Weekend with My American Family

It is Sunday evening and I am sitting in the garden of the house somewhere in a Winston-Salem suburb. It is still hot and the air is humid, it reminds me Southeast Asia. It does not differ in temperature and humidity. All around me are satellite houses, each with at least one American flag and four cars parked around. I have just finished a portfolio of my final BFTF project, so I have some time I can dedicate to this blog.

From this Friday till the next Sunday we are staying with the American family. We have free weekends to explore Winston-Salem and its culture, during weekdays we normally participate in classes and workshops at Wake Forest University.

Friday - July 10

When we arrived in Winston-Salem, we were picked up by our host families. My host buddy is Vlad from Ukraine and we are hosted by Jim and Tamara Bess. Tamara is an elementary school teacher. Jim does something with pests, people say he is crazy, but they do not mean it negatively. Vlad and I love his jokes. Since he found pronunciation of my name Josef [Jozef] too difficult and non-American,  he simply calls me Frank. They have two sons. Collin is 17, same as me and Michael is older. They live as a typical American family, have a quite big, equipped comfortable and nice house in a suburb and five cars (for me unimaginable). 

About 5 pm we had a dinner in a Chinese restaurant. Jim told us that most of the Americans are lazy to cook by themselves and usually eat out. It could be one of the reasons why the American economy is so big, they always spend most of their money and do not save anything. Czechs would never pay money for such a big number of services if they can do then on their own and would never eat in restaurants if they can eat home.

Afterwards we went to one of the many supermarkets all around. Jim correctly called the U.S. as a "country of waste", they do not care how much waste they produce and just buy everything they can. Many people use just plastic cups, plates and cutlery as they are lazy to wash their utensils. Nobody cares if someone leaves the house for a week and let the air condition on.

In the evening we went to visit their friends nearby, host family of Lukas and Mark. The children in the U.S. are considered as children until they reach 21 (exactly according to the law). Adults stayed downstairs talking and we went to a game room to play table games. I found it funny as the last time I did this few years ago. Most of the children could have been over 18. Anyway, it was a very nice evening. 

Bess Family (except for Jim who was a photographer) with Vlad and me eating a breakfast

Saturday - July 11
We had sausage gravy with biscuits for breakfast. Breakfast is rather lunch than breakfast here, but I am already getting used to American food. We had a little walk with dogs in the park grounded by  local tobacco barons Reynolds.

The weather is hot and tiring

After a little lunch we went to old Salem, grounded by immigrants from Moravia. In spite of houses built in an American-British colonial style, I had an opportunity to taste Czech traditional sweets, which tasted originally. In the pictures I saw many traditional Moravian traditions, which are still kept. It was pretty nice and surprising, that the old Czech tradition got here and survived for hundreds of years. In Winston-Salem are many Moravian churches and people are generally proud of this tradition which distinguishes them from the other American cities, usually founded by Dutch and Irish people or Scots. 

They have Moravian streets, sweets, churches...

We never get to know where we are going. Jim and Tamara always want to surprise us. In the evening we all got in a car. When I asked where we we were going, Collin showed me where was the north. Later we were told we were going to a concert. Jim said it was a concert of Rolling Stones.  We approached some stadium and when we came in, we got to know that it were not Rolling Stones, it even was not a concert. We went on famous Winston-Salem car races. There could be over one thousand people, who were watching this popular kind of entertainment. They were right, if they told me it before, I would have never gone there. At least it was interesting experience. This is probably the real American culture. When cars crashed each other, people stood up and started clapping and cheering...

With Vlad enjoying local cuisine

Sunday - July 12
In the morning we both were busy doing our portfolios for the final project. Afterwards Jim and Tamara took us by car somewhere, it was supposed to another surprise. We passed stuff like Tobaccoville. They grow these plants everywhere, which makes the landscape much more impressive and exotic. After half an hour driving we got to the mountains, to the national (state) park Hanging Rock. The skyline and atmosphere of the mountains reminded me dozens of books by Karl May I read when I was younger.

Tobacco field