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!

House Hunters International Drinking Game!

Since our episode of House Hunters International first aired, we realized there were several phrases that were often repeated throughout the show and Pistol Pete was the first to realize that our episode would make a great drinking game! So it has become one! We invite you to play the "Falling in Love on a Budget in Zagreb Drinking Game."

Here's how it goes:
You can watch our episode here (if you're in the USA):

If you're anywhere outside the States, consider getting UnoTelly. It allows you to watch all the normally blocked websites that are available only in the USA all over the world. Easy to install, very low monthly cost, and I have 3 more coupons to give away to my readers! If you're interested (and you should be! You can watch everything then! Hulu, Netflix, NBC, Food Network, ABC, I mean just so much American TV that is normally unavailable), at checkout, use this coupon code: [ dreamofhometonight ] to get an additional 25% off! That means only $3.25/month for a premium package and $6/month for Gold. Woohoo!

Anyway, the drinking game! So, as you watch, you'll see T-Slav and I, and our families, and our home! Listen closely, and every time you hear the word "budget", take a swig! For you thirsty folk, you can also drink every time you hear us say, "We're planning our wedding" or every time you hear Tomislav say, "preferably." The budget game will get you tipsy enough but if you really want to put it over the edge, take a shot at our totally cheesy, but totally honest and unplanned decision scene in the park :)

We're still on that vodka kick post-Poland ;)

So enjoy our episode and play Pistol's drinking game! Let us know what you think :) It'll also air on HGTV on July 5th, 2012 at 7:00PM EST so you can check it out then too!

The best part of an 18 hour car trip?

 Tomislav and I are no strangers to long car trips, we've gone on road trips throughout Eastern Europe before, and especially as of late, T has done a lot of business travel by car. For our familymoon, we caravan-ed our way down to Dubrovnik in 2 big vans for the 8 hour drive. After Dubrovnik, we drove the 8 hours back to Zagreb, then embarked on a 1,300 km trip up to Poland. With so many drivers, we were able to get there with plenty of time for each of us to rest and relax. On the way back? It was just me and T. The first time we'd been alone since we got married and we were about to embark on an 18 hour car ride!

 

Many of you may know that my dream is to be on The Amazing Race someday. Unfortunately, you have to be a US Citizen to be on the show so my hubby wouldn't be able to be my partner on the show. This doesn't stop us from turning everyday life events into race challenges. Even little things like making it to the tram that's about to drive away, we book it and run, never giving up, as if we're on the Race. On our long ass car ride, we were making announcements like, "The next leg of the Amazing Race...starts NOW!" Our race started in Northeast Poland, we drove through the whole country, down to the Czech Republic, then through Austria, next came Slovenia, and finally back to Croatia.

So, what are the best parts of an 18 hour car trip?

1.) The views and scenery! Sometimes it's so beautiful but you just can't snap a pic in time to capture that beauty. There are many highways still being built in Poland so a lot of the drive is on more local roads on gorgeous tree lined streets like this, sometimes the trees even grow into each other so it looks like a tunnel of trees!

 

I just love seeing cows on the side of the road! It's so Poland!

 

 2.) Taking turns being the driver and the co-pilot! My Uncle gave us some maps of Poland which was so helpful. Believe it or not, it's the first time we ever road tripped with maps (we usually just follow signs) so it was great to be able to cross off the cities we've already passed off our list. It's also good that I'm not afraid of driving in Poland anymore and have gotten used to European driving with roundabouts and passing cars on narrow laned roads. It's up to each of us to keep the driver as entertained as possible so they don't get sleepy and the driver needs to gauge when they feel awake enough to let the co-pilot take a nap. One of our favorite things to do on long car trips is I read out loud to T-Slav. It's even better than audio books because he gets to hear my impressions of different characters' voices. I read him Catching Fire this trip and he got hooked!

 

3.) Taking breaks at random detours that we think look interesting! We saw this massive flea market from the side of the road so we decided to go take a break and check it out! We were totally surprised by the first things we saw.

It was actually a pet/farmers' market with farm animals! There were so many different types of animals, it kind of made us want to be farmers (OK maybe, I should speak for myself). But someday, we would  love to have our own chickens and a big garden, much like Tomislav's dear Aunt and Uncle have here in Croatia. Talk about farm fresh!

Sometimes it makes me sad to see the adorable little animals but these little duckies were so cute and were all shnuggling so close together. I was trying to secretly snap pics but we looked so out of place next to call the farmers, especially T in his Jersey-style sunglasses and me with my pink and purple blinged out iPhone case. Yeah, no. Not so farmery!

 

4.) Stopping at random rest stops, especially ones named "Old Timer!" After about 14 hours or driving, we made it to Vienna and it was about 9 pm at this point so the England vs. Italy game was on and I just had to watch at least a part of it! We stopped at this really cute rest stop (with the strangest name) to grab some food and watch at least part of the game.

 I was glad we got to watch even a bit because it was my turn to drive and T's to nap and I couldn't find the game on any radio station. Finally as we got closer to the Austrian/Slovenian border I found a weird Croatian station just as they were in double overtime. I woke T up to translate during the PKs! No offense to any Italy fans, but Germany is gonna KICK ASS tomorrow! Woooohooo! Germany for the win! Anyway, I was getting really sleepy at this point of the drive so T-Slav took over and then we had to blast some Call Me Maybe and LMFAO to keep our energy pumped up. I'm so glad he drove the last leg of our trip!

5.) And my personal, absolute favorite part of 18 hour car trips (here in Europe anyway!) is being able to stop and get different magazines, especially cooking ones, in the languages that I actually understand. I got so many and I'm so excited about them all. The paella on the cover of the Polish mag on the left looks amazing and I'm definitely gonna make it one day soon. I love being on summer vacation now from work so I can really get my housewife stuff on. We've been home barely 2 days and I've already made chicken gyros with a Polish cucumber salad, German potato salad (my fav!), crunchy veggie filled salad with Thai peanut dressing, and sweet and sour vegetables with rice noodles (which was so unbelievably delicious, T-Slav literally didn't realize there wasn't any meat in the dish until I mentioned it near the end of his gorging. I just love that.) Delicious!

Meatless Monday

I have been reading a great book recently that I found in the school library's adult non-fiction section while I was helping do inventory last week. The title caught my attention straight away - "Eating Animals." I assumed it would be a book about vegetarianism but right as I began the book, the author, Jonathan Safran Foer, explained that although that's what many people might think, it's really more about his education and knowledge about the culture of eating animals. I wanted to write down so many interesting facts from the book and was reading quotes out loud to Tomislav. The book is an absolute must read to meat eaters and vegetarians alike as it gives you an inside (and sometimes very graphic) look at the world of how animals come to the table. At times, it's sad, but all the time it's terribly fascinating and I couldn't stop reading it.

So the book got me reflecting a lot about my own ideas of food and where animals and plants come from or the idealized version that I've had in my head for a while. Growing up, my Grandma and Grandpa were farmers (and they still live on that farm in Poland) and that gave me a different vision of animals, allowing me to see what farms are really like and how happily all of the animals live on their farm. Since my grandparents are older now, they don't have many animals anymore but they still have their chickens running around. One of my favorite jobs was and still is gathering the eggs from the chickens. I love walking around the yard where they run around and play while I feed them with my Grandpa, calling them "cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep!" So I would love to think that that is how animals are treated on farms and so-called factory 'farms' in the States. Unfortunately, that is so far from the truth. The truth is horrifying - read the book.

 My Dziadek and I, the chickens, and our very beloved farm dog Kubus

The book is changing my way of thinking a lot and it's making me make a lot more vegetarian dishes (once again!). And I finally understand now why an old friend I met in Egypt who is an American, explained to me that she was vegetarian for 'political reasons.' I could go on and on about this but I just HAVE to share this amazing veg dish that I recently made.

Couscous-Stuffed Peppers with Basil Sauce (adapted from Giada De Laurentiis)

Yum!

Here's what you need:

• 1 cup of chicken stock
• 2 tsp ground cumin/turmeric/curry powder
• 3/4 cup couscous
• 1 cup canned garbanzo beans (rinsed and drained)
•  1/4 cup of olive oil
• salt and ground pepper
• 4 red, orange, or yellow peppers
• hot water as needed

For the Sauce (which you WILL want to make):

• 1 packed cup fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup (about 4 ounces) sour cream
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 garlic clove, coarsely chopped
• 2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt, plus extra, as needed
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus extra, as needed

OK so - this is pretty easy to make and quite quick to prepare. My peppers were on the small side so I had some couscous leftover after I stuffed them and I'm glad I did because I was so hungry and the peppers need to roast in the over for about an hour! I couldn't wait that long ;)

Preheat your oven to 400 F (about 200 C)

For the filling, in a medium saucepan, bring the chicken broth and spice mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the couscous. Cover the pan until the couscous has absorbed all the stock, about 5 to 6 minutes. Put the couscous in a large bowl and add the beans, diced red pepper, and 1/4 cup olive oil. At this point, you can add some dried fruits, spinach, and/or goat cheese or parmesan cheese as you prefer. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Stir until all the ingredients are combined.

Slice the tops off the peppers and remove all the ribs and seeds. If necessary, cut a very thin slice from the base to help the peppers stand up. (I used the extra top and bottom to dice up and put inside the couscous mixture.) Stuff the peppers with the filling and drizzle the tops with olive oil. Put the peppers in an 8 by 8-inch square baking dish. Fill the baking dish with 3/4-inch hot water and bake until the filling is golden and the peppers are cooked through, about 60 minutes.

For the Sauce: In a blender, combine the basil, creme fraiche (or sour cream), olive oil, water, garlic, lemon (or lime, like I used), juice, sugar, salt, and pepper. Blend until smooth. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, to taste.

Remove the peppers from the oven and arrange on serving plates. Spoon the sauce around the peppers and serve.

This was so delicious and filling, Tomislav and I both loved it and again, didn't miss the meat at all! As for that sauce - oh man, I love putting my basil plant to good use and that sauce you can literally drizzle on anything and it would taste amazing! Next time, I'll make extra sauce!

Szmingus Dingus

Happy Easter Monday! Here in Eastern Europe, today is a National Holiday as it is the second day of Easter! In Poland, it's called Szmingus Dingus and on this day, everyone throws buckets of water at each other. I'm not really sure about the history behind this but I know that when we spent Easter in Poland (when I was a kid), it was one of the most fun days ever! My sister and I and all of our neighbors in our Grandparents little village ran around like crazy filling buckets in the well and soaking one another. We had to change a million times but it was a blast. I love this tradition, as crazy as it is! Today, it's a little too cold for a proper Szmingus Dingus in Zagreb. At least it's sunny though!

Easter weekend has been really great!

My Traditions:

 

 

 These pictures are blurry but I love this girl too much not to post them. And the only reason they're so blurry is because we were getting our Rihanna on so hard! Thank you to the cafe/bar Kic for being so friendly and welcoming to us crazy girls!

T-Slav was talking about baking our own bread for our Easter basket but instead I went for these butter biscuits that remind me of one of my old college roommates who is a great cook and baker!

 

 My Carrot Ginger Soup was requested by Tomislav to be at Easter Sunday dinner so his family could try it. It was a huge hit, even with his Dad (!!) who officially gave me his blessing after realizing that I really can cook! Thank you T for doing all the peeling ;)

 

So excited to be making my first ham!

 

Pretty little hammy

 

 Beer and pineapples - the best thing to ever happen to ham! It came out absolutely PERFECT, so juicy and delicious! (T was SO thrilled to be eating meat again!)

Croatian Traditions:

 

 Dying eggs by putting onion skins in the boiling water so they get a nice red color

Most of mine stayed pretty brown but some of them looked redder!

 The Easter basket is both of our traditions since our Polish custom is to get our Easter baskets blessed on Saturday before Easter. The Croatian way is to have plenty of green onions and radishes on Easter Sunday. We also had the biscuits, eggs, salt and pepper, some of the freshly baked ham, and chocolate eggs. The blessed food is the first thing you eat on Sunday morning.

At Tomislav's parents house we had these baked potatoes and cabbage salads

 

Of course, more green onions and radishes!

 

Lamb

 

And finally these awesome glasses that Tomislav's parents both got 2 pairs of (each) recently!

They are the glasses you get for free (with insurance) and in true Croatian fashion, once I get health insurance, I'm totally trying to get a pair. They're cuuuute! T's parents look adorable in them!

  

So if you're somewhere warm today, I encourage you to throw a water balloon, or even just a splash of water on someone in honor of Szmingus Dingus :D I know how I'll be waking T up today!

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!