Who says they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Ireland?

The Gang eating!

So being away from family and friends is extremely hard, but it really hits when a holiday comes around and the holiday that hit me was Thanksgiving! I am a homebody anyways, but to not have a turkey on Thanksgiving was crazy, but totally worth it! I think that I will appreciate the time I get to spend with family on Christmas soo much more, probably because they will be cooking lol, but still I will appreciate it! 

Some of the decorations

Now beyond the sad mushy stuff, our Thanksgiving rocked! I had wonderfully people, great decorations (brought to us by one of my roommates aunts) and a huge feast. It is true that turkey in Ireland is like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it just doesn't happen! It was okay, we made due and just had chicken breasts instead from our local butcher Sean! My roommates and I made the chicken and a bunch of sides including glazed carrots, corn, mashed potatoes, cornflake potatoes (yes, two kinds of potatoes), bread, gravy and who knows what else! We also had friends over who brought deliciousness in addition to themselves including the most important thing of all, pie! It was also a disappointment to discover that Ireland does not know what pumpkin pie is, but I got over because they have the American classic, apple pie! 

Oh, I almost forgot, we had a special guest... It was the night before Thanksgiving that we had a random request from a friend to bring someone along with them, and it being Thanksgiving, we said of course! As it turns out, it was a friend of our friend's roommate (the roommate happened to be going to London, hence her absence at our festivities) who missed her flight back to The States the day before, so it was only right to have another fellow American over! She ended up being super cool and brought more pie, so it was a win-win situation! 

What the typical first-round plate looked like

So the moral of this post is: Just because you are not home does not mean you cannot bring home to you! I highly advise you to bring pumpkin if you want pumpkin pie and be prepared to have the best non-traditional Thanksgiving ever while studying abroad! It is crazy how one common thread such as Thanksgiving can bring you and your friends together and make you realize how luck you are to not only be having Thanksgiving in another country, but to have each other! 

Until my next post... Slàinte!