Destination Wedding: Croatia!

More people are doing destination weddings these days for their big day. We got married here in Zagreb, Croatia and I wouldn't want it any other way! I don't think we could have EVER had such an amazing wedding anywhere else in the entire world. It was absolute perfection and it was definitely thanks to so many incredible vendors here in Zagreb.

When we first got engaged, we thought Tomislav would be moving to the States soon enough so we assumed we'd be getting married in the States. But because of the sacrifice Tomislav was making for moving to the States, we decided it would only be fair if we got married in Croatia, especially since if the wedding was in America, most of his family and friends wouldn't be able to come. So, we put wedding planning off for a while and lo and behold, I ended up moving to Croatia and we ended up getting married in Zagreb! And you know what, I wouldn't change a single thing about it!

We looked at venues in Zagreb for a while and were really debating about things. We wanted the place to be presentable since guests would be arriving from all over the world and show Zagreb off like the capital city that she is (is Zagreb a she? I'm not sure about the gender of proper nouns in Croatian, oh well!). When we first visited Gradska Kavana, I fell in love. Again. The space was so amazing, absolutely breathtaking and I could already picture myself on those stairs!

 

Yes, these stairs!



The perfect stairs for my girls to stand on while I tossed the bouquet!

And for the boys when Tomislav threw the garter (and Ana captured this fabulous action shot!)

 But at that time, we were still considering other places, especially because we would only be able to have 80 guests at Gradska Kavana so we were really debating about it. It was difficult for me to go on meetings with all of the owners and managers of these wedding venues because my Croatian was lacking. That was making it really hard for me to even get in the wedding planning spirit. That was all for a reason though. Gradska Kavana was still holding on to my heart and we were totally willing to cut down the guest list to have the wedding there. Besides, we really didn't expect anyone to come from as far as the States!


Dancing "Kolo" (circle dancing)

 

The perfect wedding venue - great atmosphere, delicious food, just perfection!

 So, we made our way back to Gradska Kavana to take another tour and as luck should to have it, there was a brand new General Manager there who would later become known to us as Super Man. Not only did this guy speak perfect, fluent English (German too!), he listened to us and all of our concerns and special requests and what not and he absolutely loved our ideas and his answer was always, "No problem, we can make it happen!" Without him, we couldn't have had our wedding. Zdenko is the greatest wedding coordinator in the universe. He was always there to calm me down during the planning and preparations and he literally made it the greatest day of our lives and I'm so thankful to him. I'm forever greatful to him, honestly, because he was such a ray of sunshine in our lives and it's so cheesy but it's so true. I just love him. He is the best! I just don't know if the guy ever sleeps because he's literlaly out being Superman all day and night long!

Zdenko bringing our cake out and making a funny face - he is the best!

I was absolutely obsessed with our flowers. They were EXACTLY what I wanted, and literally the most gorgeous flowers I'd ever seen in my life. No one could do a more amazing job than Ida from Cvjetni Atelier Kontesa. Martha Stewart doesn't even have flowers as beautiful as these! She listened to everything I had to say and made adjustments as necessary and literally helped make me the happiest bride in the universe! It's so important to trust your vendors to make your day flow perfectly!

All of our vendors were the best we could possibly ask for and I'll definitely tell you more about them in the future, especially about our amazing photographer, Ana Mihalic. In fact, I'm hoping I'll tell you more about her later this week in a special feature. I mean obviously she's amazing, just look at her photos! Makes you want to get married in Croatia now, doesn't it? ;)



One Month

I got made up

 

 We had our reveal

We danced spontaenously in the park for a crowd of people watching an orchestra!

We played with confetti in the park

 

We rode the tram

We kissed

We cried (the choir was so, so, so beautiful)

We were so happy! 

We 'American Danced' (think bump 'n' grind) until the break of dawn

We got wild!

It's been exactly one month since our wonderful wedding day and we were bombarded by emotions this weekend because we got the videos and photos from our unbelievably talented videographer, Damir Paić, and photographer, Ana Mihalić. Damir had been through so much with me and my crazy Polish-American customs and my hestitation towards Croatian traditions but his creativity and movie-making talent are really incomparable. His ideas look incredible put together in his videos and I invite you to check out this "trailer" of our wedding video that he put together. It's so fun!

You've seen her pictures before on my blog, but not like this! Ah-maz-ing!!! I am so excited about our photographer. Since I first met Ana and saw her photos, I was just in awe of how she and her camera and make such beautiful images. She is a true talent and you should remember her name because I have all the confidence in the world that she is gonna be huge. She's amazing and a great friend and I just couldn't be any happier, she did the most incredible job and we love her. Check out this video she made with some of our wedding photos. It's so cool to see Ana and Damir's different styles capturing the same wedding. We really couldn't be any happier, all of our vendors were just so great.

It's an incredible thing to be married, to have my partner for life. We've been through so much, so much distance, so much time spent apart, so much uncertainty about when we'd be together, and so much stress through the wedding planning process. But, we know each other so well, we love each other so much, and he really is my better half and that is absolutely everything to me. He is really the best (seriously, he is amazing) and I think that's why I knew we had to hold onto each other from the very beginning because there would never be anyone else like him!

When T-Slav and I first started dating, I fell for him fast. I knew straight away that I loved him but since he was only in the States for 5 months, I felt like our relationship had an expiration date. I still can't believe that today, 4 years later, we're together, and we're now married and I'm with him in Croatia. I've learned that if someone is worth it, you make it work. No matter how hard it can be sometimes, always wishing the other person was there when they're not and who knows the next time you'll see each other, no matter what. If you love someone, real love, you can make anything happen.

It's no secret that it was really hard for me to wedding plan without my family and friends. Wedding planning is so stressful, it really is. As much as you don't want it to be, it just is because there is just so much to consider and remember. My sister (and the absolute greatest maid of honor in the universe) kept trying to remind me to enjoy wedding planning because you only get to do it once) but it was just so stressful. Well, none of that mattered in the end. It all worked out! It did! (Dominika - you are the greatest, thank you for everything, especially for keeping me together all throughout wedding week, for all of your patience and love with me always, and for carrying my dress all over Zagreb, you did so much to help make our wedding day perfect, and there could be no better maid of honor than you! Having a great MOH and Best Man really helps you stay sane wedding week. Let's hear it for Lovro!)

Wedding weekend was absolute perfection. Everyone's flights and drives made it safely (albeit with a few delays) and we had the most fun and Euro-cuc time ever! I just wish everyone was still here or could come back so we could do it all over again because it was just that much fun! I think European anniversary parties might just have to become the norm because being able to see my nearest and dearest loved ones, having them all their, my family, my wonderful friends who really surprised me on making the long trip out here and making our day so much more special. All of Tomislav's family and so many Croatian people who met all of my friends and fam were absolutely shocked and amazed at how awesome everyone was, just because their only idea of American people is what they see and hear on TV. But I'm like, come on, what do you expect?! They're the people that I love the most, how did they think it would be? Our wedding weekend was just so fantastic because everyone was together, and you really couldn't tell who was from which country or speaking what language because everyone was talking, laughing, dancing, and partying together and I'm eternally thankful for everyone who came here, helped us with putting everything together, who celebrated our day with us, even from afar. I just love everyone so much and I'm so grateful we all got to be together. 

Croatian Style

Slowly getting back into the swing of things Croatian style. First of all, I can't believe I've been here over a year already. That is just crazy to me! I really can't believe that. I didn't know at this point last year that I'd be staying this long but that's life and I've certainly gotten used to certain aspects of Croatian life. Since we were traveling with our family and friends, some Croatian habits were made so much more noticeable to me around other people. Tomislav (and I have to admit I'm also guilty of this) drinks his coffee "Croatian style" which means leisurely and at a very relaxed pace so that one espresso lasts an entire hour long break. I've gotten so used to the coffee here (which I used to complain about!) but I love that I don't have to drink a huge ass mug to get my caffeine fix, just one, bitter but delicious espresso does the trick! Since we came back to hot hot heated up Zagreb last week, we decided to settle back in the Croatian way, which obviously means a weekend trip to the seaside!

The beautiful island of Krk - the perfect place for romantic strolls

Yesterday I was driving to the supermarket and listening to the radio. Well, really I was half listening because I usually don't concentrate enough to try to understand what the radio DJs are saying in Croatian, but I got interested upon hearing "zaručnik" and "vjenčanje" obvi (which mean fiance and wedding) and realized that they were talking about the movie "The 5 Year Engagement." I wanted to see the movie so I started really trying to concentrate and I realized it was some kind of a movie ticket giveaway so I heard you had to send a text to nula-šest-dva-dva-pet and I can't match the actual numbers to the words right away in my head so I kept repeating nula-šest-dva-dva-pet, nula-šest-dva-dva-pet to myself until I got to the supermarket. I texted the number and I won the free tickets! We saw it last night and it was so funny! It made T-Slav and I realize that maybe we should play some more of those kinds of SMS games/giveaways. He won a year's supply of Fisherman's Friend candy a year or two ago because of one of those contests. Oh yeah Cro Cro, what up small population = bigger chances of winning!

Finally, check out my kulinarskoj mudrosti (culinary wisdom) over here on Mrkva.hr's blog! I wrote about the recipe you thought you knew, but you didn't a while back after Tomislav urged me to share the way I make hard boiled eggs. Something so simple, but many people don't know the simple and perfect way to make eggs every single time. Translated into Croatian! So neat! I will have to show my mother-in-law that one :)

Polish Roulette

One more drinking game to tell you about before the weekend. I'm sure my friends who didn't grow up in the States are rolling their eyes at me majorly, but T-Slav came up with this one and it's really a great one! So, of course there is Russian roulette, but man that's sooooo not Polish peoples' style. So while at Babcia and Dziadek's last week, Tomislav had a brilliant idea and came up with the Polish counterpart.

Let's say 6 people are playing Polish Roulette, you have to fill up 3 (or 4 or 5, as you wish) shot glasses with vodka and 3 shot glasses with water. Then, everyone takes a shot and upon drinking it, everyone must try and keep a straight face. No sour vodka faces, just stone cold poker faces! I think the Polish version of Roulette is much better :)

Na zdrowie! Živjeli! Cheers everyone! 

How awesome is this Croatia/Poland supporter? He's such a cutie. I'm pretending last night's Germany vs. Italy game never happened and pretty much ignoring the rest of the Eurocup. Terrified of hearing seaside-7 Nation Army-singing by the Italians. Not talking about it anymore. Anyway! Have a fab weekend and hope you get to spend it outside in beautiful weather!

Gingers Do Europe

I am still amazed by the fact that so many of my friends made the long journey over to Croatia for our wedding. Despite intense fears of flying, high costs of flights, and not enough vaction days, my loves made it to share the love with us on our big day. One of my besties had the plan from the start to put together a video of their Eurotrip and I can't believe she already put it together! It is amazing and I absolutely love it. These are two of my best friends in the world, the ketchup heads to my mustard, and (sorry T-Slav) but they are great loves of my life as well! I love my ketchup heads so much! Check out this fabulous video Morgan made below:

I love them both so much!

Mr. and Mrs!

I think it's impossible to stay calm during wedding week and as much as you want to, you just can't! I'm trying to stay in the moment and enjoy everything and not stress so much. We can't change anything now, as long as he's there and I'm there...that's all that matters. Tomorrow's the big day. I can't believe it's already here! Here we go, this is it. Today's our 'Welcome to Croatia' party for everyone and it's all happening! This is what we've been waiting for and planning for and I just hope I can stay calm and enjoy it as much as I can. I have the best MOH ever though and thank God she's making me take deep breaths and relax. I'm so excited, seriously the excitement and adrenaline are just all over the place!
 

WEDDING WEEKEND!!!

Language Learning

"Nikki, daj nam malo na Hrvatskom!"

Tomislav's Dad can be heard saying that (probably) at the end of our House Hunters International episode (12 more days til it airs!), meaning, "Nikki, say something in Croatia" or quite literally - give us a little in Croatian!

I have always loved learning foreign languages. It's something I'm good at, it's something I love- speaking to people in their native tongue is so rewarding. I grew up with Polish (Dziękuję Mamusia i Tatuś!) and English (thanks Dee Dee!) which caused me to think as a child that everyone spoke Polish at home and that everyone's parents were learning English. I was so surprised when I'd go to American friends' houses and they were eating Pop-Tarts and chatting away without accents. Anyway, apparently I wasn't always such a language fiend! In elementary school, I went through a period where I didn't want to speak Polish at all. I forgot everything so by the time summer rolled around and we went to visit our family in Poland, I couldn't understand anything or anyone. It was so frustrating that upon returning to the States, I vowed to only speak Polish to my parents. Somehow, I don't remember any of this but everyone else does! Anyway, I love my culture and I'm so thankful to have grown up with such a strong global awareness through my family.

The first language I learned (by choice) was German. In middle school, we had those 9 weeks of German and 9 weeks of Spanish and German spoke to me right away. My parents lived in Berlin in the early 1980s and my sister was even born there! I felt a connection to Germany right away and in high school I was lucky  enough to have the greatest German teacher ever! She made language learning so fun and there are so many classmates I know who have also become German teachers after having her in high school. Frau Young - you are so loved! Anyway, I already knew I loved traveling and I wanted to go abroad but as a 10th grader, I didn't have the money for it (despite my sweet telemarketing gig. What up KLM!) I applied for the CBYX Scholarship, convinced my parents to let me, a 15 year old go to a foreign country to live with an unknown family for a full year. (Looking back, I can't believe my Mom actually let me go! I know she didn't want me to but I'm so thankful my Dad was especially supportive!) It was challenging but really changed my life in so many ways. I met so many wonderful people and I'm so thankful that my host family really became like a real family to me and they'll be coming to our wedding this summer!

Arabic came next after returning to the States after my year abroad. I was so inspired by a special friend in high school to learn more about the Middle East and Arabic just seemed so beautiful and interesting to me. When I was thinking about college, I knew I wanted to go somewhere that had an Arabic program. I got really distracted studying Arabic in Philly so I figured it'd be best that I immerse myself in the language and culture so I applied for the Arabic Language Institute in Cairo so I could learn more! My time in Cairo was amazing with wonderful friends who were happy to have me practice my Arabic with them (and a couple of extra special professors!). 


I met Tomislav back in June 2008 when the only things I knew about Croatia was the fact that one of my friends from high school's girlfriend's was Croatian! I remembered how his away messages on AIM (yeah...remember?) always said "Volim te!" To be honest, I didn't even know what the capital of Croatia was back then (I don't think I ever would have imagined that I'd be living here back then!). Anyway, the manager at Valanni told me he hired a Croatian guy so when I met Tomislav, the very first thing I said to him was, "You're Croatian, right? Volim te!" He looked at me kind of stunned and started saying something in Croatian and I quickly jumped in, "No, no! That's the only thing I know! I'm actually Polish." This was the start to my learning the Croatian language. By the way - Volim te means...I love you! Imagine that, the first thing I ever said to him! I told you, it was love at first sight ;)


Moj Hrvatski is coming along. I'm by NO means fluent but I can talk to most anyone, especially Tomislav's family since I'm so used to chatting with them and they understand the way I talk (with plenty of hand motions and lots of explaining, "To je..kao mljeko ali ne mljeko..." Working in an environment where I am around English everyday doesn't help my Croatian but luckily a new friend inspired me to speak more Croatian lately. She is an American living in Zagreb with her boyfriend and she had this genius idea to try to speak only in Croatian while she's at home for one week! (See her blog here) One day when Tomislav came home, I gave it a try and we made it 90 minutes without English. It was a fun challenge! 


For me, the best way to learn a foreign language is total immersion. I found that to be true when I learned German, practicing Polish is always better when I'm around Polish people, or better yet - in Poland! And I NEEDED to go to Egypt to learn Arabic, it wasn't happening for me in my 3 hours a week classes in Philly. I practice this with my students now. While we're in the classroom, students are only allowed to speak in the target language and of course, I only speak to them in the foreign language. Now with Croatian, I need to practice more, that's all there is to it. When my family and friends come to Croatia in a couple of short months for our wedding, I'll be ready to interpret and translate away for everyone so we can all communicate with one another. I expect a lot of hand gestures and hugging but I'm sure we'll all be able to understand each other, one way or another!

Thanks to these two I knew how to say "Volim te!" 

This picture is from last summer while they were visiting Croatia!

 

Thank You!

It's almost been 6 months since I began Dream of Home Tonight and I've been having a blast writing! It's great to be able to share with my family and friends all over the world. Some of whom I don't get to see very often and some of whom I don't even know yet but I'm happy to call all dear friends. It's been so fulfilling to share my own personal stories about what life is like abroad for me. I noticed the other day that DOHT was nearing a nice big landmark in page views and I just want to say thank you to all of my lovely and wonderful readers all over the world for bringing DOHT's page views to 10,000!

How perfect! As I went to the page to see what the statistics were, it was exactly at 10,000!

Dream of Home Tonight's Top 5 Most Visited Countries are:

Team U.S.A.!

Thank you so much everyone from the States - my biggest "fans" you could say ;)

Na drugom miestu - Hvala svima iz Hrvatske! Volim vas!

Vielen dank alle aus Deutschland! Als dritter ankommen meine ganz beliebte Deutsche! Ich schaetze dass viele von denen kommen aus Bayern ;)

Dziękuję bardzo wszyscy - w czwartym miejscu jest moja kochana ojczyzna Polska! Jestem bardzo szczęśliwa z tego powodu!

 

Cheers UK! Thanks so much for reading!

 Rounding out the top 5 are the Frenchies! Merci beaucoup!

Russia, the Netherlands, Canada, Brazil, and Egypt trail not far behind so спасибо, Dank U, Merci, Obrigado, and  ! شكرا

I love so so much when someone mentions that they remember something they read on my blog or has a suggestion for something I should write about. I love to hear from all of you, especially from people who come from Expat Blog who are looking for more information on what it's really like to move here, to find a job here, to deal with MUP and so on! I'd love to help in any way I can so keep writing my way!

Thanks again everybody. it feels great to be here!

Cheers to 10,000 more!

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!

Go to your happy place...

Tomislav and I did a lot of things this summer that we never thought we'd get to do. The best part of everything was probably that we got to do it together. After spending the last 3 years going back and forth between Philly and Croatia, I'm really glad that I've gotten to spend so much time in Cro Cro. ;) We got to travel so much and one of our favorite places to go is Dubrovnik, Croatia. It's about 600 km from Zagreb, but the drive is really not that bad. Especially driving like this:

 Yep, it was me :) It was only on the highway though!

So, if you've ever been to Zagreb, you know that Croatians take their coffee very seriously. The coffee culture in Zagreb is awesome. Instead of meeting with their friends for happy hour, a beer, or a cocktail like we tend to do in the States, Croatians like to meet up with friends for a coffee. There are tons of cafes to go to and I think it's really nice that they like to sit down and really enjoy that cup of coffee. So imagine my shock and surprise when I realized that it's almost impossible to find coffee to go anywhere! You know, like Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks or somewhere where you can get a to go cup of coffee! We finally got one at a gas station rest stop.

That was this big.


Anyway, the drive down to Dubrovnik is actually really beautiful.

This was the view from a reststop. I'm holding a piece of fresh lavender in my hand because lavender grows wild there! It smells amazing!

Also, because of the way the road is built, you have to cross the border into Bosnia at one point and drive for about 20 minutes through Neum, Bosnia. Luckily, the views of the sea are fantastic from there!

Dubrovnik is amazingly beautiful. The sea is a gorgeous, clear blue. The one thing that really stands out about Dubrovnik is the fantastic service you see everywhere. Because there are so many tourists that visit the city, the service in bars and restaurants is excellent and they really make you feel at home.

Lapad Beach

I really highly recommend you plan a visit to Dubrovnik next summer (you can start daydreaming about it already). June is a great month to go in since there aren't that many tourists yet. You can get the freshest seafood there, especially at the restaurant Orhan:

and Sesame:

 This is the most delicious salad of fresh figs, prosciutto, and shaved parmesan. Seriously fresh and fantastic!

 This is the view inside the city and city walls (I'm eating delicious lemon ice cream, my absolute favorite)

 

You can see a bit of the city walls here and the orange trees behind us!

Our favorite beach in Dubrovnik is a short ferry ride away from the Old City to the island behind me called, Lokrum. The ferry takes about 20 minutes and the view of the City Walls and sea is great. The beach is unlike any other, since it is on a cliff and you lay on giant boulders relaxing in the sun.

Don't forget the sunblock ;)

By night, the city is very romantic. The mix of music, ancient culture, and gorgeous architecture puts you in great spirits. It's no surprise at all that they're filming the next season of Game of Thrones here and that so many celebrities come to vacation here too.

All in all, by the time you leave Dubrovnik, you'll be sad to go but you'll be feeling like this: