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!

Best day ever...

So today was probably the best day I've had so far in this great Emerald Isle. I'm going to lump last night into it, too, because it really started around 9 pm last night. I was a little tired of going out on the town so often, so I decided to stay in. Immediately, I was contacted by four people on Skype- Chelsea, my friend Andrew from home, Tiffany, and my parents (okay, so that makes five people). It was SOOO good to talk to all of them. I hadn't talked to my mom at all since I got here, and it was good to hear her voice. Dad even got the dog to bark into the microphone! Haha.

So I went to bed really happy that I had heard from those folks. I woke up today and decided to go downtown in order to buy everything I need. I've been putting off getting things, but I had to make a trip to get my school books anyway, so I figured it was then or never. So I spent four hours running around a town that I only semi-know, searching for things like a rain jacket and a hair straightener. I got "lost" a few times- lost only in the sense that I went down streets with which I wasn't familiar. But I got to where I needed to go, AND I found a lot of cool shops in the meantime. For example, the ritzy boutique where I found the perfect rain jacket, or the freetrade coffee shop where I bought incense and was given a brochure for this really cool arts festival in October. Or how about stumbling across the open air market outside of the boys' school? Or turning the corner and bumping into an outdoor store that made my heart leap with the familiarity of the mountains and home? I found everything I needed, including an obscure book for class about Irish slang and the hair straightener I've been searching for since I got here. Plus, taking time to myself, with no agenda, was brilliant. I needed to settle back into my own skin for a little while, especially because of all of the cultural pressure I'm facing to be someone I'm not.

After catching the bus back to my apartment, I spent some time with my roommates and took a shower. Then I went to a get-together at another French girl's place. At first, there weren't many people there, but after about an hour, the place was packed with international students. My WCU friend Garrett and I taught people how to play the card game Bullsh*t, and we played an international version of Uno (international meaning we made up new rules because everyone plays it differently). Apparently, the security guard wasn't happy with all the noise, so eventually the party got shut down, but we just moved to another place and kept hanging out. I met so many new people and had a lot of great conversations. Plus, we weren't at a bar or club spending tons of money on booze. It was a lot of fun, and now I have 20 more friends than I had before tonight. So really, it was probably the best day I've had yet. Tomorrow I think we are all going down to a pub where they play traditional Irish music. I also want to see if I can download a podcast of the sermons back at Pinedale. The general Irish population is Catholic, and nondenominational Christian churches aren't really around. And I don't think I can go three and a half months without church. So we'll see.

I want to thank everyone again for reading this blog. I have a mailing address too, if you wanted to mail something. I'm not going to publically post it, but if you email me at rathkatie@gmail.com, then I'll send you the info! Thanks!

31 hours later...

Man, have things happened since my first post. To start things off the right way, thanks to everyone who prayed or wished me well on the trip over here- I got in safely and I am currently typing from the comfort of my apartment in Galway. But I don't wan't to jump the gun, I'd rather tell you about my trip over here!

In case the nerves didn't shine through in the last post, I'll just outright tell you that I was very anxious about coming to Ireland. Those nerves ate me alive during my 5-hour layover at JFK airport in New York. I bounced around the airport trying to dispel the nervous energy that clouded my mind, but no success. I tried to eat, I tried to watch a movie, I tried talking on the phone, I tried just being still. No matter what I did, I wasn't feeling better. I couldn't even get online and write it out! Oh well. We'll skip forward a bit, to the actual departure from JFK. I was seated with a very nice young many named Henry, a student at SUNY-Buffalo who was traveling to study business in Dublin for a few months. Henry started up a conversation, and before I knew it, his excitement rubbed off and I stopped freaking out so much. Among many fun things on that 7-hour plane ride, I woke up just in time to join Henry in eating breakfast while watching the sun rise over Ireland. It was amazing. I know I've seen the sun set while on a plane, but I've never seen a sunrise from the air. Truly beautiful. And before we knew it, we were in Dublin! Not a lot of sleep on the plane, but I was ready to go!

After being held up momentarily at the passport station (I had to be registered as a student), I grabbed my bag from baggage claim and began to inspect my surroundings. I said bye to Henry, promised to keep in touch, and settled down to wait for my friend Tiffany. Over two hours later, she hadn't shown up yet. Sadly, I had to leave if I wanted to get to the college before the offices closed for the day. I pulled my bags into the cool morning Irish air, took a deep breath, and continued on to the bus parking lot, the coach park. I found my bus, paid my fare, and spent the next four hours alternating staring at the beautiful landscape and staring at the inside of my eyelids. If there's one thing to be said about Ireland, it's so beautiful. Gorgeous green pastures, charming farm manors and homemade stone fences. The fierce gray cumulous clouds rounded out the picturesque scene and touched the painted land with a sense of foreboding; I should have known then...

When I arrived at GMIT and eventually found Helen O'Reilly, she informed me that I really don't have much to do for the next week except to meet my advisors and the other exchange students. Whoo hoo. So here I am, a little depressed, pulling my heavier-than-I-remember bags (I swear someone put rocks in there) up to my apartment complex, where I'm praying that someone will hand me a key to the hotel suite of my dreams. No such luck. I got a key, yeah, but not exactly the mansion of my dreams. For what I'm paying, I wasn't sure what to expect. It's not bad by any stretch, just... different. Don't you love when people use that word? Normally it's a euphemism for something bad, but I really mean that this apartment is just different. For instance, no AC, but that's not necessary for Galway in September. There are no carpets, but beautiful hardwoods. The TV is small, but at least we have one, and it has full Irish cable. There's minimal furniture but a sizeable bathroom. So far, no neighbors. And it was in desperate need of supplies. With the help of about five Irish men and women, I got into Eyre Square in town and did some shopping. Towels, sheets, shampoo, trash bags, toilet paper, cereal. Eyre Square is probably one of the most important places to figure out as far as any type of shopping goes. I'll head back in tomorrow to get a student bus pass and to go grocery shopping. But for tonight, I'm fine. I grabbed a burger from the food joint in our apartment complex and jammed to my iTunes shuffle as I unpacked and arranged the apartment. It's going to be a challenge to entertain myself for the next three days until more students arrive, but I'll figure something out. I always have this blog!

As always, thanks for keeping up with me! I look forward to sharing more of my Irish adventure with you!