An international Thanksgiving and learning German in 3 days

It's been a week, I know, but I've been so incredibly busy. Last week was our Thanksgiving celebration. Because I had to catch a plane to Germany on the actual Thanksgiving day, we decided to celebrate the Wednesday before. I was in charge of making one turkey, the gravy and the pies, and my friends Stephan, Carolin, and Derek all masterminded the other turkey. My roommate Ruben and Garrett made a honey-glazed ham, and then everyone else chipped in the mashed potatoes, stuffing, vegetables, cranberry sauce, rolls, and beer and wine. We ended up having about 20 people at our celebration, both Americans and internationals kids. Everything turned out sooooo delicious. It was the first time I'd ever made a turkey on my own, and I decided to sort of wing the basting liquids, and I really wanted to brown-bag it (my mom has done it this way in prior years). I ended up laying it on a bed of carrots and onions and using lemon juice, butter, garlic salt, rosemary to rub it down, and then stuffing it. At the suggestion of one of my Irish friends, I roasted the bird upside down so the drippings would make the breast really moist. It worked, let me tell ya! I spent the majority of Wednesday cooking, with the aide of my neighbor Darin; neither of us had class. When it came time for dinner, the food disappeared in front of our eyes! Haha. We all had so much fun. I can't believe we pulled it off. Like one of my friends said, "If we can't have Thanksgiving with our families, we might as well have it with our friends that have become our family." Check out the "family photo":






I was up way late with everyone on Wednesday, but I got a few hours of sleep before having to catch the bus to Dublin so we could fly to Germany. My German friend Stephan was taking me, Stephen, and Derek back to his home in southern Germany. Thursday, however, was as mildly depressing as Wednesday was wonderful. For whatever reason, our Bus Eireann bus was almost an hour and a half late to Dublin. When we finally did get there, we had to take another shuttle bus to the airport (we didn't know we would have to do that). Realizing we had the potential of missing our flight, we got off the shuttle and hailed a taxi. No luck, we still missed the flight by ten minutes. Everyone was so upset, not to mention mentally blaming any and everyone and thing we could to excuse our tardiness. We spent the next three hours at Dublin airport researching our options. At the end of the day, we got a hostel in Dublin and decided to take the next Ryanair flight on Friday morning. So, we lost some money and a day in Germany, but the trip was worth it.



We arrive in Karlsruhe airport, which is really outside Baden-Baden. From there, Stephan's girlfriend Anika picked us up in her brother's car and we drove to the Black Forest. Major picture oppotunities! Piles of snow covered all surfaces, and as we advanced to higher and higher altitudes, we were astouded by the beauty that surrounded us. We hung out in the Black Forest until it got dark, and then drove to Stephan's parents' home. Mrs. Hezel made us the best meal I've had in, oh I don't know, about four months, barring Thanksgiving. I really need to find out those recipes... Anyway, Friday night we went out with Stephan and Anika and two of their childhood friends to this tiny little bar in the next town. No one spoke English (and we don't speak German), except the bartender, who was SO excited to have Americans in his bar that he kept coming over with shots and suggesting drinks. We even did a German beer tasting! Haha. When we left, we stood in the freezing cold and had a snowball fight. How great it was to feel snow!!! But Derek and I agreed that it was a little different, it had a different texture or something.

Saturday was jam-packed and fast-paced. After a delicious German breakfast of bread, meats, cheeses, and coffee, we hit the icy road and headed to Stuttgart, home of Mercedes-Benz. We hung out in town for a little bit, did some shopping and walked around their Christmas market (where I tried roasted chesnuts for the first time! yumm), before getting back in the car to go to the TV tower. From Stuttgart's TV tower, you can see almost all of southern Germany. Stephan oriented us by showing us where we had flown in, where we were going, where our other German friends live, and the country's borders. After the tower, we ate a great lunch and then went to the Mercedes-Benz museum. I'm not much of a car person, but the musuem was really interesting. German and world histories were intermingled with the history of the cars. Did you know that the tri-star symbol for Mercedes-Benz was developed as a reflection of their incentive to build air, land, and water vehicles? Yeah, I didn't either. The museum was our last stop in Stuttgart, so we rushed to drive to Ludwigsburg a few miles away. There we caught the last English tour of the Ludwigsburg castle. It was dark by the time we finished, so we headed to Anika's parents' house. As I listened to Stephan recount our missed flight experience, I realized I basically knew what he was saying. I can't explain it, I don't know how to speak German, but I guess being immersed in it for two days gave me a better understanding of the language. Weird. We put down our stuff in our room and had a little break before going to the Ludwigsburg Christmas Market. Their market is well-known, and is famed for being one of the largest, I think. The rest of our night was spent sipping mulled wine and hot chocolate, bartering in German for crafts, and enjoying the pleasant holiday air. I was so beat that night that I decided to stay in and go to sleep early instead of going out with Stephan and Anika and their friends.

Sunday morning we enjoyed another great German breakfast (and coffee) before embarking on our Autobahn journey back to Karlsruhe airport. It didn't take as long as we had alotted time for (it WAS the Autobahn after all), so we all sat down for another coffee before going through security. We were very pleased to be early this time, though. If we had missed our flight, I'm not sure what I would have done. Be even more exasperated, I guess. We all said goodbye to Anika, who is the sweetest girl ever and was so gracious to us the entire weekend. Stephan will head back to Germany in about three weeks, but Stephen, Derek, and I don't know when we'll see her again. Stephan mentioned coming to NC this next summer to visit us; we'll see! If you're interested in pictures, here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070213&l=df21e&id=44104357

A cold and icy Germany bled into a cold and icy Ireland. Apparently the dawn of December and Advent brought with it December and Advent weather. I almost wiped out a few times yesterday on patches of black ice. My professor was late to class because he crashed his van into a wall. Yikes! But I braved it all to do my Christmas shopping yesterday. I've been putting it off for so long hoping the dollar would regain some strength. But I'm running out of time, so I bit the bullet and spend a few hours after class in the city center. Fortunately, I knew what I was getting, and I sped around like a little worker bee. I will finish off my shopping this weekend at Saturday market. I bought another piece of luggage, too, to get everything home. It's not that I have so much, it's just that I'm pretty sure I'd go over the weight restriction if I put everything in my one suitcase. I'm trying desperately to wind everything up here as far as classes and schoolwork, but I am thrilled to get home as soon as possible. And then it's graduation! I'm not sure I've honestly thought about what that means. I will no longer be a student. That makes me sad. I'm feeling pretty confident that I'll head to grad school at some point. Hmm...

This post is getting pretty long, so I'll wrap it up with this. Today is Stephen's 22nd birthday, so we're taking him to a burrito place tonight, and then I'm celebrating Stephanie's birthday tomorrow night at the aquarium in Salthill, then dinner afterwards. This week is going to fly!