Thanksgiving, Irish Style

This was my first year spending Thanksgiving away from home. Luckily, as I previously mentioned, I have met loads of WONDERFUL people here and I had not one, but two fabulous Thanksgiving dinners. Because Thanksgivng was and always is on a Thursday, it was a bit difficult to host it on the actual day. I had class until late that day, as did many of the other students. And unlike the States, we don't get the day off. So on Wednesday, I hosted Thanksgiving dinner at my apartment with some of my UCD/Google friends, four of which were Americans. We did  it potluck style and I was in charge of the Turkey. I had reserved a Turkey at Superquinn near Blackrock (UCD Campus), but Euro Spar, the market near my place said they could get me one for cheaper.  I figured it's be easier to get it at Spar, so I wouldn't have to carry a 12 lb turkey from the market to the DART and ride the train five stops. So I cancel the Superquinn Turkey and the day of, go to Spar to pick up my turkey.  The butcher was like, the delivery guy isn't here yet, he's usually here by 11, but is running late today, come back at 1. I come back at 1 and apparently it is still not there. I give the dude my number and then get a call 20 minutes later saying that the delivery guy won't be coming today. He's like, he'll be here tomorrow, Thanksgiving's not til tomorrow rite? I was like, well, I am having my dinner tonight. Long story short, I had to improvise, went to the butcher down the road and got an Irish chicken, some beef and a stuffed turkey leg.  Bianca, a fellow American came over early to help me cook the turkey. Unfortunately she had food poisoning the day before and still wasn't feeling well.  She ended up having to miss dinner :(  So, I cooked my assorted meats and got things ready.  

People started to show up and brought an array foods. We had everything from veggies to mashed and sweet potatoes to minced and pecan pie.  We drank wine and ate until we were stuffed, because that is the way Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. Everything was sooo good and of course, I had seconds.  The pecan pie that Stephanie made was super delicious as was all the wonderful desserts that people brought. I tried minced pie for the first time and it was pretty tasty. This whole time I thought they had meat in it, since they have minced meat pies here and of course Shepard's pie.  But it turns out that its just this little delicious tarts with raisin and other sweet fillings.

So the day of Thanksgiving, I had a full day of classes. My one Tech & Innovation class was extended an extra hour since the prof was not here last week.  Obviously he didn't care it was

Thanksgiving. My professor likes to talk and talk until you think he can't talk anymore, but he does.The class is already boring and excruciating, but was way worse with an extra hour added on.  But it was good because it was my very last class.   I went home that night, had some yummy leftovers and ate myself sick because it was Thanksgiving and that's what you have to do. Some of my Google friends were going to Woolshed's in town because they were serving a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and playing football.  So I went and met up with them and had a drink.  

Friday was my Thanksgiving Dinner with Inge and her crew.  Inge was thankfully bringing the Turkey, so I decided to make some traditional American sides. I went to the Tesco that day and tried to find all the ingredients. I gotta say, it is tough trying to make Thanksgiving food in Dublin.  I was able to buy sweet potatoes, and got some strange form of marshmallows. I wanted to make a green bean casserole but they did not have those French's onion crisp things.  So I decided to make my famous butternut squash mac and cheese instead.  Of course, 

they had no buttersquash, but I was able to find butternutsquash, sweet potatoe and pumpkin soup, which worked. Everyone showed up around 8 and everything looked and smelled delicious! We all grubbed til we felt sick, at least I did. After a bit of rest, Sadhbh presented us withher BEAUTIFUL desserts. She is a pastry chef and was actually able to get pumpkin to make pie! She's my hero. And the pie was mouth watering DELICIOUS!! I was seriously so stuffed I wanted to curl up in a ball, but instead, we decided to meet up with some of my UCD friends at Howl at the Moon. Everyone was celebrating the fact that classes were over.

I had missed the prepartying at Proby and when I got to the club, everyone was pretty hammered. The club was pretty interesting, as were the drunk Irish dudes.  And so, we all tried to dance off the loads of food we ate.  I could barely drink a glass of wine, I was so stuffed.  But we all had so much fun. Overall it was a fabulous Thanksgiving week.  I am still eating leftovers and I have to say I am pretty turkeyed-out.  Had turkey fried rice today for dinner...will probably make some sort of turkey soup tomorrow.  One thing I won't be eating when I get home is TURKEY! 

My Irish Peeps

So, since I've been here in Dublin, I've met a lot of really cool people from various parts of the world. So I thought I'd introduce you to my friends here in Dublin, to let you know who I've been hanging with.  Here's an introduction to my peeps in Ireland. 

Sarah Gay was nice enough to introduce me to Inge Dorman, a very cool and really sweet Irish girl, who is a dentist here in  Dublin.  We met up for dinner during my first two weeks here and she's introduced me to some of her grade school friends, Jenny and Sadhbh, and her cool dentist friends - Riley, Eoin and Ciaran.  Riley from Calgary, but has been living her for eight years, so he has a strange Irish/Candadian accent. They are all super nice and fun to hang with.  They've been awesome about getting me accustomed and helping me get around since I don't have a car. I'm super grateful to have met them! So thanks Sarah!

And of course there are the UCD kids that I go to schoolwith. They are a bit younger and they sure can party. I've been to a couple of "Proby"dorm parties and they brought me back to my undergad days. Usually the pre party starts at Proby and then it moves on to some club/pub in the city. Bianca, a fellow American and I 

introduced the Irish kids to flip cup.  I think they really enjoyed it and will play the games for years to come. I have had lots of fun partying with the Smurfit peeps and they make school a lot more interesting.  Its good craic!!

Lastly we have my Google friends. I have been living in the Gasworks, which is right by the Google Europe buildings. Jen Peng,  a friend and sorority sister, who I went to Davis with, works at the Mountainview Office. I met her friend Carol a couple years back when we celebrated New Years in Vegas. Carol's working here in Dublin for a few months, as is Katherine,  who normally works in Santa Monica.  Lydie, who is from France

 has 

been working here in Dublin for three years. The girls are super cool. I've traveled to Edinburgh with Carol an Katherine, and we have one more trip to Belguim in three weeks.  We try to have weekly dinners. Lydie is awesome and has shown us 

some great places to eat, and has introduced me to some good Irish music.  

So, just in case anyone back home was worried about me, have no fear! I am surrounded by great friends that have made my life and experience here GRAND!

The Countdown Begins...

Believe it or not, I have exactly one month left here in Dublin! Man, the time has gone by so quickly! I am both sad to see this end, but ready to return home to my family and friends, my niece Alexis in particular, who is just growing up so fast and is getting so cute! I can't wait to play with her and pinch her chubby little cheeks.

I just returned from Madrid and have been gone for the past three weekends. The travels have especially made the time go by quickly. I now have two more weeks of classes, a "dead" week to study for finals, then I'm off the Belgium for the weekend, come back, and take two finals, one day to pack and say my goodbyes, then on December 18th, I'm on a plane back to sunny California!

Galway & Cork

So I crossed two of Ireland's "must visit" cities off my list last weekend when I went to Galway.  My new friend Amanda who's from LA which I met here in Dublin, is doing a law school program in Galway.  She knew Talia's brother and came over to our place for Rosh Hashana. Anyways, long story short, I went to visit Galway and stayed with her.  I took a three hour train there on that Friday, which was relatively painless.  Got into Galway around 5:30 and we went to dinner and had drinks. Galway is a pretty cute city, kind of a smaller version of Dublin. Much colder tho! 

The next day we decided to take a bus to Cork for the day to see the Jazz Festival.  

Galway is in the Western region of Ireland while Cork is more South West.  So we hoped on a bus at 8:30 am and took a 3 hour bus ride to Cork.  Seems a bit crazy looking back but we were all game.  We got there and it was raining, sadly.  We had lunch and then tried to figure out where this big festival was taking place.  Alas, everyone we asked said that the festival was everywhere.  I guess pubs just hired jazz bands to play and that was pretty much what the festival was. So we had some coffee at a shop and learned they would be playing jazz at 4pm.  So until then we figured that all we could do was drink...and so we did! 

 

Funnily enough we ended up having drinks at Captain 

America of all places. The staff was super nice and there were 

great drink specials. We had kamaze shots and made em blue for the "craic" which is Irish slan for fun.  I also had a fabulous

 strawberry mojito for only 5 Euro.  We got fairly buzzed and had a good time! We went back to the coffee shop and listened to a great jazz band.  

Afterwards, after being full of food and alcohol, we took the bus back to Galway. Me, being thet motion sick person that I am took two dramamenes.  The bus ride there wasn't bad but oh the bus ride back was HORRENDOUS.  There were millions of potholes and overall a very turbulent drive.  I seriously wanted to die. It was way worst then the Kilkenny bus ride.  The driver had stopped and I asked to get out and ran to the Supermac's to use the bathroom. I started getting dizzy in the middle of the street and made it in the door, but had to sit down.  Got up to use the restroom and ended up throwing up.  Got back on the bus for two more torturous hours.  Right as the driver was pulling in to the station, I knew that I had to get out. I asked him to open the door and the moment it opened, I projectile vomited on the floor. (Sorry for the graphic details). It was kinda gross and I felt bad for the onlookers.  It wasn't even that I was hungover, it was just a bad bus drive.  My friends who don't normally get sick said it was bad. 

So, after a nice sleep, we had a lazy sunday in Galway. I like the city, its very beautiful.  It is  however way colder than in Dublin, so I was more appreciative after getting back.  My umbrella which I used for two months in Dublin was destroyed after a week in Galway.   Overall, I give Galway and Cork two thumbs up.  Don't know that I need to ever go again, but I'm glad that I did.  The Cork Festival might have been more fun if we had stayed there for the night, but what are ya gonna do?

Packing in all the TRAVEL!!

So I've pretty much stayed around the Dublin area so far, and met a lot of cool people and gotten to know Ireland fairly well...but starting this weekend, I'll be traveling a bit more and seeing more of Europe. This weekend I'll be going to Galway, which is the countryside of Ireland. Should be fun, some friends from Smurfit are going and possibly some of my other Irish dentist friends. The weekend after, I will be in Edinburgh with my Google peeps. Then I'm here in Dublin for 3 days, cramming in as much school work as I can before I'm off to Rome to meet Candace. The week after I will be visiting Madrid and seeing the Denises and Mike Roth. I'm here in the Dublin the next three weekends, which includes Thanksgiving, then I'm off to Brussels! Woo! Talk about squeezing a lot of trips into two months! Can't wait tho!!! The studying will have to be secondary to the travel, but as they say, when in Rome!!

Dublin vs London vs Los Angeles

So it's October (my does time fly) and I've been living in Dublin for just over a month now. Thought it was time to do a little comparison of the cities I've lived in to see how it holds up. I've now lived in four major cities - LA for most of my life which includes Monterey Park, Westwood and Santa Monica, then Davis for two but we'll leave that out of this comparison, studied abroad in London as an undergrad and now studying in Dublin as a grad student. Overall, London and Dublin are somewhat similar, but London is a bit more fast paced and crazy. LA is quite busy as well, everyone is always in a hurry racing from one destination to another. Dubin has a nice balance and the people here are more relaxed and take the time to enjoy themselves, which I think is awesome.

So here is my comparative breakdown:

WEATHER

Weather-wise, LA has to take the cake. Both London and Dublin are rainy, windy and cold. Kinda reminds me of my two years at Davis. But I have to admit its nice to have actual seasons, whereas in LA its sunny and 75 most days. Here in Dublin, good weather has been in the mid 50's and no rain. My perspective on a nice day has definitely changed. What I consider a lovely day here would be a cold ass day in LA. But I guess the rain is what makes Dublin so green and beautiful! When I was living in London, it was summer, but it rained quite a bit, in fact, probably as much as it does in the winter. It was just warm and rainy. I can deal with rain in LA (the little of it that occurs) more so because I have a car and can drive. But in Dublin and in London, walking and taking public transportation sucks when its raining, which leads me to the next topic...

TRANSPORTATION

Not having a car has been a bit of an adjustment here, but taking the DART has been awesome and convenient, not to mention affordable. I get a weekly pass for about 16 Euro, which is close to 21-22 bucks. At home, I was filling up the tank at about 50 bucks a pop each week. The only downside to taking the train is that it stops running at midnight, so social actitivies either have to end early, or I am forced to take a taxi. And as I mentioned above, trying to find a bus stop in the rain is not fun. Last weekend, I went to my new friend's place for drinks and had to take a bus. Simple enough rite? Well, as most of you know my sense of direction sucks and Taking the train in London was comparable, although we took the bus more, to places like ASDA, the UK Walmart.

FOOD

Food, oh boy! One of my favorite things, being the "foodie" that I am. I could probably write an entire blog about food.
The cuisine here in Dublin is not healthy, for one. The Irish sure do love their potatoes and carbs! Everyone here eats chips (fries) and crisps (chips). You'd think they'd be fatter, but for some strange reason they're not. (I do fear that I'll be much fatter when I go back to the States!) I finally tried some traditional Irish food the other day. My friends and I had a shephard's pie, guiness beef pie and Irish stew. It was pretty delicious, but very filling. And of course, it came with our choice of mashed potatoes or chips (fries). I haven't had a traditional full Irish breakfast yet, which includes something called blood pudding that has liver and other stuff...probably won't try it while I'm here. The food is a bit similar to British food, lotsa meat pies and peas and carrots. One thing I love is that they have Hob Nobs here. I fell in love with the yummy cookie when I was studying in Brighton and was happy to find that they have it here.

The funniest thing I found here is that with Chinese food, you have the option of either getting white rice or chips (french fries). No offense, but I just find that bizarre. Asian food here hasn't been great, a bit disappointing. My roommate Will has had two bad Kung Pao Chicken dishes here so far. But Lydia, a new friend from Google introduced me and Katherine to a great hot pot place in Temple Bar. The service was really good and the staff was friendly, which is rare for a Chinese restaurant.

My roommates and I recently went to a korean bbq place, which was pretty decent - I had the bi bimbop, which was delicious! Will got a pretty tasty sweet and sour chicken, but we found it funny how none of the chicken dishes here are breaded. Lydia also brought us to a great place for Thai down the street from my apartment, which was yummy!

I have been craving a bowl of Pho since I left the states, so I searched online and I found a Vietnamese restaurant in Temple Bar. Its called Ho Sen, and it is literally the only Vietnamese restaurant in Dublin. Kathy and I tried to go the other day, but it was closed for lunch. I'm excited to try it because they have actual Vietnamese spring rolls. All the spring rolls I've had here have basically been fried egg rolls. In general, Asian food here is pretty pricey. At Ho Sen, the Pho is like 15 Euro, which is crazy cause I can get Pho at home for like 5 bucks.

Have also not found good Japanese yet. They have a Wagamama, which is a chain around Europe. Haven't had it here, but had it back in London. Ramen was mediocre. The sushi here is expensive and also average. Their spicy tuna roll is not like what we have back home. The tuna itself is not mixed with spice, but the outer roll itself has a Mexican chili powder layer around it...just bizarre!

People that I've talked to about the food say its because all the restaurants have changed their food to suit the Irish palate. Oh well...whatcha gonna do?

Italian food is pretty good here, as is Indian food. Am planning to try Polish food soon, wish me luck!

DRESS

Despite the rain, women here are super fashionable. I myself have had to readjust my waredrobe. Its usually damn cold, so I would never think to wear a skirt or dress when it rains. When we go out at home, I'll wear dark jeans and a nice top, but here that is really casual. Girls here wear dresses and tights, high boots. They look fabulous so I have had to buy a few things since coming here.

$$$

What can I say? London, Dublin and Los Angeles are all expensive cities. However, I know LA much better and can find things for cheaper, like food and clothes. Plus with the Euro and the Pound and the fact that the dollar is crap, LA is much more price friendly.

Still getting used to the Euro Money, not a fan of all the 1 and 2 Euro coins. Gets all bulky in my wallet.

Neither Dublin or London feels like a foreign country. I think that I chose the city that is the most like America. It kinda feels like the East Coast but with accents.

Overall, I love Dublin. I am really glad that I decided to study abroad. I've been having lotsa fun and meeting awesome people. I am sad that I have to leave here in a few months but I am looking forward to seeing all my friends and family.

What I'm missing back home

Look at this cutie pie growing up so fast and I'm missing it. Alexis is already a month old and getting bigger and cuter every day. Luckily Cando and I figured out how to Skype and I got to see my lil niece via web cam and talk to my sister. It was great, gotta love technology! So skyping will definitely help me cope with my home sickness and missing this cutie patottie! If anyone back home is on Skype, look me up - rachelquach. Would love to talk and see your lovely faces!!