Thanksgiving!

On Tuesday November 24th I only had my 3 hour archeology class.  In it we watched the movie "The wind that shakes the barley."  It was a really good film.  It was about the uprisings occuring in Ireland just before the political state of Northern Ireland was created.  It focuses on two brother who join and participate in the IRA and their struggles.  Then when the Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed, and Northern Ireland is created, the two brothers end up on opposite sides of a new political fight.  One of the brothers believes that it is all that can be asked for at the time and that it is time for peace, while the other believes that the whole island should be liberated and will keeping fighting for it.  The film does a great job depicting how, after this separation of Northern Ireland, and pinned brothers against brothers and friends against friends.  We had learned about this in history class, but it never really clicked as to why they were on opposite sides until watching this movie.  I highly recommend watching it.  Another great movie that we watched was in Theology class on Monday.  It was called Evelyn and starred Pierce Brosnan as a father who loses his three children to the government when his wife runs off.  Basically, the main plot line is changing the family law so that he can reclaim his kids without his wife's signature.

After class on Tuesday I took the bus into Galway for grocery and souvenir shopping.

Wednesday we had our family meeting as usual and I did homework all day.  Again, JP opened the pub for us that night.  That night was fun because there was a lot of family and friends that were visiting for Thanksgiving.  A total of 4 family members and 2 friends.  So we all had a great time mingling and meeting them.

Thursday=Thanksgiving!!!  This was a very long day.  First of all, we had class that morning...sucky.  It was only an hour and a half and we actually had a decent discussion, so I guess it wasn't too painful.  The only thing that sucked was that we didn't have our big meal for lunch like we usually do at home...so we were just waiting all day...it was a little torture.  Anyway, after class we decided that we had to have the traditional game of football.  So we walked all the way down to the pitch to play...much to our surprise we couldn't play on it.  They were actually filming a movie there...go figure.  So we walked all the way back to the PLH and ended up just playing in the parking lot.  We had to be careful because the parking is gravel and there were puddles in some places.  Only one person almost wiped out--so I'd call it a success.  I was very proud to be the first girl picked :)  

After the game we all showered and got prettied up for dinner.  At 5 we had to present our documentaries that we made for our senior seminar class.  It was fun to walk around and see what everyone else had made.  I just made a boring powerpoint that actually had quotes from my blog in it to describe my journey.  There were some really cool, creative projects however.  Nicole V made a cartoon of everyone on the trip and wrote a little kid's book about her adventures here and how she has grown on it.  Khris had a video of the landscape while driving that was accompanied by music---it was really cool because it actually gave the look/feel of Ireland.  One kid even used all the pint glasses that he stole to map out his travels.  After our presentations we had a hot port reception.  It's basically just hot wine--I didn't think it was too special.  Again, we all just got to mingle so it was nice.  Our visitors included Matt's parents, Ross's mom and brother, 2 of Jimmy's friends, a friend of Mallory and Katie, and 4 people from Jenna's family.  We also had 2 other profs (Gerard=lit and Mary=theo), our bus driver, a past student, Rory, and of course the Foyles.  

During the hot port reception we took a ton of pictures since we were all looking nice.  We even got a picture of our whole group, so that was nice.  After all of this, Geraldine's daughters and two of their friends put on a little concert for us.  First they played recorders, then two of them played the accordion, and then one of them played the violin.  They were all so cute and so talented!!  We were amazed at their abilities--feeling like we should know how to do more things.  After their music they even did a traditional Irish dance for us!  Overall it was just adorable.  Then Katarina--Jane Marie's daughter--came out and we gave her her present.  It was her birthday that night.  

Finally we all sat down for dinner and prepared ourselves for the meal.  It was delicious!!  First course was salad and a roll, then was the main dish, followed by dessert.  The main dish had turkey, ham, broccoli, a parsnip thing, and 3 different types of potatoes.  So good!  Then for dessert there was pumpkin pie with ice cream and baked alaska.  I had the baked alaska.  So like I said, the meal was amazing--they did a great job at making it a traditional meal...but then again they've had 25 years to practice!  We found out that we are the 25th group to come and study here.  That means that Jane Marie, Geraldine, and John Paul were all still kids when the program started coming here.  Makes you think..  

After dinner everyone rushed to the computer lab/classroom to Skype with all their loved ones back at home.  Dinner went a little long, so I was late for my Skype date...sorry guys.  Anyway, I got to chat with and see my dad's side of the family--so that was great!  I even got to talk to my grandma.  The kids were very excited about the whole thing--eager to show me a lot of stuff with the camera.  Let's just say I got a little nauseous with them moving the camera so much.  But it was great to see everyone, so that made missing Thanksgiving at home a lot better.  After Skyping, JP opened the fancy pub for us.  Julie, our director, even hung out with us there the whole rest of the night.  So, again, it was nice to mingle with everyone and their families/friends.  JP even kept the ballroom open for us and one of the guys on my trip taught me how to swing dance.  So overall great night!