The 4th sans fireworks

On the Fourth of July, I woke with a start to Neil Diamond belting "They're coming to America . ." Even though he had to work on our nation's holiday, Mike still felt the need to soak up some patriotism before entering the office, which meant disturbing my slumber with Neil. I think this is a violation of a human right of some sort . . .
But, the holiday was fun, although makeshift to say the best. I went to the store that afternoon to pick up supplies for our potential BBQ. There, I witnessed an American couple debating how many bottles of ketchup they'd need. I walked by and said, "Happy 4th of July!" They were caught off guard, but looked up and laughed and said they were trying to barbecue like I was (they made that assumption based on the American beer, hamburger meat and buns in my cart). Nothing like a little American camaraderie in the condiment aisle . . .
The weather was nasty here yesterday, very windy and rainy. We tried to use our cheap Tesco grill out on our balcony, but the flames were enormous. The wind made them difficult to contain, and our neighbors were coming out on their balconies and glaring at us and our unusually smoky grill. We realized that we had no idea if it was even legal to BBQ in an apartment building here, and we couldn't ask anyone. So, instead of burning down our apartment and completely turning our flat into a smoke cloud, we threw water over the charcoal and made burgers on the stove instead.
We had a great group of people come by (about 10 total) - some of Mike's co-workers, friends of friends, and an American that I met at press conference. We had France, Transylvania, Hungary and the States represented. Mike assigned all of the non-Americans a state, so they could pretend that they were American too. (Mostly, he just wanted to pretend our Translyvanian friend was Pennsylvanian.)
While the lack of fireworks was disappointing (well, in retrospect I will count the sparks flying off our $10 grill as fireworks), the night was great. It was fun blaring rock and country ballads all evening, introducing Europeans to non-McDonalds hamburgers and deviled eggs, teaching Doru how to line dance and two-step, and having some interesting conversations in mixed languages. When I went abroad for the first time in Ireland, I expected many nights like this: all sorts of nationalities having parities together and learning about their cultures, but I never really had that experience. So, yesterday was what I was waiting for all along .
Next week, our French friends will have us celebrate Bastille Day with them. It also happens to be my birthday, so it'll be a joint fiesta.

Mike and I are going to Split, Croatia from Saturday through Tuesday. I can't wait! I've been writing and editing for magazines this week, and staying quite busy. Business Hungary gave me a new assignment and said that if I stayed through the fall they'd make me a deputy editor .. that would be awesome, but I am not sure I want to stay here illegally.
And tonight, I am going to a Amnesty International talk at the English speaking college here on the women's rights movement in Pakistan, then I found out about an English poetry event at this cafe too. Nothing like feminist activism and poetry to make me feel at home anywhere . . .

Oh, and as a disclaimer, last night night Mike claimed to friends at home that I just sit around the apartment all day, which is why my blog is updated and his is not. This is a fallacy; but, he is just annoyed that I am blogging on a regular basis. Only Michael would get competitive over something like a blog . .