Christmas Preparations xx: Cork City Edition

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you! 

I'm writing from my own desk in the good old DMV once again, eating a candy cane and loving the holidays. As I think I've mentioned before, Cork has been decorated since November 1st, so I suppose that means I'm a little late in posting about Christmas prep. Normally, I'd be anti-early-Christmas-prep, but being in a foreign country for the holiday has a funny way of making one a little homesick, and the only cure is a little Christmas. Hence, I joined the many thousands in merry Christmas making throughout November to the dismay of more than a few friends around me. But what can I say? We could always do with more Christmas, if it does mean finally displaying my own insanity.

How to Prepare for Christmas, step-by-step:
1) Run the Run in the Dark 5K with your housemate and enjoy the lights of the Christmassy city of Cork at night. Do not care that it is only November 13th...

2) Find Starbucks red cups at any cost.

God bless UCC's Coffee Dock

3) Decorate, including but not limited to:

Buying a chocolate advent calendar. Use it to countdown to your flight home rather than Christmas Eve. Home is much more important. 

Putting up stockings and a tree (utterly essential).

The stockings and stocking holders were my Christmas gifts to M and K.

Finding some Christmassy treats to bring home.

Special edition Barry's Tea from Cork: Santa's Tea.

4) Enjoy the first frost of the season and your last days in the Christmassy city with some mulled wine and walks around the Christmas fair.

Happy Christmas North Main Street. Celebrating last day of classes with a few pints.

Carousal at the Christmas fair on Grand Parade.

A few Christmas tunes

The English Market glowing in the dark.

Once all of these steps have been completed, you will be all set to pack up all those Christmas presents you so carefully wrapped (pack enough clothes for padding in the suitcase; you don't want all of your hard work to be for naught!), and catch a flight to Amurica.

I'm so excited to be home. Ireland is lovely, and I'm so happy living there; but Virginia has some charms that Ireland could never reproduce, especially at Christmas x

Thanksgiving: A New Irish Tradition

They said it couldn't be done, but we did it anyway. An American Thanksgiving in the middle of the Emerald Isle. M and I are both Americans, and being as ridiculously homesick and fond of cooking as we are (and M is quite the party/decorations kind of person), we decided to do a big dinner despite our location. So we called in 8 other friends, asked for some food donations, and started a new Irish tradition.

Unfortunately, our tiny little house struggled to contain all ten people, so with a little creativity, we managed to have two tables, one regular for six and one teeny kids table for four. But everyone put on a brave face, sipped their cocktails, and sat down to dinner. M did most of the cooking herself. One lovely guest brought some delicious side dishes and mulled wine, another meatloving guest put his hand to the turkey, a couple helped with potatoes, and I cooked the stuffing. Together thanks to everyone we got a delicious meal.

He tried so hard to get that knife to stick!

The Turkey Masterminds

Before they started helping....

No pictures of the gravy-stirrer please (*hint* that's me!)

Helping with the potatoes- cheeky girl thought she didn't need a vegetable peeler

Taking a quick break from helping....

"Do you know how to carve a turkey?"

Dealing with the leftovers...

Our house isn't really equipped to deal with leftovers...

And our fridge definitely isn't equipped to deal with leftovers.

Household god, did all the dishes himself.

Taking a (well-earned?) break

Ouch... grumpy!

The ten of us had a lovely weekend. Those American girls came back to Ireland just for Thanksgiving with us, and we had a blast. Lots of good food, good wine, and good laughter. The boy even brought champagne and glasses for everyone xx The lads did their fair share of helping out in the kitchen, so I have to say it was a great success. A new Irish tradition for sure!

An Unexpected American-Corkian Adventure

Hometown Americans in the Spáilpín.

 Happy December! It's December 3rd, and for those of you interested, Britney's new album comes out today! But on the off chance that you don't care too much about Britney (that might be the end of our friendship, I have to be honest), let me tell you about some of SEDiva's recent adventures.

At the end of October, two hometown friends of mine came to visit. E and B are studying abroad in Rome, Italy this semester, and for their 10-day planned school break, they planned to head to London, Cork, Galway, and Dublin.

Well, the girls were coming to Cork on a Sunday and staying with me through Wednesday, and honestly all I could think was that I was going to be the worst hostess with school and work and everything going on during the weeks. They got here at an ungodly hour on Sunday morning (the bus wasn't running, I walked halfway and then caught a cab while they waited for me in the only place open: McDonalds). We got a full Irish breakfast at the delicious Flying Enterprise restaurant, and then headed back to the house to hang out and, honestly, take a nap.

From Sunday through Wednesday morning, we had so much fun, exploring the city, eating and drinking, laughing, and singing good songs badly. When Wednesday morning came along, we were all sad it had passed so quickly. Later that day, I got a text off of E asking if they could come back on Friday, cutting a day off their journeys to Galway and Dublin each. Um... duh, of course!

So in the end, we got a few more days out of them, with more songs sung badly and more hometown woes shared. It was great to see people from home; before this, I hadn't seen the girls in years. Ireland's not the same since they left. xx

Exchanging places for pictures... can you spot the difference between them?

In the girls' new favorite: the Brog (so named for the Brogue in our hometown... just kidding!)

While I was at school, the girls managed a few touristy things!

When they returned, they brought the beautiful weather back with them.

Oops, did I fall asleep there?

They brought this beautiful rainbow with them.

Absence

Oh hello. How are you going? My name is Sarah, in case you forgot about me.

I have very little to say in defense of my lengthy absence. To be honest, you were probably all wondering if I just decided to move back to Virginia after the last (month's) post. Never fear, I'm still in Ireland (for 16 and a half more days-- woohoo Christmas break! xx). But into my previous boredom flew a million and one assignments, guests, schedule conflicts, and all around crazy things. And thus, my absence. That's all I have to say for myself. Forgive me if you will. I will understand if you can't. But at least let me make it up to you!

I have a bunch of posts and pictures heading your way in the next couple of days, including but not limited to:
1) An American visit (once again, are you sick of these yet? Trust me, this one is awesome...)
2) An Irish Thanksgiving (it exists! At least now that my American housemate and I have done it, it does).
3) A revised bucket list (please don't look back on the old one, it's pathetic how many things on there I haven't accomplished yet.... )
4) Christmas prep and musings (Cork has been decorated since NOVEMBER 1st! We're just catching up now really)
5) And some exciting news!

So stay tuned, if you still care about me/remember me/aren't yet completely offended by me/are bored.

Happy belated Thanksgiving xx

"Crisis"

I've been living in Ireland now for exactly 10 weeks. That is two and a half months. As you millions of loyal readers know, a lot has happened in these 10 weeks. The first few weeks were relatively quiet, uneventful, filled with lots of shopping, walking, and general calmness. The past 7 or 8 weeks have been a frenzy of lectures, papers, music, friends, and general craziness.

But as anyone who's ever studied abroad, anyone who's lived abroad, or even anyone who's moved to a new place knows, there's a point around the two or three month mark that you lose it. You lose whatever motivation, whatever excitement, or whatever just plain inert movement you had to make the move and to make the move work. I think I might have hit that point.

Ever studied abroad and you've probably seen this graph before. Schools and universities and international offices are always using it to demonstrate the range of emotions students experience when they go abroad and also, interestingly, when they return home.

First, there's the honeymoon phase. Pretty self-explanatory. Everything's new and exciting, you're so glad to be wherever you now are. You barely have time to call home. And you wouldn't have it any other way.

Second comes "culture shock" as they label it. Basically, you're not so sure anymore. You're getting homesick, you're missing customs you're familiar with, you're frustrated with customs you're not. And you're probably constantly complaining about your new culture and ready to tell anyone who will listen how much better everything is in ..... wherever you're from aka the greatest place in the world.

Third comes Adjustment. You're over it, that homesickness or whatever it was that started you on your downward path to misery. You're not a part of your new culture, but you're not apart from it either. You feel pretty competent in both your own customs and the ways of your new culture. You're feeling pretty "dual-cultured".

And finally, Mastery comes. This one's a little vague and open to interpretation. And I also think it depends on the person. So whenever that happens for me, I'll just write again and let you know what it feels like....

I used to live in Ireland; I've already returned home. So basically, I've already experienced almost everything on this graph before. And therefore I really don't think I'm doing so again. I've looked at the graph over and over and over again recently trying to see where I fit on the plane, and it's just not working. There is no longer an infographic that will help me understand my life.

However, I am feeling a bit homesick. In fact, I turned on Christmas music the other day because it seemed like the home-y-est thing I could do. A few of my friends weren't particularly happy with that one. But it worked!

 So I apologize in advanced if I start going a little off-the-grid with blog posts for the next couple of weeks. I've got lots of fun American and Irish, and Irishy-American things planned to share with all of you. But it's all in an attempt to get me through the end of the semester and into Christmas. And Christmas might be coming early here as well. I need an outlet, since I'm apparently not allowed to tell any of my friends here that I'm listening to Christmas music already. I have to wait until December... but not for you !!

Friends, hobbies, day-trips, afternoon plans are all ways to fight homesickness, I'm finding. Lots of work continues to pile up (it's that time of the semester), but finding time for yourself (sleeping, gyming, reading, blogging) and finding time for friends (and a few pints or a few cookies, depending) are essential.

I've taken a silly break from this blog, but never fear. I'm back. Let's have fun in Ireland together xx