In the meantime, my personal life was exciting. I met a girl by the name of Tammy. I really liked Tammy a lot, but shortly thereafter she left to move to Florida to finish her college. It was a bummer to meet someone you really like and then they move 4,000 miles away. Little did I know at that time that this was one of those things you call "destiny".

Not long thereafter, after Tammy told me how great America was, I was packing and moving to Florida myself. I had no money at the time, and didn't speak ANY English. However, I had a little car (my second car was a VW "Golf") that I sold and used to get money to buy an airplane ticket to Florida. I was really moving!

This was a very big decision in my life. Quite frankly I didn't know how it was going to turn out. I didn't know if I'll be able to survive in the States. And on top of that, all my friends where telling me to not go... they were saying "no way you can make it there"... I didn't listen to them. I was determined to try!

My family was sad. They thought I'd never come back and that they would never see me again. I have to say, looking from the U.S., Europe is not that far away, and we are kind of used to traveling. But let me tell you, from Croatia where people don't fly as often, the U.S. looks very far away... almost like another planet!

Here's the photo of me leaving for the airport...

This was the day when I left. And this is the only photo I have since I didn't want to take a lot of photos because "I was coming back" (despite their thinking). It's funny; this photo was taken by my sister when I was not looking. My friend drove me to Vienna (in his Renault), and from there I flew to Orlando, Florida.