Happy Anniversary=Beautiful Croatia

Our 3rd anniversary was May 14th, and we celebrated early with a long weekend trip to Split, Croatia. Before leaving Vienna, we encountered a small hurdle when we got locked out of our house 3 hours prior to the train leaving. I was going to cut Michael's hair on the front porch, and the door shut before I could get the words out of my mouth to make sure we kept it open. One hour, a locksmith, and 110 euros later, we were scurrying around the house trying to finish getting ready so we wouldn't miss the train. In our haste, we didn't have time to get food for the 15 hour trip, but we thought we should have enough time during our connection in Zagreb to find something to eat. Well, we thought wrong. The train arrived late, so we had less than 5 minutes to make our connection. Luckily, we slept most of the way to Split where we arrived early the next morning.

Since our train arrived at 7:00 am, the hotel didn't have a room ready, which we had expected. We ate breakfast at the hotel, and then went into the city to waste time while they cleaned the room. We quickly discovered that public transportation is quite different in Split. We were waiting at a bus stop when a VW van pulled over and opened the door for us to get in. Although we weren't quite sure what to do, the van was heading in the right direction, so we got in. Thankfully, the driver spoke a little English, and we made it safely to the historic city center. The historic part of the city was very pretty, and it was interesting to see how the old buildings were still in tact. When we returned to the hotel our room was ready. The lady who took us to the room only spoke German, but she spoke slowly and we understood the gist of what she was saying.

She prefaced our entrance to the room with, "it's a smaller room, BUT you have a large, beautiful terrace to enjoy." She was right. The room was tiny, but the terrace was beyond incredible. From that day forward, we spent almost all of our time lying on the beach chairs on the terrace. We ventured out for dinner at night, but the terrace was our main spot. Overall, we had a relaxing and enjoyable weekend for our anniversary.

A First Time for Everything

Well, I'll be honest in saying that I didn't know Sunday was Mother's Day. I find this reality hard to believe, but I also claim living overseas has A LOT to do with it. Who knows, they might celebrate, but I haven't heard even as much as a peep about it. And, Michael and I were in Croatia until Monday night for our anniversary trip. The funny thing is, we talked to both of our moms and Michael's Granny while we were gone, but gave no formal "Happy Mother's Day!" to any of them. It's too early for us to call right now, but we'll take care of that later. :)

So, Mom, Mommeleia, and Granny, we're sorry, but we still love you, which is more important than anything. Thank you for being supportive, encouraging, and loving forces in our lives. Your belated Mother's Day presents will arrive on June 20th and 30th...when we come home for good!

Pictures from the beautiful and relaxing trip to Croatia will come later this week!

A Day in the Life

Living in a different country has provided us with many "cultural" experiences. One of those is the lack of a dryer. Every time I do the laundry, I am more aware of how the simple luxuries from home can be taken for granted. You never know how much you inadvertently appreciate something until you don't have it anymore.


Who would have thought that doing laundry would require some type of plan? The timing of what gets washed when is important when you have no dryer. And, there is a limited amount of space, so doing it all in one day is out of the question. Maybe one day, I'll look back on this inconvenience and not think it's so bad, but for now, I'm just anxious to have a dryer. : )

My countdown is now under 7 weeks, and I am growing more and more excited as the days pass. Not to mention, between now and June 20th several exciting things are happening:

1. Going to Croatia this week to celebrate our anniversary
2. Lesley (friend from high school) coming to visit next weekend (just confirmed her last minute plans today!)
3. Jordan and Julie (college roommate and friend from high school, respectively) coming in 2 weeks--we're going to Italy and Spain.
4. Richard (younger brother) coming to visit June 2nd--we're traveling extensively for 2 weeks (Athens, Amsterdam, Berlin, Warsaw, Auschwitz, Prague, Vienna).

Whoa...it's going to be a whirlwind adventure, but I could not be happier to have some of my favorite people coming to spend time with us!