An ex-patriate Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a hassle at the best of times. There's the freaking turkey, which involves lots of plucking, rinsing, gagging, and yanking of various organs out of various orifices. There's the stuffing, which involves a huge inside-or-outside-the-turkey debate, and then there's the question of pecan or pumpkin pie, who is bringing the yams, and how in God's name you're going to deal with the fact that your crazy uncle is bound to bring up either politics or religion at the table, and that your sister will probably go for his throat.

However, if you subtract the crazy uncle and add in problems like how to find and afford a turkey in the most expensive city in Ireland, whether to beg your mother to send canned pumpkin from home or just suck it up and get a fresh pumpkin, and where to get French fried onions, you'll get an idea of just how insane Thanksgiving abroad can be.

When we all started planning for our Irish Thanksgiving, Jillian and I knew all of this. We figured it would a nice way to introduce Thanksgiving to our non-American friends, and a good way to assuage the homesickness that would be brought on by spending this quintessentially Yank holiday in a country that hadn't heard of it. Lists were made, dishes were assigned, and guests were invited. We were ready to throw ourselves a Thanksgiving extravaganza.

Three weeks, five essay-related breakdowns and more than a few turkey-related arguments later, Jillian turned to me and said something along the lines of, "Screw it. Let's cancel Thanksgiving."

Of course, we didn't seriously cancel it. No matter how tired or frustrated we were, the fact was, it was still Thanksgiving, and we couldn't not celebrate it. Finally, after much thought and a power trip to the crepe place down the street for some brain food, Jillian, A and I came up with the best possible way to celebrate Thanksgiving abroad -- without ending up flipping our collective shit on our guests.

Thursday night, we found ourselves seated around a table in front of a fireplace in a nice bar, Christmas decorations all around and wine on the table. The three of us were joined by our law-student flatmate, A’s Irish flatmate, one of our Irish friends from our program, and two of the guys who live across the hall from us (one of whom was Canadian and kind of apathetic about the whole thing, and the other with whom we had had several heated turkey discussions in the preceding week).

“Here, will you tell us the Thanksgiving story now?” said A as the food arrived. I had promised her the kid-friendly version of the tale weeks ago, and began it now as everyone dug in.

“A long time ago, roughly in the sixteen hundreds, a group of people called the Pilgrims, motivated by a desire to worship freely and get away from the British, sailed to America on a big-ass ship called the Mayflower. The journey was long and hard…”

I continued the story, making sure to mention Squanto the Friendly Indian (whoops, Native American) who taught the Pilgrims to plant corn. “And that’s the story of the first Thanksgiving,” I finished triumphantly, practically expecting a round of applause.

Everyone stared at me like I had grown three heads.

“Here,” A said after a few seconds. “I thought Columbus was there.”

“Right, the Spanish came and settled it first,” added her roommate.

“Columbus wasn’t Spanish,” someone else said, which was followed by a comment about Vikings and quickly the whole table dissolved into one loud discussion over who, exactly, founded America and when.

“OKAY, OKAY, OKAY,” shouted Jillian a few minutes later. “Can I tell you all the real story now?”

This quieted everyone down, as they turned to Jillian to settle the score. She pulled out a few post-its and began to read.

“First, instead of one Thanksgiving, there used to be a lot of different celebrations of all the major massacres that the settlers inflicted on the Indians. Lincoln was the first one to proclaim one national day of Thanksgiving, so up until the 1860s Americans celebrated several Indian massacres during different times of the year.”

“Massacres?” A muttered.

“There was lots of scalping and beheading and the women and children were raped and thrown into slavery. After one such massacre, the settlers played soccer with heads of defeated Native Americans. Oh,” she added, “and Pocahontas was fat.”

There was a stunned silence as the non-Americans at the table tried to process this information. The Pilgrims weren’t so nice to the Indians? Pocahantas was FAT? What is this freaking holiday? I could see them wondering.

Finally, A broke the ice. “I knew there had to be rape and pillage,” she said, grabbing the wine bottle out of the bucket in the middle of the table and waving it around. “Can I top anyone up?”

The rest of the evening, needless to say, is a bit of a blur. I remember a text message to Jillian saying, “Abt to bombscare must leave”, more than a few drinks at The Ginger Man (the pub down the street) where we toasted America and bombscaring Thanksgiving, and a long conversation about my chest that lasted long after the bartenders had kicked everyone else out but us and a woman who looked like she had been bombscaring for about 100 years.

Then there was the peanut butter and jelly party back at my apartment where somehow I ended up with peanut butter everywhere, and collapsing into bed only to wake up the next morning and wonder, “Crap, did I really tell the story about how I was flat-chested until college?” Which, in fact, I had.

Turkey, pillage and bombscaring notwithstanding, I’d have say that my second Irish Thanksgiving was a major success. :)

Words, words, words

I had a weird turning point in my life abroad today. I was packing up my backpack to go to the supermarket when I noticed a little tag near the bottom, on the part that keeps the waist buckle out of the way. This label informed me that the little part was called a "Buckle Garage."

That's not the weird part. The weird part is that, in my head as I read the tag, I said "Buckle GAR-age" as opposed to "Buckle Guh-RAHGE," in a complete rejection of the 22 years of my life that I have been speaking American English.

So far, in my time here, I haven't quite gotten over how different pronunciation is. Sure, there are words like "queue" (line) or "tin" (can) that I have started using. I will always, and without thinking, use the term "half" after an hour to tell time, such as "half six" rather than "six-thirty." I have also enthusiastically embraced the phrase "taking the piss," which does not involve a bodily function, but rather means making fun of something, usually good-naturedly. But pronouncing certain words "tom-AH-to" or "ore-GAH-no" has been out of the question thus far.

One thing I have half-heartedly gotten on board with is this nonsense of calling everything that's sweet or dessert-like, "pudding." It's in Ireland that I first learned what was meant by "plum pudding," by the way -- it's this little round sort of fruitcake thing with plums in it that you're supposed to cover in brandy sauce and set alight, apparently. Usually it comes out around October, wrapped up in red cellophane right next to the Cadbury Milk Trays, just in case you're getting your Christmas food shopping done early. I'm not positive what they call American-style pudding, then, unless they do as they do for pancakes or brownies and simply put "American-style" in front of the name and leave it at that.

Because I talk more with the Amy, queen of Scots, than I do many of the Irish people in my class, I've found myself picking up strange Scottish phrases that will be completely incomprehensible to people back home. Words like "jammy" (an adjective meaning "lucky when you don't deserve to be") and phrases like "get yourself to fuck" (pretty self-explanatory) just pop out when I least expect it.

One such word is the word "bombscare," which will not only be incomprehensible, but completely inappropriate back in the States. It means, roughly, a disaster, but usually that a person is a complete disaster, i.e., "I drank so much last night, I was a total bombscare," or "Look at her hair, she's a bit of a bombscare, eh?" It can also be used as a transitive or intransitive verb, as in, "Ugh, I was totally bombscaring last night" or, "We're totally going to bombscare C next week" (C being the roommate who regularly leaves the country without letting us know, and who we would love to see drunk some night).

Apart from the buckle receptacle anomaly and the vocabulary additions, though, I despair of ever losing or even softening my Buffalo-Canuck-Cali accent. Though I have gotten to the point where I feel like no one picks me out as American based on looks alone (after all, most of my clothes were bought here), the second I say "Hi," they know I'm a Yank.

My new goal, admittedly small, is to be able to order coffee entirely in an Irish accent - "Hi, small latte for takeaway, please? Thanks a million." I know it's going to take some practice and dedication, but that's a sacrifice I am totally willing to make...no matter how many times I have to go to that amazing coffee shop down the street in order to get it right. How does one say "croissant" in Irish?

Election Night in Eire

Courtesy of xkcd.com*

"Oh my god," said my apartment mate. "This is like, Katie's porn."

To be fair, I was on the edge of my seat, fingernails in my mouth, shouting at the TV for more, and practically having a political orgasm every time more polls closed. But it must be said that this was a night I would remember for the rest of my life -- the night America stepped up, chose the best man for the job, and voted Barack Obama not only for president, but as the first black president of the United States.

The day didn't start out well. I had been nervous and jumpy all day, trying to get reading done while frantically refreshing the New York Times webpage. It was around 2 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time when I finally did the math and realized that the earliest we'd hear anything was 11 p.m., and even then the results would be spotty at best.

It was like waiting for Christmas -- except this time, there was a chance that Santa would decide to bomb Iran, overturn Roe vs. Wade and amend the constitution to ban gay marriage before croaking and handing the country over to an unknown maverick-y maverick from Alaska.

I tried to keep myself occupied. I read. I went to lunch. I went to class. I did laundry. But it was hopeless, as all I could really concentrate on was the voice in my head screaming, "I WANT TO KNOW WHO WINS." I became more bitter over the five-hour time difference than ever before.

Finally, around 10 p.m., my apartment-mate J and I decided to head over to the Graduate Memorial Building, where we had heard that the College Historical Society (or The Hist) would be broadcasting the election results all through the night. The Graduates Memorial Building is absolutely beautiful, and to spend the night there with about a hundred other political dorks and Americans was pretty much the ideal situation, as far as I was concerned. And since we didn't have a TV and our only friend with a TV was otherwise occupied, it seemed like our best bet.

When we arrived, the lights were off and the door locked, without a political dork in sight. J and I looked at each other, crestfallen. Then one of us brokered the typical Irish solution:

"You want to try to find a bar?"

There are about four typical 'old-man bars' around our apartment, all of which would be quiet on a Tuesday night and all of which would be happy to accommodate two young American girls who just wanted to know what was going on in their country. That is, they would have been, had they had televisions, or had they stayed open past 11:30 p.m.

First we tried Kennedy's: No TV. Then the hotel bar: No TV. Then Foley's. There was a TV, but they were only open until half eleven, the barman told us, and suggested we try the Shelbourne Hotel bar down the street.

"Sure, there'll be lots of Americans there," he said, "and if you sneak in, they should turn a blind eye to whether you're actually staying there or not."

We thanked him profusely, and turned to head out. But he called us back, shouting, "But do you want me to tell you the results now?"

J shouted back, "Sure, what do you think?"

The barman smiled, utterly confident. "Obama. It's definitely going to be Obama."

It was around this point that I started praying that the Irish confidence in America's ability to choose the right man for the job wouldn't somehow jinx the results.

We pressed on, down the three blocks or so to the Shelbourne. It's important to know that the Shelbourne is where all the old, rich, American tourists stay -- a huge, really nice and extremely expensive hotel right on St. Stephen's Green. Naturally, we were intimidated, and a little apprehenisve about sneaking in. J decided that the best way to do it would be to keep cool, smoke a cigarette in the little smoking area, then walk into the bar like we belonged there.

We were putting this plan into action when an extremely drunk businessman walked by, blearily gave us the eye and muttered something that might have been, "Hello there" but also might have been a lewd invitation, before walking straight into the hotel bar. This was not looking good. Still, we had nowhere else to go, really, and so J finished her cigarette and we sauntered into the bar, trying to look as though we could totally afford to stay there.

Immediately, two things became blatantly clear: one, that there was not a TV, and two, the bar was full of lewd old men. Our friend from outside even made a detour in order to brush against J on his way to order what must have been pint number ten. I am pretty sure that we never really stopped moving; we just walked to one end of the bar, turned tail, and walked out.

For a while after, we weren't sure what to do. How could it be possible to not be able to find a late-closing bar in Dublin on election night? We decided to wander up Grafton Street and into Temple Bar, figuring we were sure to stumble on something there, what with all the tourists up that way. Surely some pub would be open late, and would be kind enough to put on the election for the American expatriates.

There was one bar that was, but sadly they were only open until midnight, and we were forced to continue our meander through Temple Bar until I spotted something in passing --

"Wait! Is that Hungry Harry's with the election on?"

It was. Hungry Harry's is a delightful little fast food place where the food is decent, but really fantastic after a few pints. For the moment, it was completely empty, and we ordered mounds of greasy food and planted ourselves in front of the BBC coverage of the vote. So far, it was Obama's 8 to McCain's 3, which (while I felt it was too close to call as of yet), seemed to exhilarate anyone who passed by.

Except, of course, the mad bunch of Italians who barged in, blocked our view, and began speaking very loudly about something I couldn't understand. Soon they were joined by five high-school-aged Irish boys, who (as Irish boys do), started to get a little rowdy. I was beginning to consider just going home and gluing myself to the New York Times web page, when suddenly--

Beep beep. Beep beep. J's phone, with a message from our Scottish friend A: "Hey ladies! U can come watch the election if you want cos the boy is gone and ill be up 4 ages yet!"

Within the half hour, we were happily installed on A's couch, where I was trying to explain the electoral college to both J and A. Not very effectively, I might add, as I'm a little shaky on the concept myself, but that didn't really seem to matter.

"Here, explain something to me," said A. "The whole middle of the map looks red, yeah? Which means McCain, right? So how is it possible for him not to win?"

I explained that it was based on population, and that in essence, California's 55 electoral votes combined with New York, the rest of New England and the Pacific Northwest, was enough to carry Obama. A lively discussion of states, populations, the likelihood of McCain winning, punctuated with a rehash of A's date that night and a rousing round of the States Game (during which A learned that Cincinnati was not, in fact, a state), lasted us until almost 4 a.m., at which point, I interrupted the festivities with a shout --

"WAIT. CALIFORNIA'S ABOUT TO CLOSE."

"What does that mean?" cried a startled A, while J responded with a laugh and the porn comment.

"It means we'll know who the president is in maybe fifteen minutes," I answered. I had barely gotten the sentence out before CNN blasted their "breaking news" theme, blocked out all the graphics that had been up with a big blue screen, on which was written: "CNN PROJECTON: BARACK OBAMA WINS PRESIDENCY."

I am pretty sure you could hear our screams on the other side of the River. After we settled a bit, we flipped to BBC to see them announce it, then to ITV to see them tell Ireland that America had elected their first African-American president.

I can barely remember what happened after, except that we waited forever for McCain to concede, and when he finally did, his speech was so dripping with condescension that even if I had wanted him to win before, I was now certain that Obama was the one for the US. (For the record, McCain is not my friend, and he might as well have just said, "Thanks for letting the black man win for once. Way to go, guys.")

We didn't stay up to watch Obama's speech. It was 5 a.m. by the time I got to bed that night, and I watched the speech on YouTube the next morning. But even though we didn’t technically see it through to the bitter end, I feel like we truly lived the expatriate election to its fullest, early-closing bars and empty fast-food restaurants just being part of the whole experience.

(* Cartoon above courtesy of xkcd, an awesome webcomic that you should all check out. Above image is cropped: full cartoon can be viewed here.)

Bright Lights, Big City

Sometimes I forget how huge a city Dublin is. It's easy to do, since most of it is fairly walkable and it takes me approximately the same amount of time to get from my dorm to the train station on the outskirts as it would to get from my dorm at Canisius to the center of Buffalo. Size-wise, it's not that big.

But otherwise? It's DUBLIN. Apparently this is a big deal. I forget that it's the capital of Ireland, and also the largest city, so naturally it's inherently important. Since Trinity is also one of the biggest and most well-known universities around, that makes where I'm living roughly like the New York City of Ireland.

Which is why I shouldn't be surprised when people like Patrick Stewart just pop on by for a quick chat with the historical society -- which he did, on Halloween, sweeping in to the room wearing a black Dracula cape and then talking about acting, Star Trek, and his love of Shakespeare for an hour and a half. (That's him to the left -- sorry, it is a little hard to tell, but that's him at Trinity.)

Similarly, I shouldn't be surprised when the Dublin City Marathon, which I expect to include maybe 50 people dressed up as werewolves and restaurants, turns out to include over 11,000 participants, all of whom run right by my front door on the way to the finish.

I shouldn't be surprised to find a kebab place next to a noodle house across the street from a pizzeria and a tandoori restaurant. And all this right down the street from a Mexican restaurant called The Alamo that serves Buffalo wings alongside fries with garlic mayo and cheddar cheese on top.

I've been here a month now, and I have only just felt like I am starting to fully appreciate this city. Sure, it still scares me, and sure, I'm irritated that I can't just walk to bars and clubs like I used to be able to in Galway. Yeah, I hate grocery shopping and having to schelp my purchases in an ostentatiously American backpack about a mile through crowded streets to my apartment.

But still, it's nice to be in a CITY for once, a huge one, where you could see anything, meet anyone, and anything could happen. That being said, I may go for a walk...I hear Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is in town?

It's all political

The last time I was in Ireland, there was no major political debate. We were in the middle of the Iraq War, but we had elected Bush two years before, and the only elections in sight were Senate elections. As a result, I only once was asked about my political leanings, and that was more about the average American's view on the War than anything else.

This time, though, it's a different story. There are Irish students in my program who are more informed about the issues and the candidates' respective stances on them than the majority of Americans I talk to. They've watched the debates, they have studied the political terrain, and they have made their decisions. And they want to know yours, as well.

The Irish and other international students view the declaration of candidate loyalty as a perfectly acceptable icebreaker; Hi, you're American, right, Obama or McCain? I had a very drunk 18-year-old Irish boy lurch up to me in a friend's dorm, declare that Jack Kerouac was an amazing writer, and then slur, "So, Obama or McCain?" The odd part is, he knew which one he wanted to hear.

Ireland has made up its mind about the presidential race, and it should come as no shock to anyone that they want Obama to win. Keep in mind that this is coming from a country where there is a deep-seated inherent racism, and that black jokes are not only accepted here, but considered hilarious and repeated over and over again in pubs to anyone who will listen.

Yet, I've heard nothing about Obama's racial background over here, only that they think he's smart and will have a positive impact on the rest of the world. It says something about the comparative tolerance and political savvy of the rest of the world that neither Obama's race nor Sarah Palin's gender has been an issue in any discussion I've had thus far: it's always about the issues.

I am, of course, generalizing, and I am sure that there are Irish people who would prefer McCain to Obama or who don't care either way. There are also Irish people who don't understand American politics or the American mindset but pretend like they do, and shoot off uninformed and offensive opinions at every turn (i.e. the girl in my class who felt that her visit to San Francisco last year made her qualified to say that America was raping other countries for oil and that she doesn't get why Americans feel proud to have relatives or friends in the military).

For the most part, though, if an Irish person engages you in a poltical debate, they are informed and eager to learn what they can about your opinion and your reasons for that opinion. And good for them; I know quite a few Americans who are not that willing to educate themselves on the political scene of their own nation, even though the outcome of this election will, in some way, change the world.

Sicko

There is nothing worse than being sick while overseas. All the old familiar remedies like chicken soup and Vicks Vaporub are either harder to come by or actually impossible to find. So there you are, in a strange room in a strange city, sick with no way to comfort yourself short of bundling up in a few layers of sweaters and running to the Centra convenience store for some Halls Soothers.

I managed to stave off the typical study abroad cold with the large supply of Cold-eeze I had stockpiled for such an occasion. I remembered my last Irish cold vividly: three and a half months of snivling, coughing, phelmy mess, leaving me feeling half-human and sending me running to the pharmacy for a new remedy every week or so. Luckily, with the help of the lovely Australian pharmacists and some sort of amazing Irish cough syrup, I was able to heal myself enough to drag myself to class.

So this time I arrived in Ireland with two boxes of Cold-eeze. When the first symptoms hit, I popped those pills like they were candy. Two days later, there was no cold in sight, and I congratulated myself on being so proactive as to stave off the disease that could have made my first semester an absolute hell.

I began to worry about my self-congratulations, though, at some point -- could I have jinxed my health for this semester? I am a supersitious person by nature, and so I began to worry that I would, in fact, get another cold, a BAD one.

I was wrong. Instead I was suddenly hit with flu-like symptoms: the fever, the exhaustion...and possibly the nausea, which has yet to occur but I'm sure will be coming along shortly. So let this be a lesson to you: Karma kills.

(I promise, you will get all the aforementioned blog entries once I pull myself together -- but right now I am going to curl up in bed with some tea and Oliver Twist and hope I can chase this off before it gets worse.)

Home Cookin'

(Grilled cheese with vintage Irish cheddar and 'red sauce' or ketchup -- American food, Irish style!)

Most college students eat very differently when we are at school versus at home -- even if school is technically our home for that academic term or whatever. School food consists of things in cans, in plastic packages...things that you may need to boil water for, but that's it. There's a lot of spaghetti, a lot of Ramen, and a lot of whatever the dining hall is serving.

Naturally, Irish school food is even stranger. There's the usual switch to the school-type pasta, but I find myself doing things with it that I would never do at school, probably due to the fact that the food Irish people eat, not even including the traditional pub fare and blood sausage you're thinking of, is very different from what Americans choose to eat.

Here, for your pleasure, is a description of some of the most different things I eat in Ireland, most of them with pictures:

Heinz Beans -- They say they're baked, but that's a lie. It's really kind of hard to describe the difference between these beans and baked beans back home, but imagine the sauce from Spaghettios mixed with just the beans from baked beans -- no bacon, no fat, no weird smoked flavor. The Irish and British eat this type of bean on toast for 'tea', a meal I have yet to figure out.

Kraft Light Herb and Garlic Dressing -- Picture ranch on crack. God, it's good. It's like a combination of ranch and maybe ceasar, which they recommend to put on potato salad with 'streaky bacon'. I discovered this in a search for something to dip my pizza crust in, and now I eat it on potatoes, pasta, rice....anything with a starch, and I pull out the dressing. Awesome.

Cadbury Bournville -- I have to admit that the first time I came to Ireland, I thought Green and Black's chocolate was the absolute pinnacle of chocolately goodness. And it is, but the fact that you can actually get it in the US and I just didn't know it has somehow taken the shine off those five-euro bars of organic chocolate. So I've switched to the two-euro Bournville, which is dark chocolate. Just that. Nothing else. A massive 200 gram hunk of marvelous Cadbury heaven. Yummm. It also comes in a drinking chocolate version. :)

Nutella -- I never eat this in the States, and I don't know why. It's really pretty easy to get and not that expensive. Here, though, it's cheaper than peanut butter (which the Irish and apparently the British don't get, by the way -- my Scottish friend demanded to know the other day why in God's name anyone would put peanut butter on a sandwich). It's really best when served on the next thing on this list or crepes, not bread, though you can do it.

Digestive biscuits -- Okay, first know that a biscuit is usually a word for cookie. Now realize that these are not really like cookies, either, but kind of like sweet crackers -- like a graham cracker, actually, but round and thicker. A close relation is the tea biscuit, which has the same concept but I think it's made with white flour and isn't brown. Again, eaten for 'tea', whatever that is, though I usually eat them with Nutella for breakfast or as a study snack.

Walkers Sensations -- Only the best potato chips in the world. These are, as my Scottish friend calls them, 'posh crisps' that come in flavors like Roast Chicken and Thyme, Cheddar and Red Onion Chutney, and my favorite, Caramelized Onion and Balsamic Vinaigrette. And since they don't come in the 'prawn cocktail' variety many other chips here do...I'm all for them.

Ethnic Food -- I don't know whether this is because we're closer to Europe/Asia or there's a greater immigrant population here, but Uncle Ben's (of the rice?) makes bottled Indian and Chinese food sauces like Sweet and Sour and Tikka Masala. And it's not just Uncle Ben's -- it's even in the generic store brands. It throws me, because while usually we do have ethnic food of this sort, it's not really as mainstream (except at Wegmans, but even there you just have bottled soy sauce and satay sauce sometimes, never anything as complicated as Tikka Masala). And they keep it next to the tomato sauce like it's totally normal...but you can't get Mexican food, like salsa or chips, for anything. Go figure. Maybe it's a hemisphere thing.

Good thing I am doing all this walking, or else I'd weigh four million pounds by now. Next time, actually going-out-and-eating-real-meals food :)