beir bua agus beannacht

if you take a look around the social media world today, you’ll likely be able to identify several key themes: drinking, green clothing, fake beards and comically-oversized top hats, shamrocks galore. such is the state of one of my favourite holidays – an excessively-commercialized mess of a celebration, when an entire culture gets diminished to a few caricatures and stereotypes. people who couldn’t even locate ireland on a map are suddenly popping out of the woodwork with “kiss me, i’m irish!” t-shirts and a plastic cup of diluted green beer in each hand. 

while partying with friends is all well and good, for me, saint patrick’s day is about history and family. more than any other day, st. paddy’s day always reminds me of my gran, my mom’s mom. as the granddaughter of irish immigrants on both sides of her family, she took her heritage to heart. and even though we lived on the opposite side of the country, she always made sure that my sister and i were stocked up for our celebrations – without fail, we would receive boxes of cookies, buttons that boasted an irish ancestry, some freshly-crocheted or sewn article of green clothing… i can still remember the clear, plastic boxes with the crumpled tissue paper inside, trying so hard to provide safe passage to the already-crumbling baked goods within. only a grandmother would send cookies across a continent. looking back, i can comfortably say that it was gran who instilled my love of ireland in me from an early age. growing up so far away made any contact special, and her passion for her ancestry found a comfortable home in my sensitive little heart. that curiosity has been fed by my saint of a mother, who has dedicated endless hours of research to filling in the straggly branches of the family tree. thanks to her work, i can name most of my ancestors, all the way back to the early 1800’s. with a few blank spaces left to fill, we know the birthdays, the marriage anniversaries, and the death dates of the past four generations! the combination of gran’s cultural passion and my mom’s documented support gave me a strong sense of attachment and pride in my “people” that i hold to this day.

ask anyone who has ever spent half an hour with me, and they’ll tell you – i’m a sucker for nostalgia. for better or for worse, i love reliving the past and imagining back even further. it’s why i love europe so much; the history is so alive here, so palpable in each castle wall and stone bridge. who lived in that tower? crossed that little foot bridge? nothing makes me feel so connected to the universe as standing in a place where i can almost see the passage of time whirling around me. for that same reason, i’ve always been interested in my own personal history – how did i come to be the person that i am? i love creating stories to go with the names i see on my family tree, imagining how the circumstances had to be exactly right for my great-great-great-grandparents to meet. in fact, today i learned that two of my great-great-great-grandfathers (one from each side of my mom’s family tree) lived at the same time in the same county in ireland. i cannot describe how tickled i am by the thought that they might have known each other – however unlikely that might be, it’s not that unlikely. mayo is a large county, but it’s not impossible! how i would love to have a time machine, just to go back and find them two of them, sit them down (in my fantasy, they aren’t at all disturbed by a time-traveling descendant appearing in the town), and tell them that one day, a hundred years in the future, william’s great-great-granddaughter would marry michael’s great-great-grandson, somewhere across the ocean in america. i can just see those two men laugh with the same twinkle in their eyes that my papa has now, hear my gran’s tone of amusement and wonder in the “how about that?” they’d utter with delight. few things fascinate me more than imagining the lives and loves and joys and sorrows behind the names in those little boxes..

it came as no surprise when, years after this ancestral soft spot had developed in my spirit, the irish students down the hall became some of my closest friends while studying abroad in france. the first time i went to ireland to see them, it was more than just a visit to see friends. as cliché as it may sound, i had the distinct feeling of homecoming. and as i began to meet more and more people, that sensation only became more concrete. there were moments when i swear i could feel gran smiling down on me from her little cloud in heaven, saying “see? i told you, these are your people.” and it’s true – over the last three years, i’ve been lucky enough to return several times to that magical little island, and each time, it has been harder to leave. i’ve continued to add friend after friend to a wonderful list, to the point where i could hardly count the number of faces i’d love to see during my next visit. and in fact, my next trip to ireland will be even more special, because this time, i will get to have my mom and aunt with me! i can’t wait to show them the country i’ve grown to love so much more over the last three years. they won’t need much convincing – they have the soft spot, too. it will be so lovely to share a week of bonding with them, watching them fall under the same spell that enchanted me so long ago.

while most people i know are out partying to celebrate their irish heritage, my homage came in the form of something a little more subdued. i couldn’t help but write out my feelings today – sometimes, i am overwhelmed by my nostalgia, both for my own experiences and for those of my great-great-great-grandparents. i suppose all i can say is, éirinn go brách, mo chairde. and, as my wise friend donnchadh taught me, beannachtaí na féile pádraig ort agus ar do chuid.  ireland forever, my friends. the blessings of the feast of saint patrick on you and yours.

wander holidays

okay, y’all. i’m just going to go ahead and apologize for the delay in this blog post.. it’s been a long time coming. i haven’t posted all year (ba dum, tsss) and i have no excuse except for the fact that i traveled for 20 days straight over the holidays and couldn’t really sit down at a random computer to start blogging. soo…

happy new year! it’s 2014!! i can’t believe it.. i feel like new year’s 2013 was just like 6 weeks ago… i really need to get my internal calendar sorted. i’ve been out of the country for over 4 months, and i’ll be home just over 4 months from now! ay caramba.

in the interest of not making this post a total “captain’s log” of my travels, i give you a bridget jones version of my holiday season saga. (if you want the longer version, feel free to read below!)

          days elapsed: 20

          countries visited: 3

          cities visited: 9

          friends visited: 14

          friends made: 16

          modes of transportation used: plane (4), train (4), bus (11), car (many)

          party games played: 4

          presents: given – 6 // received – 5

          cups of tea consumed: innumerable

          most interesting experience: england – singing christmas carols on the train to 

          cambridge with a bunch   of mildly-intoxicated football hooligans // 

          ireland – partying until nearly dawn with a different bunch of 

          slightly-more-than-mildly-intoxicated couchsurfing buddies

okay, that’s enough of that. here’s the longer version!

basically, i spent the first week of my break (well, tuesday through saturday) getting to the place where i’d be spending christmas – six cities in six days, and it was a whirlwind. excideuil, bordeaux, nantes, dublin, london, cambridge! i had a blast visiting friends in each of my stops along the way – several of whom i hadn’t seen since 2011! crazy! the highlight of that week was probably my pit stop in london. i hung out with my first-ever couchsurfing host, tristan, and got to see the beauty that is london at christmas. plus, i finally got my picture at platform 9 3/4. so, i got that going for me.

arriving in cambridge was a welcomed respite – i was really looking forward to sleeping in the same bed for more than one night! i spent the week with two dear friends from home – cameron and carly. if you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might remember them from my time in scotland back in september! they spent this fall semester in cambridge as a part of a seminary exchange program between westcott house in cambridge and sewanee, back in tennessee. we visited several of the major colleges in town, decorated our makeshift christmas tree, attended multiple anglican masses (including christmas eve midnight mass and christmas morning mass, a scant 8 hours apart), cooked several lovely meals, shopped a little, and celebrated our first christmas away from home, together as friends abroad. it was a wonderful way to enjoy the holiday – i was so grateful to have a little bit of home with me here in europe! :)

the next week and a half of my vacation was spent in varying parts of ireland. i moved around so much in the first few days! one night in dublin, two nights in cork, one night in galway, and then i finally landed in clare for new year’s! the weekend in cork was an absolute blast – one of the best couchsurfing experiences i’ve had to date. my host and his friends were the epitome of hospitality and i felt right at home from the very beginning. i mean.. i was jokingly (but maybe not?) invited to their friend’s wedding in brazil next summer after having been at the house for like 6 hours. typical. a weekend was not long enough in cork; i can’t wait to go back and explore the city a little more! a quick pit stop in galway allowed me to visit with my friend emma and her family before i headed back down to clare to relax for a few days at my friend shane’s house. we essentially had a 4 day house party, with varying groups of friends coming to hang out each night! i always love getting to spend time in that house – it’s so wonderful to be in a family environment! warms the soul. and our new year’s eve was the perfect mix of relaxing and entertaining – and by that, i mean i got to wear comfy clothes and not worry about braving the elements outside, while still partying it up with my friends! my last night in ireland was spent in wonderful company, wandering around dublin and soaking in that fantastic irish charm. this break really reinforced my desire to move to ireland in the very near future.. might have even started researching grad school options! shh, don’t tell my parents.

i finally, finally made it back home to my little village on sunday, after spending the night in bordeaux after my flight. living in a place with no train station (or even bus access on the weekends) makes getting in and out fairly difficult, but thankfully i have friends at each step in the journey that make traveling much more enjoyable! now that i’m home and can reflect on this break, i have to admit.. i probably overdid it a little bit. my life here in excideuil is so relaxing and laid-back that my vacations are actually more demanding and stressful than my work weeks! next break, i’m going to focus on one country (morocco!!) in the hopes of giving myself more time to enjoy fewer places. and i might even take a week off from travel planning before i launch myself into that new endeavor! vacationing is hard work, y’all.

i hope that you had a wonderful holiday season, and that 2014 brings you all the happiness and adventure that you can imagine! wander on, my friends!

*as always, if you’d like to see pictures from this post, just click here (starting at #29)!*

thanksgiving, à la française

before i left the states back in early september, my mom went above-and-beyond the call of duty and made me a full thanksgiving dinner.  she was worried that i would be sad about missing out on the best meal of the year, so she pulled out all the stops. and i was truly grateful, because there is nothing like sitting in my dining room with my whole family and eating some seriously fantastic grub. and she was right, in a certain sense – today was a sad day, in a way. but the pang i felt in my heart when i thought about everyone gathering together back home without me was soothed in no small measure by the joy that i’ve gotten to experience during this season in france. not only did i get a bonus thanksgiving-in-august, but i got to celebrate it in three different ways over here in europe! so really, moving abroad just multiplies the festivity, if you can find the right people. and it certainly magnifies the sense of gratitude!

thanksgiving #1 - friendsgiving

this past week, i had the absolute privilege of sharing a thanksgiving meal with about 30 people, hosted by the home-church group that my friend devon and her husband attend in paris. the dinner was at the home of michael and sara, who live in a beautiful apartment in the marais district of paris and evidently have no qualms with welcoming all the waifs and strays! there were plenty of expats there, from all over the world, and a few native frenchies as well.. my friend jessie and i enjoyed getting to know several of the guests as we all chowed down on the standards – turkey, stuffing, potatoes, corn casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce (!!!) – as well as some traditional dishes from other countries! and let’s not forget the desserts, which took up the entire table after the first round was cleared away. the atmosphere was lovely, the food was delicious, and the people were warm and welcoming – it truly felt like a family gathering, despite the fact that the majority of the group had never met. at the end of the evening, several of the church members made sandwiches with the leftovers and encouraged all of the guests to grab a few on the way out, so that we could share the bounty we had enjoyed with someone less-fortunate who looked like they could use something to eat. it was a really sweet gesture, totally in keeping with the attitude and generosity of everyone i met that evening. i ended up leaving one sandwich next to a woman sleeping bundle of ragged blankets in a little alcove down the street, and giving another to a man near notre dame, who sat under an umbrella with two little dogs tucked inside his over-sized coat. it wasn’t much, but i was happy to give someone a break from hunger, if only for one night.

thanksgiving #2 – chez moi

the sensation of immense gratitude carried over to monday, when i finally got home to my little village to find a thanksgiving package from home waiting for me on my doorstep! i knew it had been sent, but it was still such a nice surprise to see my mom’s handwriting smiling at me from my threshold the moment i got home. and the contents of that box were faaaantastic! here’s an inventory: poultry seasoning (for the stuffing!), jif peanut butter (per my request), cupcake baking cups, taco bell sauce packets, red sprinkles, a nature valley protein bar, turkey gravy mix and alfredo sauce mix from kroger, some christmas decorations, a sponge, betty crocker peanut butter cookie mix, some tea, airborne tablets, a turkey dishtowel, and a card. now, i know that some of those things might seem random or kind of meaningless… but it was so great. sometimes, it’s just nice to see things from home for novelty’s sake; i don’t even like taco bell, really, but those sauce packets made me smile! and i may live in one of the culinary capitals of the world, but there are times when absolutely nothing beats an apple and peanut butter. and the simple act of hanging that turkey-appliquéd dishtowel on my toaster oven’s handle made me feel like i was back in the kitchen at home. but i digress...

cooking for one is hard; i’ve said it before, but it’s never been more true when you’re cooking a meal that usually needs to serve a dozen people or more. i decided that i wanted to do a little thanksgiving meal for myself, just to get a taste of home, so i asked my mom to send my grandmother’s stuffing recipe (hence the poultry seasoning in my box). well! this morning, i made that stuffing, and let me tell you… it was great. i toasted, cubed, and staged the bread last night, so it was all nice and dried-out by the morning! the process itself was simple – sautée onions and celery, add chicken stock and seasoning, mix in bread cubes, put in oven – but the act of making it gave me such a feeling of nostalgia! granted, i’ve never been the one to make the stuffing before, but just having the smell in my apartment was enough to make me feel like i was back in franklin. i also made a teensy serving of mashed potatoes and got two turkey breast fillets from the supermarket – three cheers for a thanksgiving dinner for one! and as a bonus, i skyped my parents while they were at our big extended family dinner, so i even had the chance to say hi to everyone!

thanksgiving #3 – sharing the message at school:

as an english assistant, i’m somewhat of an ambassador between my american culture and that of my students. last week and this week, a few of my teachers took advantage of the holiday season to talk about america – in some of the younger classes, that meant discussing thanksgiving! i can’t explain how strange it was to hear a holiday that i’m so familiar with boiled down to the bare bones – “it’s a day where families gather to eat a turkey and pray to God.” i mean… that’s true for some people, i guess, so i couldn’t correct them. but i enjoyed the lessons, because it was a great opportunity for me to share what thanksgiving really means. the kids had basically no idea (short of the turkey/God thing), so i had a blank slate! after a little reflection, i told them that thanksgiving was a day where families gather together and shared a meal (had to keep the english level pretty simple..) in order to express their gratitude for everything they have. despite being a historically catholic country, france is exceptionally unreligious, so i tried to stay away from talking about thankfulness in purely a religious sense. also, explaining the concept of blessings was difficult. the story of the first thanksgiving was also challenging. historically, the whole “pilgrims and indians eating together” might not be entirely accurate… but at least it gives a better origin story than “we kinda just came and displaced and/or killed pretty much everyone, and then centuries later, the government arbitrarily decided to create a holiday about it for commercial purposes.” sooooo… pilgrims and indians it is. i focused more on the fellowship and quality time aspects of the holiday. :)

so, in summary, i am thankful for…

…a God who loves me unconditionally and never fails to provide for me, 

who lets me make mistakes so i can learn the way i learn best,
 and who blesses me endlessly every day.

…a family who supports me and encourages my insatiable desire for adventure.

…a job that allows me to pursue those adventures, 

while simultaneously providing new experiences in and of itself.

...coworkers and students who are supportive, engaging, and patient.

…a body that puts up with all the shenanigans i put it through 

and remains in moderately good health – traveling is hard, y’all!

…a wonderful apartment in a great community.

…the people i love who are spread out all over the world (literally).

…the miracle of technology, which lets me stay connected with aforementioned 
loved ones via various social media.

…peanut butter.

happy thanksgiving, everyone! :)

ps - i documented my little thanksgiving cooking experience here if you’d like to see it!

                                                        

silver and gold

this entry is going to be a little more of a “captain’s log” style… too much to recount!

as i mentioned in my last post, i had a medical appointment on wednesday, in bordeaux. basically, the immigration office needed proof that i am, in fact, alive and not likely to cost them too much over the course of my stay here in france. so, i spent two hours on wednesday afternoon hanging out with several other assistants (we’d all been given the same appointment window), and intermittently entering various offices to discuss my vaccination history, strip from the waist up for a chest x-ray (no TB here, yay!), read a tiny line of text across the room, and finally get that long-sought-after OFII sticker in my passport. now, i’m a legal citizen! at least, until june…

one nice (read: incredible) part about my job is the flexibility. the principal had no issues with me taking wednesday and thursday off for this doctor appointment, so i made the most of my time and went up to paris for a long weekend! i was excited to see the city again, but i was more excited to finally get a chance to catch up with one of my closest friends from my semester in angers! jessie lived across the hall from me, and is basically the reason i stayed sane during my time abroad. she introduced me to several other international students on our floor, who ended up becoming like family to me. seeing her this week in paris felt like a true completion of my prodigal return to france! she met me at the metro stop near her house late wednesday night, and i’m pretty sure we didn’t stop laughing until i left eeearly monday morning. love that girl.

being back in paris was a little surreal – i’ve visited several times before, but it had been over two years since my last visit. it was also the first time that i’d gone primarily to visit friends (as opposed to going for touristy purposes), and i genuinely enjoyed the lack of pressure i felt to go, go, go all day, every day. i spent a lot of the weekend simply walking around various neighborhoods, soaking up the atmosphere and marveling at the beauty that i found in literally every direction. i did, however, do a few touristy things… i spent the better part of thursday afternoon meandering through the louvre, since i hadn’t been since 2008 and i can get in for free with my newly-validated residency visa. i was particularly blown away by several of the greek and roman scultures, but my favourite part was the decorative arts wing, which includes the napoleonic apartments. having just finished reading vanity fair, it was cool to see what the setting of the novel looked like in person. i really enjoyed walking through rooms that held such historical significance, especially since they’re not reproductions – real life happened in those rooms. or, as real as early 19th century napoleonic society could be. i love imagining all the women in their gowns and jewels and feathered hair ornaments, perching daintily on the crushed red velvet couches in the salons, and the men with their breeches and starched neckclothes and quizzing glasses. if i had a time machine, that’s definitely where i would go.

thursday actually was kind of a luxurious day. when i left the louvre, i walked along the rue de rivoli until i passed a fancy-looking bookshop (you know how i can’t resist the allure of a nice book display) and ducked inside… only to almost immediately and very nearly bump into karl lagerfeld, of chanel fame. he came in to pick up a few gifts, and you would have thought a member of the royal family had walked in, with the way the employees jumped up to help him. although, i suppose that he is sort of royalty in fashion-loving paris. i continued my walk all the way down to the eiffel tower, where i enjoyed a little picnic dinner and watched that steel celebrity sparkle for a little while. there really is nothing like it anywhere in the world. right as i was about to head back to the apartment, jessie called and said she’d gotten tickets through her university to attend a play at the “theatre de la ville” for free that evening! evidently, it was the play to see in paris right now, so i scurried over there and met up with her and her classmates. it was a packed house – there were even people standing outside, trying to scalp tickets! so, i guess it really is popular. i had no idea what the play even was called, let alone what it was about! as it turns out, it was a two-man show called “the old woman,” which is a sort of theatre-of-the-absurd work, based off of a russian poem, and performed by none other than willem dafoe and mikael baryshnikov! it lived up to its genre… it was certainly absurdly bizarre, but i enjoyed it purely as a cultural experience.

friday was all about friendship. i walked around a little in the morning, did some grocery shopping, and then had a big lunch prepared for when jessie got home from school around 2pm! we ate and talked for a long while, just enjoying the opportunity we had to finally catch up after nearly two and a half years! it was so lovely, and really felt like we picked up right where we left off. then, around 8, jessie got ready for a night out with her NYU classmates, and i got ready to go have dinner with another friend of mine in paris, devon! she was a french major at belmont who graduated my freshman year, so we never really got to know each other during college. however, since she had studied abroad in angers, she was always the person to whom  we were referred with questions about life as an exchange student. so, we’ve communicated on facebook intermittently for years. now, she’s living with her french husband (who she met while studying abroad, precious!) in paris. she is a true gem – we sat in her little studio apartment and talked for almost 5 hours; i only left because i had to get the last metro home! it was so, so great to finally have the opportunity to sit down in person and get to know each other – it already felt like we had known each other for ages!

saturday was much more relaxed. after the late night, jess and i both enjoyed sleeping in and making breakfast for lunch! one interesting thing about the holiday season over here is that, for obvious reasons, it goes straight from halloween to christmas… so paris was in full christmas mode during my visit! we spent the afternoon wandering through the christmas market that lines the champs-elysees, stretching all the way from the place georges clemenceau to the place de la concorde. jessie’s friend emily joined us, and we did a little shopping and a lot of eating – there is nothing like holiday fair food. from there, we headed down the seine to my favourite place in paris – shakespeare and company. i go there every time i’m in the city, and it never fails to make my heart skip a beat. i have dreamed of working there since the first time i visited, and that dream is still alive. one day! the evening was spent walking through bustling streets, eating crepes in paper cones and enjoying the festive atmosphere.

the grand finale of my weekend in paris was a wonderful ex-pat thanksgiving dinner, given by two lovely friends of my friend, devon... it was an absolute treat! devon invited me (and Jessie!) to join her home-church group for a big meal on Sunday. i’ll save my reflections about celebrating thanksgiving abroad for my post later in the week; suffice it to say, i have been immeasurably blessed with friends in this world, both old and new, and i thank the lord every day for those relationships!

as always, to see photos from this trip, check my facebook album here, starting at photo 25!

the title of this blog comes from the “friends both new and old” concept… but it also reminded me, indirectly, of a great christmas tradition in my family (and many others, i’m sure). here’s a sneak preview, to get you in the spirit. it’s that time of year again!