the law firm of Buda and Pest

Traveling is a lot like getting a tattoo. You have an idea, you spend the money and suddenly you want to do it again. It keeps happening until you are looking a the spaces between your knuckles going, "I could totally fit the state of Florida there..."

And that's not even the worst of it. Honestly, the more pleased you are about traveling the more likely you are to meet someone remarkably more well traveled than yourself. There you'll be, having a friendly backpackers contest over the  different color combinations of other countries' flags, or deluging well planted insights into what really turned the tides of the Arab Spring, when you'll accidentally say something so unwittingly common the other travelers won't even bother laughing. They'll just take the conversation where you can't go. As though it were some place you've neer been. And if they were tattooed, they'd suddenly look like this guy:

Oh, you've still got blank spaces on your passport, how quaint.

Even if you as clever as me and know to keep your mouth shut, or call in for air suport when you're quite literally outclassed, you still can't help but glance down at your arms and think, "Here *should* be dragons."
But when this happens, and even when it doesn't, we are--at least, presented with a chance to understand humility, at best--the chance to comprehend our own limitations, or at worst,  the opportunity to come to grips with the fact that we are seriously overlooking the space behind our ear as a rocking new lo-cal to get tatted up!

It's totally tribal. No but really, it means something.

Budapest was amazing. For me, it had everything a vacation needs: Cheap, delicious food, excellent exchange rate, perfectly sunny weather, and good places to get wet. 

The streets are wide boulevards which rarely reek of piss. (Unlike mon ami, Paris, on both counts.) One can speak only English and never feel misunderstood. There are very few homeless people and a great bicycle culture.
The food is thick and creamy. They eat lots of soup and sausage. Big hunks of white bread at every meal and they can pound donuts like champs. 

Compared to Paris, Budapest is sprawling. People stop at cross walks, because they probably couldn't hoof it in time. No one  came up to me and hit on me in a rude way. Ok, well, one guy did--but I was starting to miss it ;) Street art is alive and kickin your face in, round Budapest way.

So you're sitting there thinking, "ok, Erin, artery clogging gastronomy and writing on the walls, I'm so impressed--Budpest is in in central Europe, that's basically Eastern Europe with a boring in front of it. What kind of what could there even be?"

Well, it just so happens that Budapest sits on top of natural thermal springs that the Turks turned into public baths. 

 The best part about them is how sexy they seem to make us both look.

And, no thermo, but they're pretty sexy themselves:

Watch that water glistening, flaunting its curves.

Visting them on the two days that we did were pretty much the most decadent thing I've ever done. But then again, I feel decadent when I drink a mimosa...or take a bath with scented candles lit.

Oooo, vanilla!

Can you believe I actually got a massage? I did not expect to be naked. Honestly? They always have towels across their bums in the vids. (Ok, not THOSE vids) But some Grandma giving my tummy a tickle was almost too much!  I kept squirming away like a slick fish....I still don't know if I was supposed to tip.

Wait, let me get my tourist cap on.

The time I spent alone with Sebastien on this trip was a paragon of placidity and languidly luxurious in every shade of sunshine and chocolate. Laying on his chest in warm bath water, outside, under the sun,

 Sipping an icy drink or hiking up Gellért Hill and gazing out over the surround areas of Buda.

Long walks on both sides of the river danube. Having drinks AND dessert. Talking about whatever felt good.
Reading together alone in the grass. Knowing our best friend feels the same way as we do. 

Sebastien is the best tour guide ever devised. He actually tried to speak Hungarian and marched me off to all the places he kept finding on the maps. If I had gone alone, my greatest and daily ambition would likely have amounted to finding a nice place to read and later on, a good spot to get loaded. Oh and ice cream, but that would have hardly taken substantial planning.  (Yeah, I'm kind of exciting.)

If you go to Budapest durring the summer, the indoor-out-door baths and wave pools are easy amusement and all the museums make for good sport as well. The food will fill your belly and the drinks are cheep. But nothing compares to kerts.
These are garden parties that get set up in abandoned spaces and turned into the kind of establishments I would like to run. The furniture, the lighting. PERFECTION. If you end up in Budapest, find a local on couch surfing and get them to take you to one. It will be like no bar experience you've ever had. There aren't even lines for the bathroom!

Obviously, I've taken a million more photos and you can check out a slide show of them here:

I guess the part where the tattoo/travel image falls apart is, after a trip like the week we spent in Budapest, I find I'm all tatted out. But hey, there's no such thing as a perfect metaphor ;) Hmm, on second thought, maybe I can squeeze a few stars in between my toes...

A year ago, today

If my memory serves me correctly, and it doesn't but I verified the date, a year ago today, Sebastien and I woke up very early, fished through a room of sleeping people, found the keys and our friend Brad, and drove down the street to secure two boxes of coffee and all of the yummiest pasties at our favorite corner store. I was so excited because, usually when Brad, Sebastien and I finally make it to Marvin's Market--habitually a good span after the brunching hour, their selection of tasty creations is utterly diminished. As they were still fresh and plentiful, we did our best to utterly diminish them, personally.

We didn't get coffee from Marvin, because although the furniture is eclectic and the wifi is free, there is a Starbucks across the street and they are 5 thousand times faster. Cough. Their coffee is also at least that much more memorable.
It's a little know fact that I used to work at a Starbucks, (a different location, further up Wisconsin) but one of my former co-workers was transferred to this new location... unbeknownst to me. Coincidentally, he and I used to grouse about how assholes never be calling ahead to get boxes of coffees going--a large hassle for your barrista, because they basically have to brew a whole pot, just for you, during rush, which is anytime at a Starbucks.  Out of respect for my old squad I had purposely not dropped this order on my former place of employment....You see where this is going, it played out a little something like this:

Brian: Two boxes of coffee, extra cream and sugar...?
Me: Thanks.
Brian: What?! This is for YOU?
Me: Give me a break, I'm getting married today.

Cue theme music because I was out of there like a half priced flat screen the day after thanksgiving!

The days leading up in brief:
With more time, I could tell you about how cute drunken Sebastien was returning from the bachelor party with stories, stories, stories! How uplifting it was to reconnect with each one of our 15 three-night-best-friendy-house-guests. How nervous I was at putting my mom and sister in the same room together, after not having talked for years...not to mention the fact that the Glenn Fucking Beck Rally was the same weekend as our ceremony and every idiot who could fit into a tee shirt, and read at a fifth grade level was clogging up the American History museum and getting in my way on the metro.
But I won't bother at all with any of those...especially the last one, when my friend over at the Bitter Buffalo did a much better job of it. Her perspective on our wedding is pretty charming, as well.

We got married on stretch of woods we always loved to hike around in behind our apartment. Our best friend from university, Brad, opened his sermon with a Princess Bride quote...you know the one..and we each had our childhood best friend's read a poem on our behalf. Sebastien's bestie Chris, read, The Road Goes Ever On, by Tolkien and my bffl Rhiannon, read Colours by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Directly after that, we in turn read our own vows. In the spirit of my blog being a scrap book, I am posting them here:

My Vows to Erin

I vow to you, Erin McCarthy, that I will always love you and always care for you because you are my beautiful, bombastic sweetheart and no matter the getting up at 6 AM so we can teach at school, the nights where nobody wants to cook or pay for takeout, all the buses we’ve missed and the metro stops I’ve made you run through, all the anguish we’ve had over our future, I still want you, Erin, nothing but Erin and the whole Erin!

I vow to you that you are, have been, and always will be beautiful to me and that I will continue to seek the solace of you arms, because who else could offer such wild abandon to me, such gorgeous golden hair, such a lissome figure and form?

I vow that I will not cease to suggest hot but impractical new shoes and dresses, because if you accept only one out of ten things I suggest, you are still doing both you and me a service.

I vow that I will attempt to close cabinet doors and turn off lights, though I can promise you I will not always remember.

I vow that if we ever have children I will neither forsake them or feed them to the lions, and I will endeavor to give them everything that a child born of our scoundrelly genetic material deserves. Whatever the circumstances, I will try to be the cool and understanding nerd, for that is the only role model I have had and I could not hope for better.

I do vow that I will try to be truthful to you about how I think and feel, though I know you might bite me for being honest.

I do vow that I shall continue to read to you novels at night, with the stipulation that I not be forced to read more than two consecutive hours without rest.

I vow that I will not stop telling you about Flying Tiger volunteers in China or displacer beasts or of Ugandan politics or dark Jedi, because you love me for who I am, not in spite of it.

I vow to you that I will never do you or our children physical harm, because as a student of ethics and conflict resolution I recognize it to be wrong, and as a student of military history I recognize not to embark upon foolhardy campaigns- which is another way for me to say that I know my Erin has the berserker fury of the of the she-wolf defending her cubs, and I count that as an asset.

I vow that I will always be there to hold you if you need to cry and have somebody listen, and that I’ll try to give sage advice even if I’m out of my depth.

I vow to you I will always expect to share evenly the collaborative project that has been our life together, and that I will not fail to do my best to provide for us and for any children we may have.

I vow to always treat you as an equal and strive not to assume any privileges, because women are simply deserving of respect, because we are both free people giving to each other of our unfettered will rather than out of contractual bondage (not as hot as it sounds, I assure you!), And because we are both free people who are together by choice and mutual love and no law or obligation in the universe is greater than what we surrender to each other freely in our affection and intimacy.

I vow to you Erin McCarthy, that you are my favorite and I will give my all, despite my many flaws and limitations, all I can to make what we’ve arduously- and ardor-ously- built together last and grow into the future, because I don’t think I could bear to have it without you, my beloved sweetheart.

My retort:
For me, 
This has really been a time of friendship and laughing
and probably some the hardest bounces on the court of my adulthood
as yet
but in the eyes of the court and the court of my fears
having fought my way to the castle
beyond the goblin city
I know why I am standing here
Next to the partner
Who I am about to vow my unremitting love to

As a frame, it is my references--
In direction and reflection
I vow to honor that learning and share that light with the world
because some how you became my light in the world
my last real hope for peace
when peace is breakfast that gets eaten as lunch
before grocery trips on foot

 I remind you that you are the frame
in which my future echos are pictured. 
In flashlights and explosions
in hand holdings and home runs

I vow that my adventures are yours to share
From the monotony of a pan-African-pub-crawl
to the perils of leaky faucets and dirty dishes

I vow to be on the committee of out marriage
cast votes not for political gains but rather for
the right reasons
I vow to keep you in my reasons 
I vow to keep you MY REASON
and a vow above all, to listen to reason

I vow to use your chest as a bed frame
and to be your sinew when your seems are affray
I vow to stand beside you
To be on your side
and to side step the enemy
for a bonus to all attack rolls

Perhaps this is only the frame
perhaps all boards are not yet in place
but this is our house
in the middle of our street--
La Rue de nous


We laughed, we cried. My family almost totally behaved. Bangarang. The reception was on a boat.  (I won't ever forget it!) A nice little tour around the Potomac. Obviously, I photographed the food:

Dried Cherries and Candied Pecan Duck en Croute

Asian Grilled Salmon

Roasted Chicken Santa Cruz 

Roasted Vegetable Napoleon

Seafood Cannelloni Gratinee

After that, the adults were pretty exhausted and so most of them took naps or whatever. My friends and I went to a great burrito place with a rooftop bar and then set up a volley ball net in the park.  

We kept the ball aloft, a surprising amount.

Everybody got a chance to check out some of DC's free museums, we showed off some of our favorite restaurants. My team traded blows with the barely educated,  grossly uniformed, Glenn beckieans, and some quality time was spent with our families. Nothing really changed in our lives, as a couple, but Sebastien and I were still happy to be there.

Quick notes on symbolism:
I don't care how much money you would like to spend. Weather you are going for the comfortably homespun like we did or the Lots of extra 0's at the foot of the bill, your ceremony should mean something. 

 We did our toast with the wine glasses we got in Alsace the previous year, when we were visiting Sebastien's uncle and cousins. 

 Chris read the poem from the original copy of The Hobbit that Sebastien and his sister received from their grandfather, when they we just wee sprites.

Sebastien and I made our rings ourselves out of 20 sided dice, hot glue on lone from Meridian and metal ring forms. My bracelets are from my older sister. One of them is actually a necklace that Zack gave her before he left this world. 

That die is actually a gift from our friend, Alex who could not be at our wedding. It was the first twenty sided die I ever owned and he threw it up to me on the roof of main building, back at Antioch, where I was filming my senior project. And it accidentally matched me dress!

We went to a paint store to pick out the colors for the cake. It was also really fun sampling the different pieces with Brad over coffee as we made our selection. We originally wanted a displacer beast on our cake. Long story ;)

There were so many people who couldn't be at our wedding, from the French side of the family, to the Saint Louis side of the family, millions of Antiochians--right down to a bunch of good  ol Cape Codders and my impossible little Zackary. But they were in our hearts. And we had a piece of them there with us, then.

Marriage isn't for everyone. Surely, our particular marriage arrangement isn't for everyone. But I've never really believed that love was out of the question for anyone. And with all my heart I know that my country will come around and allow all their tax payers the same rights and privileges that they, as equal citizens, deserve.  Cuz let's be honest America, marriage is pretty gay. 

Steam Punk me, Daddy!

When I was just a wee lass I used to have this reoccurring fantasy that my biological father would want to come back into my life and would do so by attempting to buy my love.

Back then, I was really into basketball and I would sit for hours on the toilet looking through the east bay catalog drooling over shoes of no particular make, brand or color.  In the fantasy I would always affect an air of polite modesty, drumming up the obvious and tired phrases, "I could never!" or "Is this what you think I'm worth?" That was maybe my bon mot, and as such, I would eventually bid him rise and address me once again as his equal...after it was established that groveling at my prepubescent feet was the only road possible for making amends, that is. I would next feign pity for the wretched beast, open the free, monthly, East Bay Catalog, and wring his effin wallet out!

Clearly, I would get a pair of Iverson's, Jason Kidd's and every Jordan they came out with from 1992-96. Not to mention the matching warm up suits, And 1 tanks and tear away pants, starter jackets galore--and a few of those mat and endurance equipment thingies that matched your sweat bands (also on the list) that were sure to might improve my level.
I was obviously as good as I was ever going to be, but that doesn't stop a kid from dreaming.

Meanwhile my 16 year old brother is MVP
for his summer league, AAU team.
Atta-boy, Broseph   

Eventually my dad did come back into my life, or tried to, and his efforts were met by mumbling stoicisms.  He fought the good fight, calling repeatedly to get me on the phone, sending me a five spot every now and then--sure I answered his calls and duh, I took the cash, but I was also acutely aware that I was special and he wasn't allowed in.

His death may have been untimely, I honestly didn't find out about it until 6 months later, the summer I moved to Seattle. I got the news the day Guster's album, Keep it Together, came out. (My then favorite band) And I was surprised by my reaction. I cried with my mother on the phone, sure, but that was mostly for her. On my end of things I felt as though a physical weight was pressing down on my body. The sensation baffled me. Focusing on that gave the situation the cognitive distance I needed. I still was that special, he still wasn't allowed in..."Keep it together. 

Can you keep it together? 

          We're singing a new song, 

and everything starts today." 

But don't cry for me Argentina, the truth is I eventually got the Jason Kidd's. And more importantly,  I think it would be fun to pretend that my absent father's zombie reincarnation has risen and would now love to spend oodles and udons of guilt monies on me!
But mommy, wow--I'm a big girl now. I don't need sneakers, I don't have kids or debt. So I decided I should have the most frivolous items imaginable. And then it hit me...what's more frivolous then imaginary items from places and times that don't exist?
Nuthin.

Buy me something Steampunk, Daddy!

That's just what he did. Check it out!

You're really only as good as your hat

Pure silver and watch grommets 

This is just so he thinks I still wear underwear.

All of this with different boots..but not the hat, or the dopey arm band

This is going to open doors for me and my boobs. 

Holy crap I'm going to look cool.

This is a bit marching band, I would definitely change the color. 

In case I must deflect a mighty blow. 

You should see me sneak attack in these things!

Even if my zombie dad isn't real, I am actually trying to buy these. 

This won't fit in my holster but I need a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time.

And just to show him that his efforts are not over looked...

Well, that's about all I'll spend. If you want to purchase any thing here for real, for real--just head to etsy and type in steampunk or Steam punk, as I did. I'll kind of hate you for it. But I can take that back if you ask me to forward my address. ;)
It's funny that I really do want all of these things because I drag my feet every time my friends suggest heading down to the renaissance fair. It might have something to do with the great book Sebastien and I are reading, The Wise Man's Fear. Or it might just be that I like gears, gold and magic. But whatever the reason, if someone could bring my dad and his credit line back from the dead, that'd be wicked sweet. Don't worry, we don't have to keep him.

Sebastien and I leave for Budapest on Wednesday. (kshdfdfjgdf;ogdfpgjdfpgojfb) <---excited.
 Have a great week!

Shark Week and Summer Salads

Shark Week, as everyone knows, is an American tradition whose currents run deep. Truly, you're not worth your weight in salt if you've never appreciated the sheer ferocity that is the Great White shark... and by extension the anual homage  to their Majesty.With just two days of  dorsal fin finery left in tow, I wanted to give you access to an important document that's sure to get you three sheets to the wind.
Now, drinking game aside, lets admit that sharks are cool. But in more ways then one, liking them, studying them, and reciting facts about them is a lot like being into dinosaurs. Oyes, much like your old friend soccer, sharks and dinosaurs are for kids.
But this shark week actually came to my home town and mentions it by name. Not only that, my cousin's husband is the harbor master in the opening shot of this vid. So check it out and try to get excited. This episode already aired but you have a solid two days of quality Discovery channel/drinking still on your boogie board. Don't let it go to waste.

Things have been closer to the prototype of summer here in Paris comma finally. Getting some sun, picnics in the park, drinks on the canal and fresh grilled everything. Geez, it's like spring all over again!! (But now with deeper tans) Plus I have this amazing cast-iron grill pan (that I found on the curb) and I have been doing up fruits, veggies, and the occasional meats. I love to eat fresh in the summer. White wine and cold beers all the time with that good, good bread. I make an effort to visit the markets every day, I serve a few cold salads at every meal, and my repertoire has increased since moving to France.
Here are a few salads I would suggest as their variations are practically endless while still having an ingredients list of less than 6. (Which makes me less than three them) <3 

Beets and Corn off the Cob salad:

Carrot Salad:

Cucumber Salad:

Endive Salad: 

Tomato Salad:

If these sound simple it's because they are. Just twenty mins prep time (including refrigeration) and you've got something cool and filling that looks pretty on a plate. 

If you want to be nice (or mean) to me, make a dish with okra or jalapenos--two great ingredients I can't find in France. Send me a picture and I'll love/hate you forever. 

So what are your plans here at summer's edge? Sebastien and I secured our rooms and our tickets to Budapest so all the worry is out the window with that. He's just started reviewing the chips I got for him in Tunisia and if you want to have a look at those check them out here.  I've got my hands on quite the word smith, it must be said.

Also, if anyone has been to Budapest let me know what's good to check out. I plan to meet people on couch surfing but if you've got some insider information, let me know. My major goal before going is learning how to say "thank you." A phrase worth knowing, the world over. 

Ten points will be awarded to your house if you ever played that game. I feel pretty foolish knowing it could be beat in 5 mins and I played it for months without winning ever. Man, shooting jellyfish with ship born bombs makes me miss my brother like you don't even know. 

Take care, the internet and may the sharks, nor society, never mistake your children for a meal.