An Irish Thanksgiving

 The Irish may not celebrate Thanksgiving with much regularity, but the Foyles at the Park Lodge threw us an amazing celebration yesterday!

We woke up to rain, but that did not stop the festivities. Our program directors Jane and Mike delivered fresh and warm scones to each cottage made by Geraldine.  Cottage 6 headed up to the lodge to help out a bit with setting up for the dinner and finish up the place cards and other decorations (including red, white and blue napkins and American flags). It was fun to be involved with getting everything ready for the big night! In the afternoon, most of our group walked to the hurling field in Spiddal for a game of football- American style.  It's a tradition for the Galway program to always play a game of football on Thanksgiving. As it was still pouring, windy and freezing, not many girls ended up going, but Cottage 6 was all in. What made it even more of an exciting day was that I was not picked last!! I was actually one of the first girls selected for a team, however, I think my team members may have second-guessed their choice when I asked what a first down is. Anyway, we had a lot of fun despite the weather, which actually just added another element of challenge to the game- none of us came away without mud all over! We all felt a little bad about making the field a complete mud puddle, but it was definitely worth it!

The aftermath of the Thanksgiving football game

The girls of Table 4: Kelly, me, Bethany and Aoife

After having hot chocolate and showers back at the cottage, we all got ready for dinner.  My friend Aoife joined us for the night, and it was so fun to have someone from home to celebrate with! There were 60 guests at the dinner this year, the biggest one ever at the Park Lodge!  We started the evening with some appetizers and a slide show of pictures from throughout the semester. After seeing all the pictures from all of our amazing adventures in Ireland, I got a little teary thinking about leaving. Thankfully, we still have a week left! Now I am going to tell you about the incredible feast we had, so if you are not particularly interested in talking about food (...Dad...) feel free to skip down a few lines. The meal started with a plate of salad, smoked salmon, brown bread and shrimp. At first we all thought it was an interesting choice for a Thanksgiving dinner, until we realized it was only the appetizer! I think it was my favorite part of the whole meal.  Next we had carrot soup, followed by the main event. Our plates were filled with turkey, ham, boiled potatoes, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, veggies and stuffing. Just when we thought we couldn't eat anything else, dessert was served. We had baked Alaska and pumpkin pie. Our cottage actually had a special contribution to the pies: Geraldine called us earlier in the week and asked if we would donate our Halloween pumpkin from outside our cottage for the pies, so we dropped it off on our way to class. When we got back, there was a warm, mini pumpkin pie on our counter! After dinner, the archeology class showed off their Irish dancing skills that they have learned over the semester. After the first dance, each person picked someone who wasn't in that class to dance with, so we all got to participate. Unfortunately, most of the dancing involved quite a bit of spinning, which didn't feel so great after our huge dinner. It was still fun though and a great way to end the evening. I felt so thankful to have such wonderful people to celebrate with, and even though we were so far away from home, it made me realize how much of a family we are. I don't think I could be away for Thanksgiving every year, but it is definitely an experience I will never forget!

Me with John Paul and baby Oisin! 

After-dinner dancing!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! 

Ellen