September 2017 – Page 2 – Happened to me today…

Alexandria, VA

So today was my day off, that’s why me and my roommate who many of you probably know already, decided for a little trip. About 30 minutes south from Washington DC with blue metro line and here we are Alexandria. Beautiful city with small buildings in colonial style, on the main street “King Street” filled with shops and restaurants you can let yourself loose. City that is dating it’s beginning in 1669. That’s for USA a very good historical result I must say. From metro station to the Potomac waterfront you can take a free trolley. On your way you can stop staring at all those beautiful houses and shops, everywhere something interesting. we spent there at least one hour walking around and taking photos. Before coming back we have to had lunch cause we were starving, and of course we end up eating nothing else but…. burgers. After return to Washington I went for pizza with my best friend, my roommate flake on us, can’t blame him. And that was a really good decision, little pizzeria on 14th street “Etto”, and oh boy what a surprise was waiting to happen. We were sitting on the outside and were about to finish our dinner and than two black Suburbans pulled over in front of the restaurant, and oh boy there he was Jake Gyllenhaal himself with some friends. They came inside and took a nice corner table, unfortunately my paparazzi skills failed this time. But that was a really nice surprise at the end of a beautiful day.

Travel small and travel big…

It turns out that that I am in love with traveling, I assume that I am not the only one that feels that way. Lately I was trying to remember all my adventures. There was not to many of them but I was always looking forward to every single one. I will try to write about most of them in my posts. First trip that will forever stay in my mind and heart, will the the one from year 2000, passport in my hand, ticked for my first ever airplane flight… wow… Excited, scared, how it will be…. My first time abroad, and where? … USA. 20 years old boy fly alone to America. Till today I remember my strong heart beating before entering the plane, it was Boeing 767 Polish Airlines LOT. Window seat, seatbelt fasten, awaiting take off, engines to full, thrust and huge smile on my face! That’s how I remember that first trip. Arrival to Newark airport, than connecting flight was a piece of cake, that’s how this young boy fall in love with traveling. First amazing vacation spent in USA, road trip to Florida, everything with my closest family. Than another two trips to USA in 2001 and 2003. That’s how my all adventures started. In 2003 after coming back from USA I went to UK for 3 months, and than upon returns started my college and work. And where to work if you like travel, yes I got my opportunity in Sheraton Krakow Hotel in Krakow. Until 2011 there was a big break in my traveling schedule, mostly because my career took over and I was concentrated on that. In 2011 many things has changed including my status of being single. Love comes as a surprise and I had amazing to years of happiness and travel. During that time I have visited so many local places like Turawskie Lake, Kudłacze shelter up high in the mountains, Kazimierz Dolny, Wrocław, Międzyzdroje, Poznań, Szczecin, and places further away like Berlin, Paris, and southern Spain from Valencia to Gibraltar. In my mind only best memories from that time. In the meantime there was also a short birthday trip to London with my sister, we had a blast. After that all got complicated, life got complicated, had to make a decision about leaving my home country, my eyes looked at USA. In 2014 I have returned to USA, this time it was Steamboat Springs in Colorado, a ski resort high in the mountains. That gave me some experience and directed my path towards Washington DC. And that’s where I am until today. But of course this is not the end, oh no not me, as USA has so many places to visit, my list started to growing again. During my two years here I have visited Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Miami, Las Vegas and Punta Cana on Dominican Republic. I can promise you one thing, it is not yet over…!

Hotelier night life… ep1

My blog is not only page for posting my daily thoughts and experiences but all things that actually have happened. That’s why I am launching new line of posts “Hotelier night life”. Short posts about things that happens while we work overnight shifts at the hotel. Believe me or not but sometimes there is a lot of interesting things happening. Job you would think so easy and simple. Everyone is asleep, no walking and complaining guests, no thousands of phone calls per minute, no one is disturbing… mmmmmm so peaceful and quiet. So far my luck is that I am the only person that is train to cover overnight shift while night manager is away, and of course that means my shifts are coming on Fridays and Saturdays. That basically means no free weekends, while every one else are feeling Friday’s and Saturday’s nights vibes and craziness, I am going to sit behind my desk and I am about to log in to my computer. That’s how night shift starts.

If it comes to Saturday overnight, everything always starts the same way. I’m always coming to work at the same time, I welcome all associates on my way to the office where I pick up my water bottle. In cafeteria I fill up my bottle with mix of sparkling cold and still hot water with some lemon. This will be my hydration for the whole night. From cafeteria to the elevator and accounting offices to pick up my bank. I always check if main printer is filled with paper as there’s nothing worse than running out of paper in the middle of night audit reports printing. After that all ready with a smile on my face I am going to the front desk where I am getting the pass on from afternoon shift. At this point hotel is under my wings. I am the one that is responsible for the security and safety of the hotel. Off we go, last guests arrivals than reports, printing, typing numbers, marking signing. All system cooperated perfectly this night, it’s not always like that. At around 2 am hotel gets very quiet. Guests disappears in their rooms, my eyes look from time to time on cctv cameras, I have four of them, two for inside and two for outside. When you think that everything is ok, that’s where everything begins…

2:55 am, first attack attempt, male after 40, drunk as hell trying to get in through main entrance – I think to myself “probably guest” – I am observing him on cctv, male is barely walking towards the elevators but in an instant he changes direction and jump over to one of the sofas and trying to fall asleep. I get up from my desk, at the same time clock in the lobby make sound that it’s 3 am, I am approaching that male but he opens his eyes and starts running away. Instead of heading towards the main entrance he is going to the ball room so I am asking him “Sir, can I help you with something?” and if he is a hotel guest. He replied that he is so I show him the way to the elevators, but he enter and pushes buttons, so I ask him if he has his room key, because he will not be able to go up, so he replied that he doesn’t have it, so I ask him if he has an ID but he answered that no and he needs to leave. So I showed him main entrance, male left the hotel and have never returned.

I’m back to my desk and work continues.

3:15 am, second attack, young male, dirty white t-shirt, dreds on his head coming to the lobby. I am asking him if there is anything I can help him with but he just wanted to use bathroom, so standard denial extended as he was not a hotel guest. Young man asked if we have a water fountain, but unfortunately we don’t have anything like that in the lobby, but I gave him a bottle of water and he nicely left the hotel.

I’m back to my desk and work continues.

4 am, third attack, three males in age 25 to 45, looking like guys from countryside entering my lobby. So I go out to them, posing as a serious and angry night manager, my thoughts are mixed as I am outnumbered. So again question is asked how can I assist them, but they just like kids started to getting exciting about stunning lobby, and that they just wanted to look around and take some pictures. Kids played a little bit and they left the hotel peacefully. I must admit that at some point I was ready to take action like in one of Jean Claude Van Damme movies.

I’m back to my desk and this time until 7 am it is quiet

Forever young…

Time for some interesting facts about being forever young. Im my opinion it has lot to do with what do we do with our lives, with who we are surrounded with and how we make a use of every single precious minute. Sometimes I look at myself and I am thinking where those 37 years passed. Wait a minute what 37? Seriously 37? I just was 20, I flew first time abroad, started my adventures. Surprise, surprise, in fact yes my dear friends this year I will turn 37 years old. I’m closer to 40 now than to 20. Fortunately I keep forgetting about that and I am not worry about my birth age, why you might ask? Answer is very simple and every one knows that, your age is determined by how old you feel inside. And saying that a man will never grow up and always will be child is actually true. My life was never easy and smooth as I would wish for, but I found the way to overcome all difficulties and that would be making all my dreams come true. More about that in another post. Many times I can see others in my age, and I keep wondering, people with the sam age on paper and are so different in the way they look, think and behave. Some would say that I don’t have family and it doesn’t take all your free time, but in my opinion this actually is a lame excuse, I think thanks to family and kids we should experience our second youth. It is not like that? Living childhood again, active time spending with your little ones. This should give us strength and make us younger, not to drop our dreams and becoming a couch troll. Another important thing is to surround yourself with positive attitude. I felt in love in USA just because that was my perception, this positivity in the way people live their life, the “yes I can” way. I have always admired that and I have incorporated that into my life. Another thing that kept me young inside was sport and in my case gym. During the work out there is this positive energy released, happiness hormones are traveling around your body, instead of tiredness you feel the power to do something more to do something extra. I will post another blog about my gym. Socializing with people that share the same positivity, mutual motivation and pushing forward, sharing experiences with younger people, with family and friends that’s another way of staying young inside. There is so many factors that influence our internal age. My secret of being forever young is: family, dreams and gym :-). Those three elements keeps me younger by at least 10 years on the inside, perhaps on the outside too. Spine pain or one new wrinkle here and there reminds me about my real age, but I couldn’t care less. There is another very important element which I didn’t mentioned, partially is filled by our families, but in order to do the magic it has to be filled in 100%. That’s LOVE. In my case it is asleep since 3 years, waiting to be awaken again. Make your dreams come true, love your family, do sports even the smallest ones and I guarantee you will always and forever stay young.

My two years in Washington DC…

Sometimes it is so hard to believe how time flies. It just have been 2 years since I moved in to this capital city of this distant country. September 12th 2015, that’s the date when Washington DC became my home. Someone would ask… why to leave? why so far away? For these questions I will answer in another post because it is a long story. It definitely doesn’t feel like two years, sometimes I think it was just few months. Life goes forward fast but for me feels like a slow motion. As far as about the city itself I have nothing but compliments, well maybe apart of insane traffic in rush hours, fortunately that doesn’t concern me since I am walking to work top 8 minutes everyday, and of course garbage trucks. That’s the worst, had same issue in the first apartment and now in the second. First, engines in those trucks are so loud that it would wake up the dead, second, garbage guys are so loud slamming the dumpsters that sometimes I wanna stick out my head through the window and use some bad words &^$!#$*&!#***^&^%$!. What’s wrong with them! I got myself nervous. But these are just small things, besides that the city stick out among the others. It is really big with wide sidewalks, low buildings, clean streets. You can see that Americans are paying a lot of attention how the capital city looks like. City is planned from the scratch, streets layout, their names for easy location, beautiful monuments in every park that includes stunning ones that were built in memory of the Presidents, Capitol building, Arlington Cemetery and gorgeous Georgetown. All of that comes together with beautiful but short American history. All Americans are proud of that heritage and they are showing that on every step. Washington can be toured walking, which requires some good health, mostly because there is a lot of walking involved or by bike. Weather here in capital city is amazing, from March to almost end of November average temperatures are around 25 degrees Celsius. Only Summer can be tough, especially with temperatures rising above 30 degrees Celsius and humidity above 90%. Winters usually pretty warm with temperatures that rarely goes below -10 degrees Celsius. These are the winters I can survive, and who knows me, I am person that loves heat, average daily temperature in around 25 degrees Celsius and I am in paradise. Public transportation, buses and metro goes almost everywhere (just like in Krakow). There are also special buses called “Circulator” those are going from Union Station to The National Mall and Georgetown and you can ride them for a 1 dollar fare. So sightseeing the city is a real pleasure. Additional benefit is that all museums are Federal buildings and because of that they are for free. If it comes to people here, live evolves around work from Monday to Friday. Than comes the weekend, restaurants and clubs fill up, night life is evolving around Dupont Circle, U-street, 14th street areas. Thats where the most of restaurants, bars and clubs are located. Most of the people here are friendly and smiling. Somehow the way of short term work, government contracts, it is hard to meet people that are interested in getting to know each other on more personal level. Usually people have they own circle of friends and it feels like they are not interested in letting in someone new, especially an alien, foreigner. Pretty often I get lonely but that’s where FaceTime comes in handy and a small talk to my sister or grandma. Washington has three major airports in the area. Reagan just 20 minutes away from Downtown, Dulles about 40 minutes and Baltimore around 50 minutes. So if someone plans to visit me in the capital city, those are the airports you are looking flights to. Of course New York is only 5 hours away with bus or car or 3,5 hours train ride. Washington as for capital is very expensive, mostly rent for studio average in around 1700 USD a month. It is little bit compensated by salaries which are pretty high. Shopping and restaurants are also expensive, you can eat pizza cheaper in New York, as well as my favorite burgers. These two years were full of new things new experiences and gave me strength to set the bar higher and to continue making my dreams come true. That’s would be all, I got carried away with writing as for a blog post. Do you have questions? Do you wanna know more? Message me!