Traffic in Croatia

Zagreb is the capital city of Croatia, the biggest and busiest city in this beautiful country. I've been driving a lot more lately so I have a couple notes to make on traffic in Zagreb.
Let me start by saying that coming from Philadelphia, I'm an experienced city driver. I'm not afraid to be aggressive (thanks to my time living in Cairo, I really got to learn what aggressive driving is all about). So many times, there is ridiculous, crowded traffic for no reason except that a car decided to stop in it's lane before a stop light forcing the other cars to merge into the other lane to drive around it. These stopped cars are either stopping to pick or drop someone off (in the stupidest place possible) or simply because they feel like it, or (unfortunately) their car breaks down. Usually, it's for a stupid reason though and more often than not, it's someone who is not from Zagreb who doesn't know how to drive in a city. The traffic is nowhere near as bad as on Broad Street in Philly during rush hour, or at any time of the day in Cairo, but it still gets pretty bad. Don't even get me started on when it's raining. I know people tend to forget how to drive almost everywhere when it's raining but in Croatia, it seems to go to a new level.

One of my favorite streets to drive on in the city is called Zeleni Val which means the Green Wave. If you drive at a steady pace straight down the road (very close to center city), you will catch all green lights along the way! Fantastic!

This kind of "wave" would be very useful in Philly!

The other thing to mention is the combination of old and new roads throughout Croatia. Highways and bridges are still being built all over Croatia. The tolls on the highways are ridiculously expensive. Even the shortest trip on a highway passing through one exit can be a cost of about $5 and the tolls start at that price and go all the way up to 240 Kuna which is about $43! Although the highway can be a HUGE time saver, the cost for the tolls alone (forget the rising cost of gas) can cause a serious dent in your vacation spending fund. The old roads in Croatia take longer, but often times the view along the way can be very beautiful.

When Tomislav and I drive from Zagreb to Dubrovnik, we take the highway for as long as we can take it and then take the old roads the rest of the way. The road follows the coast so it's windy and hugs the Adriatic sea along the way. It's absolutely gorgeous! If you get the chance to visit Croatia, I would recommend driving down the coast and stopping along the way, whenever your heart fancies it! The great thing about Croatia is that the Adriatic Sea is open to swimmers all over the place. Taking a break from driving for a dip in the Jadransko More...ahh what could be more refreshing?!

You can see from the look of us here, taking a break to swim in the sea was a great way to break up our long drive!

Nikki's Pseudo-Narcolepsy

Things have been going pretty well for me lately. I've been working at the school and I'm liking it a lot so far. I just got contacted about teaching some foreign language classes at night so the possibility of that is very exciting! It's good to be busy. Last night, I decided I wanted to join my co-workers for an English-language show at a comedy club. I wanted to get to know some of my colleagues better and I thought it would be a fun experience no matter what! Well, it was great to see my co-workers outside of the school and to relax but apparently I got a little too relaxed.

I fell asleep.

Not because it wasn't funny, because it was! I was hoping to hear a bit more but maybe I'm still a little jet lagged, I only got back one week ago and I started work right away, then we were filming HHI and I haven't really had a break but halfway through the main act, I fell fast asleep! I didn't think the show would go on that long and I ended up waking up just at the end of the comedian's set, embarrassed, confused, and surrounded by people laughing at me. Apparently, the comedian took the opportunity of me sleeping to add a joke to his act! One of my colleagues who was sitting right in front of me (who also has an early bedtime, like me) was snoozing away in the 2nd row. The comedian saw that and made some comments about how he can't believe she's sleeping during the show. She woke up right away and that's when he noticed that I was dozing in the 3rd row! He was like, well look at that, another one's asleep. But I was totally in slumberland because Tomislav tried to wake me up and I just kept on sleeping! The comedian kept making jokes like, are we sure she's still alive? After the show, some people came up to me and said it was the funniest part of the show! My one co-worker said it almost seemed like I was supposed to be a part of his act all along.

Needless to say, great impression was made on my colleagues (not.) and the news of my comedy club snooze was all over the school today. It was embarrassing but it got my name around the school quickly so everyone started making fun of me, looking shocked that I was awake upon entering the classroom I was in. Asking me if I'm well rested, or if I'm gonna fall asleep and stuff like that. It was all in good fun and I couldn't help but think about some of my other memorable sleeping-in-weird-loud-places moments. Yikes, there have been a few!

• I slept through a loud, crazy, wild party at Cassie's place in Cairo on the couch of the living room where everyone was partying, dancing, playing music- everything you can imagine at a fun party! Snoring on the couch while everyone's partying around me. Lovely, at least could sort of be a part of it all still ;)
• My most expensive nap was probably the time I fell asleep at a Bob Dylan concert in Philadelphia. I was with my 2 favorite redheads in the entire world and we indulged in some wine before the show and I got my tipsy nap on during most of the show. Great background music for some shuteye.
• The first time I was in Croatia back around NYE 2008/2009, I wanted to try a Croatian beer which shares a name with my beloved fiance. It's called Tomislav* and it's a very dark beer, delicious and very rich. I liked it a lot and so I decided to have a 2nd one. Little did I know how strong the beer actually was. I got super tipsy and tipsy-sleepy almost immediately so my Tomislav knew that it was time to take me home! We didn't have a car then so we had to wait for a night tram which sometimes takes forever if you just missed one and it's super-late-night. So we're standing on the Main Square in Zagreb. Wait, well, I guess we're not exactly standing, Tomislav is standing and I'm sleeping on him. Maybe Tomislav had to sit or kneel or bed somehow because I was nodding off against him. He had to basically carry me into the tram and let me sleep on him the whole way back to his parents' place (which is the very last tram stop!). 

*Here's a little known fact: If you google "Tomislav pivo" which means Tomislav beer in Croatian, a picture of us comes up in the image search. I've tried to get it down but I guess it's impossible. Anyway, I'm owning up to it right now so google away (or you can click the link I just posted).

If you've got any good stories or memories of you or someone you once saw (probably me) sleeping somewhere weird, please share!