The Case of the Missing HHI DVD

Did anyone else watch Mary-Kate and Ashley's Mystery series? Writing that title reminded me of the cases they used to crack. Loved those videos! And speaking of nostalgia TV, I'm totally jealous of everyone in the States who gets to see the old school Nickelodeon shows! I heard they're on at night and I'd love to catch a night of All That and what not!

Anyway, after over 600 minutes of uploading time (YouTube takes foreeeeeeeeeever! Especially when it's a 22 minute show lol), I've finally uploaded our episode of House Hunters International and you can find it here. It's been such an adventure just to get our hands on the DVD of it! We never got our copy of the DVD from HGTV (as promised and confirmed) so finally one of my sister's besties, Jen, who is so awesome, recorded it and put it on a DVD. My family brought us a couple of copies of the DVD so we could give it to Tomislav's parents too. Well, in the hustle and bustle of the wedding, we managed to bring it on our Familymoon with us (and naturally, played the drinking game in Dubrovnik - BUDGET!). Then, the DVD was supposed to make it's way to Poland with us so we could show my Grandparents and friends and family there. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found. Somewhere between the 2,000 km of driving, we totally lost it. Fast forward a couple of weeks, when my parents got back to the States, they found our copy of the DVD as they were unpacking! So, Pistol Pete sent it over to us right away and I finally got my hands on this baby and I'm not letting it go! So, that is the long story of why it's taken forever for our episode to be on YouTube. But now it is! Woohoo!

So play the drinking game tonight! (Or today, it is summer after all so day drinking is allowed) Listen for my super awkward washing machine comments that I had to say and see if you can guess (or remember) which apartment we chose :)

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? ;)



Fashion Friday! - with Style Tone Zagreb

This week in Zagreb - the city is pretty empty because everyone's gone to the seaside. This means, tons of parking spots all over town, and more tourists than Zagrebians in the city. It's hot out here and the fashion's even hotter. (Omg, did I really just say that? Whatever, I'm leaving it!) Anyway, big thanks to Style Tone Zagreb for the fab photos for this week's Fashion Friday!

Love this top, this girl looks like she knows what she's doing!

Head to Toe - adorable!

Everyone is always on their phones, everywhere in the world! Love her hat

Bright and shiny couple

Prints and Pattern Fun

Gotta love that cycle chic!

Have a great weekend everyone! Hopefully we'll be getting Internet ASAP, settle in to our new place, and maybe even head to the seaside ourselves for a day! 

Got any great plans for the weekend?

Fashion Friday! - with Street Style Seconds

It's Friday! Yay! Yay! Yay! Not only that, but Fashion Friday is officially (for real this time!) coming back! Back in October when I started this blog, I really wanted to show all of my friends back home what people are wearing in Zagreb. Since I'm not a photographer, or a fashionista, I just stopped people I thought looked cute and different in downtown Zagreb, and in my broken Croatian and asked to take their pic! Well, thankfully, I'm of course not the only one who thought it's a great idea because Street Style Seconds photog Goran Cizmesija takes fab photos of fashionable peeps in this here, ol' capital city! So, without further ado, check out Zagreb's summer street style!

Pulling it off.

Love this - I have shorts with that print btw.

Bikes are popular in Zagreb among young people and I feel like they're an extra accessory.

Femme & Tailored

Roller Blading is big here too, so was a show called Santa Barbara. Has anyone ever seen/heard of that?

What'd I say about the bikes?

Work.

 All Photos courtesy of Street Style Seconds

So, what do you guys think? Do Zagrebians dress like people in Philly, Chicago, and Nebraska? Germany, the UK, and Malaysia? Where you live? We're going to the seaside tomorrow for our 4 Year (dating) Anniversary so I'll surely be wearing lots of flowy, white, summery dresses. Happy Weekend!

Ladies Give the Best Directions

Last night, I realized something major. Next time I need to ask for directions to go somewhere, I should just ask a woman. I'm proud to be a strong, capable, and independent woman and you know what? I'm not afraid to get lost to try to find my way. I'm also a big fan of using a GPS while driving. Unfortunately, my friends' address wasn't being found in the GPS. Normally, I would ask Tomislav to help me out with finding where to go but instead I called my friend first. It was amazing. She asked what was around me and I described the cafe and 2 markets nearby and she knew exactly where I was and how to lead me out of there. She told me to go straight at the childrens' park, turn left at the first stoplight - landmarks that I could actually see, even though it was nighttime. The reason I'm sharing this is because I had an epiphany as to how much better I can understand directions when they are explained by a woman!

One of the first times I was in Croatia, Tomislav was at work and I was at his parents house on the other side of town. He drew me a "map" and wrote out some "directions" to explain which trams to take and how to get to a university so we could go to a friend's graduation. His directions, no joke, said something like, "Cross the street that's perpendicular to the north side and walk over around the right." Huh??

 

I didn't have a cell phone at the time and I ended up getting controlled in the tram (without a ticket) so I got out and made my way to what I now know is Branimir Centar. I saw there was a Cinestar there (the movie theater). Tomislav used to work at Cinestar while he was in college so I felt some hope. I asked them if I could use their phone to call Tomislav but before they could get me the phone, the girls somehow figured out the crazy ass directions he gave me and led me onto the right tram. When I finally got there, Tomislav was waiting and so nervous thinking the worst had happened to me. I quickly exclaimed, "Your directions! That's what happened!"

I have learned, once and for all, to ask a woman! She won't tell me to look at the sun to figure out where west is or whatever. She probably won't say, go North, you know, towards Sljeme (the mountain around Zagreb). Sometimes at night, it's almost impossible to see the mountain! Especially when I'm already totally lost.

 Landmarks like the big Nikola Tesla statue make giving directions much easier!

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!

A Note about Expat Life

I've written about homesickness before and yesterday was one of those days when it randomly hit me. It was actually rather embarrassing because it was after work and I was in center city and just started crying and couldn't really stop. I don't know if that ever happens to anyone else but anyway, the mix of feeling overwhelmed by wedding plans and lack of my immediate family around me just made me break down for a while. 

People usually only see one side to my life and I thought to myself, should they see the other? The answer is yes. It's not all adventures and romance and excitement all the time. It's just...real life, with the added cultural differences (and the fact that you're away from all your family, friends, and comforts of home) of living in Europe. My day to day life is actually pretty boring and routine. Don't get me wrong, I love my life but I just want people to know that I have habits and daily routines just like I did in Philly. I get up early and go to work everyday, I cook, clean, do laundry (no dryer....fun), wash dishes (no dishwasher...boo), read books on my Kindle..watch my favorite American shows online. Just normal, everyday life! 

Instead of Septa subways, I ride Zet trams

Sometimes I think people assume my life is a lot more "glamourous" than it actually is, but it's quite normal most of the time! Sure, things are different because instead of going to NJ (for cheaper gas), we go to Austria (for cheaper shopping)! My life is filled with so much happiness since I've come here because before, I felt lonely often from missing Tomislav all the time. Now, it's different because I'm with Tomislav and that makes me feel so much happiness but now I'm missing other people, like my family and friends.

Me and my other half

 It's important to me to live in the moment, enjoy each day for what it is and try not to look back or forward too much but just be in the present. People often say to take one thing at a time, which really is good advice. It's just hard to follow sometimes. So this is also a reminder to myself to take a deep breath, relax, it'll all work out. Appreciate everything you have, chances are, you have a lot to be grateful for. Just be present and aware of what is happening right now and what needs to happen. 

Enjoy that croissant while you're eating it. Take that moment and just l-i-v-e...

Just one thing...

I've been sick the last few days so maybe that's why I feel the need for a small rant. (You've been warned!) It's this unspoken nuisance that I refuse to let go unnoticed anymore because actually, it's something I have to consider every time I go anywhere in Zagreb.

I'm so over the smoking! It's not something that people bring up a lot here because it's so normal to everyone. Although smoking has been banned in Zagreb, it's still widely accepted to smoke in bars and cafes. True, some places have truly banned smoking or they have make specially "vented" areas for smoking which naturally, doesn't help since the entire place is smoked up anyway. You have to carefully consider what you're going to wear and when you're going to wash your hair when you go out anywhere.

I feel like this relaxed attitude towards the smoking ban law (and the rather low prices of cigarettes) makes so many more people smoke than normally would. I know in Philly sometimes it would be a drag because half of the group of friends would have to leave the bar to go smoke outside and that might dent the party atmosphere for a bit if most of a group is missing, but in Zagreb, you don't even have to face the outdoor cold to light up. I know it's something that won't change so it's something to adjust to and I really think that I have gotten used to it. I just needed to acknowledge how much I dislike the stale leftover cigarette odor on me and my (non-smoking) fiance's jackets (and clothes!).

So in conclusion, my dear smoker friends, I really do care about your health (and mine) and I hope that you'll decide to quit smoking for good! Since tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and marks the beginning of Lent, I think it's a great time for any smokers out there to give up cigarettes for the next 40 days (which will hopefully motivate you to quit for life!).

In case you missed it...

I did an interview for Secret Zagreb for Valentine's Day!

It's about my life and moving to Zagreb to be with my love.

Check it out here if you haven't seen it yet and let me know what you think!

From PA to Zagreb!

Yayyyyy!!!  

We are SUPER EXCITED to share the news that we're going to be filming an episode of 

Big, huge thanks to first of all, my amazing sister, Dominika, for urging me to start this blog, without which we wouldn't have gotten approached to be on the show! Not only do I love writing my blog, it's really fun for me, but it's also the reason why we'll get to be on the show. This awesome producer, Michelle, found my blog and left me a comment on here and we started corresponding about our story and they thought we'd be a really great fit. 

Then, our lovely friends, Sarah and Jan, filmed us running around Zagreb showing our favorite things so that the other producers and network could see what we're really like. They loved the video (despite my horrible editing and file compressing efforts) and notified us that we'll be featured on the show! I've been a huge fan of the show and it's literally like a dream come true that we'll get to be on it. I'm so excited, it's gonna be a really fun experience for us! If you haven't seen the show before House Hunters International is a half-hour program currently airing on the Home and Garden Television Network (HGTV) in America. The series is designed to de-mystify the international home-buying process by going behind the scenes of a house hunt where expats and their real estate agents tour 3 homes. At its core, House Hunters International is a travel show concentrating on the idiosyncrasies of the locales and what makes them special and different.

You can watch an example of the show here. (California to Vienna)

If you want to check out the video we made, you can see it here:

 

If this video doesn't work, the producers put our video up here. Check it out! P.S. Our friends who helped film the video, Sarah and Jan, can be seen having a coffee with T-Slav in the video :) Thank you thank you everybody!

The Many Seasons on a Drive Throughout Croatia

On Tuesday morning, I awoke to a wonderful surprise. It was St. Nicholas Day, which in Europe is also the day that I celebrate my Name Day! When I went to sleep the night before, I had totally forgotten about it!

I was shocked to see St. Nicholas had remembered to visit our place!

He even found my boot! I got a nice big chocolate and also a gold stick which represented that I had not been all nice this year. 

Tomislav had a business trip he had to take to Porec, Croatia on the seaside which I tagged along on. The drive to the seaside from Zagreb is incredible. First, we left the fog of Zagreb for the snowy mountainous region.

The picture does not do it justice. It looked gorgeous!

The snow brought our Christmas tunes to life!

When we arrived in Porec, T-Slav went to work while I got to relax near the sea.

It was warm and beautiful, once the sun set though, we had to move on.

Since T had to work in Rijeka on Wednesday, we drove down Tuesday night and were so happy to see such a beautiful, Christmas-y city!

The pedestrian zone in Rijeka is so long, I think even longer than in Belgrade and it really put us in the holiday spirit.

The best part of our time in Rijeka for me? Probably the hotel, for we had the best view we have ever had before here!

From the balcony, you could just see water all around, it was so beautiful.

I loved it!

Yay!

It was so peaceful

Thanks to the Best Western: Hotel Jadran for giving us the best view in the entire hotel!

Problems you may face while planning an American/European wedding in Europe:

SAVE THE DATES: how to write the date! This is a serious concern because if you found the perfect save the date style that you love, but it only has room for writing the date with numbers (like 6/9/2012), the problem is that half of your guests will assume the wedding is in June and the other half will think it's in September!

GUEST LIST: With that comes the guest list, in general. It's so difficult to figure out who and how many people to invite. With us, we would obviously love all of our friends and family to attend but we understand with the very far travel, it's just not possible. Our venue is very small so we actually can't invite too many people, although we would like for them to be there. We just don't want anyones' feelings to get hurt or for them to feel rejected in any way but it's just hard. We also can't assume that people won't come because it's in Zagreb because who knows, maybe EVERYONE will come since Croatia is just that awesome :) I just want everyone to have our Save the Date because I'm proud of them and I think they're really cute.

MUSIC CHOICES: To circle dance or not to circle dance? I'm slowly but surely letting go of my childhood American wedding dreams and accepting that this is truly gonna be a Cro wedding: our style and its gonna be amazing! It's so hard to choose whether to have a band or DJ, although we'd really prefer a DJ but finding an English speaking, awesome and pumped up wedding DJ in Zagreb is proving to be difficult. Please let us know if you know of anyone!

Wedding planning isn't as easy breezy as you might think it is but through it all, we just keep reminding ourselves to not stress out and think about the important things, like that we will be married after the whole wedding is over. Thankfully T-Slav reminds me to take lots of deep breaths to calm down. I'm just excited to show my family Zagreb and to be T's wifey :)

P.S. The picture is from our wedding venue which is right on the Main Square in Zagreb so there's a fantastic view from the window behind me! Love it.