaps this blog will be useful for not only Czech exchange students. (So I can say this is another reason).

How I set up that? 

In Brno we’ve one organization which does study-exchange programs (also work and travel,…) named Alfa-agency (commercial for you guys is free :) ). The staff there makes everything much easier! You must do a lot of paperwork. From the beginning it looks difficult but with their help it’s strikingly easy. But everything here in U.S. goes through CCI-greenheart. They take care about you for the whole year. 

I have been there for one week now and my experiences are great. I think I got the best family! They’re really friendly, communicative; they want to learn something about Czech, also they help me whenever and with whatever I need. They take a care of me so I feel like I’m their son. Simply love these guys I can’t be surrounding by better people!!! 

To sum up. If you want make decision between yes or no to become an exchange student say yes!