Thanksgiving

For being in a country that doesn't recognize the holiday, we sure celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday. 

We had plans to play a football game at the hurling field in the afternoon. When the time came to leave for the field it was pouring rain, cold, and very windy, so the size of the group sort of dwindled. However, enough of us braved the Irish weather to form two teams and attempted to play while sliding around the muddy field. The ground was so slippery it was easier to play barefoot than in shoes. Running around in the pelting rain, cold mud squishing between our toes, it was difficult to do anything that actually resembled playing football. Eventually both teams scored once and we decided we were so cold so the first team to score again would win...and we did! We were a little wet and muddy after all of this:

A few short hours later we were all cleaned up and ready to feast. Thanksgiving at the Park Lodge has been a tradition for the past 27 years, as long as there have been groups of Bennies and Johnnies coming each Fall. This was definitely the largest Thanksgiving celebration I have experienced, with about 65 guests in attendance. There were the 29 of us, Mike and Jane our directors, Brady's family, the man who drove our bus on excursions all semester, Rory our taxi driver, our five professors and their guests, the Foyle family (owners of the Park Lodge), and some other friends. 

Cottage 6 girls

The evening began with a hot port reception, then Tommy showed a slideshow of pictures from the past three months, which he did a very good job on. The Foyle girls then performed some songs on their fiddles and recorders for us, and then our Theology professor Br. Colman said a blessing. This was the first year he taught our group, making it his first Thanksgiving, so he had some students fill him in beforehand about the traditions of the holiday. Dinner was amazing: a course of shrimp, salad, smoked salmon, and bread was served, then a soup course. Then the traditional meal of turkey (plus ham too!), stuffing, mash potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes (we are in Ireland, afterall), gravy, carrots, peas, and mushrooms. For dessert there was pumpkin pie and flaming baked Alaska. Before Halloween we bought a pumpkin and painted it instead of carved it, and it had been sitting outside our cottage since, very well preserved still. Earlier in the week, Geraldine called our cottage to ask if she could use it for the pies, so that was our contribution to the meal. 

I also helped by making the place cards, all 60-something of them: 

After dinner we presented thank-you gifts to Jane and Mike, our bus driver, Rory, the Foyles, and our professors. Then came some traditional Irish dancing we have learned in class, with way too much spinning around after a full Thanksgiving feast! After a quick rest we all somehow got a second wind and the rest of the night brought more festivities and dancing. 

I thought Thanksgiving abroad would involve some level of homesickness, but instead I was reminded of how many things I have to be thankful for this year in particular: the many travel opportunities and beautiful places I have experience, a group of 28 new friends that have made my time in Ireland so memorable, the many things I have learned in my classes, the incredible hospitality of the Irish people I have gotten to know, and the love and support of my friends and family back home. I cannot believe this semester will be over in a little over a week, and I am so, so thankful that it has been all that I hoped the experience would be.