Happy ThanksChristmas!!

I know you're probably all sitting at your computers with confused looks thinking, "ThanksChristmas, what is that?" Don't worry all will be explained, including the term's origins, but basically it's exactly what it sounds like. It's an international holiday that combines the American holiday of Thanksgiving with the well known holiday of Christmas. It's really a spectacular celebration with the best of both traditions. You get to have two of the three American F's of Thanksgiving: family(friends in this instance) and food, excluding football, and the cheesy Christmas songs without having to spend all of the money that you don't have on gifts for everyone else. In essence, it's an excuse to get together with good friends, exchange cultural traditions, and eat amazing food while listening to Christmas carols. So how did such a hybrid holiday come into existence you might ask. I only have four names for you, Nicole, Catrin, Zoe, and myself.

Seeing as there are people from all parts of the world reading this blog an explanation of Thanksgiving might be in order. Okay, Thanksgiving is an American holiday that falls on the fourth Thursday of November. Most people get out of school or off from work the day before. As a caution to anyone who may be coming to visit in November be forewarned that the Wednesday before and the weekend after Thanksgiving are some of the most traveled days in America. Anyways, it originated at the end of the harvest season the first year that the pilgrims were in America. Supposedly the Pilgrims and the Indians got together to give thanks for having survived the first year. In more recent times it has become a tradition of family, food, and of course one of America's favorite sports, football. Regardless of its origins though it is a tough time to be an exchange student four thousand miles away from your family and their home cooking.

Personally I was never really all that worried about what I was going to do on Thanksgiving. The way I saw it I was going to Britain to get away from America and if that meant American holidays too then I was okay with it. I figured we would probably just do something with friends and it turns out I was right. I wasn't expecting however to invent a new international holiday and to spend it with British students as well as Americans. I must say though it was one of the best holidays I've ever had.

Here's how it began. My American friend Nicole and I were trying to come up with something to do for Thanksgiving. We were planning on just getting together for dinner, not so much to cook an elaborate meal but mostly just so that we wouldn't be alone on Thanksgivning. That was the plan until about two weeks before when we mentioned it in front of her two British flatmates Catrin and Zoe. Like most Brits they had heard of Thanksgiving but they still wanted an explanation of it. So Nicole and I told them about the family, food, and football and they told us that it sounded a lot like their Christmas holiday, minus the football (soccer to them) of course. Five minutes later the two holidays had merged traditions as well as names and two weeks later Nicole, Zoe and her boyfriend Tom, Catrin, my Welsh flatmate Sara, Nicole's American flatmate Amanda, and I were celebrating the first ThanksChristmas. Below are pictures from the special occasion. Zoe cooked the world's greatest ten pound turkey that Catrin deemed Sir Gobbles of Gobblester. Catrin and Zoe both baked two incredible apple pies although the first one looked a little funny the second one was perfect and Nicole and I made the dressing. We also had Kraft Macaroni and Cheese compliments of my mother and FedEx, cranberry sauce from a jar because you can't get it in a can over there (Nicole, Amanda, and I missed having the little ridges imprinted in the sauce), and of course mashed potatoes and parsnips which are basically the same thing as potatoes. So put on some Christmas carols and enjoy the pictures, laugh a little (we laughed a lot), and have yourselves a happy ThanksChristmas.















We had ThanksChristmas at Nicole's flat and Catrin was playing DJ when I came over. She was pretty good at it too.











I was serious when I said that Zoe could cook. Also, everyone meet Sir Gobbles and his comitatus of potatoes and parsnips...yum!







This would be my ThanksChristmas dinner. Good food, good meat, good God let's eat!












Is Catrin asleep or praying?














Catrin and Zoe with the second apple pie. It looks awesome and it tasted even better. We had to wait an hour to eat it. I'm telling you, ThanksChristmas was incrdible!



Well that's it for ThanksChristmas in Wales. It was an experience to say the least but as I said above it was also one of the best holidays that I've ever had! Catrin is an American Studies major and as part of her requirements for graduation she has to spend a year studying abroad in America. That's right we're already making plans for a ThanksChristmas in 2008! We don't know where she'll be studying but hopefully Nicole and I will be with her in November. I know that I didn't mention ThanksChristmas in my previous list of posts to catch up on but the more I get back into this blogging thing the more (mis)adventures I'm remembering. There will also be a post about my four day trip to Dublin, Ireland with Nicole as well as a couple about different events that happened in Swansea. Amsterdam should be next but a lot of these are out of chronological order, sorry. This blog is to serve more as a travel log than a time line though so as long as I cover all of the happenings and trips we should be good to go. I hope that you have enjoyed your ThanksChristmas in Wales. I loved mine, thanks to my friends and our crazy ideas. Also, Catrin and Zoe should you stumble upon this post please share it with Amy, I'm sure that she'll get a kick out of it. Please feel free to leave comments. Even if I don't know you I'd love to hear what you think about this blog and my time in Wales. I hope that everyone is still doing well. Hopefully I'll get Amsterdam up in a couple of days. Until then take care.

It's About Time!

Warning...this post is long but please be patient and suffer through it with me, cheers.

Hi everyone. I am so sorry for not posting in FOREVER! Life back in the States has been insane with classes, culture shock, and of course, making plans for future (mis)adventures. To sum it all up, I've been home for two months but it feels like ages since I've been in Swansea. I have a friend from uni who is studying there for a semester and she is living with two of my closest friends and her stories are making me miss Wales more than I ever missed America. I would easily give up everything to have a plane ticket to Heathrow and a BritRail Pass to Swansea. It's strange, I look at a map of the world and places like Amsterdam, Scotland, Dublin, and Paris are just seen as places that I can check off of my list, but then there's Swansea. I get to that particular dot on the map and a million memories of wonderful people, amazing places, and the best four months of my life all come back. I remember the first time that I saw it on a map after getting back to the States I thought to myself, "SWANSEA!! When can I go home?" Wales as a whole will always be more than a place that I've visited; it's a place where I lived and unlike with the States, it's a life that I don't have a ticket back to. That is a sad thing indeed. Someday though I'll go back and it will be awesome!

Life in the good old U.S. hasn't been all that bad though, just ridiculously busy. I slept the first week that I was home. Then I did the catching up with people thing for the next two weeks until the end of Christmas break. That reminds me, I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and an incredible New Years (good luck with those resolutions). Then it was off to uni in Chattanooga. It was funny, I packed like I was going back to Wales. I brought so few clothes with me when I moved in that I had to go home the next weekend to get more! I'm still amazed by how much stuff I have sometimes. I'm not sure where it all came from! This summer I'm going to throw everything away. I'm telling you, live out of a suitcase and a backpack for four months and suddenly you become overwhelmed anytime that you own more stuff than you can carry. It's an experience.

Classes are going well although with four English classes, two lit. and two writing, I'm constantly swimming in a sea of books and papers and my fingers are frozen in a constant typing position. Spring break is in one week and I'm headed to frozen Chicago to see my best friend perform in her junior bassoon recital at Northwestern so that's exciting. I can't wait. From there I only have seven more drawn out weeks and then it's summer!!

Being my usual restless self (more so now that I've been to Wales) I'm once again looking for an opportunity to get out of Tennessee. I found my chance when I went for my study abroad "re-entry" meeting with my coordinator. After thirty minutes of talking about everything Wales I went to leave and I made it to the door before the coordinator asked with a grin, "So what's next?" Damn it, he knows me too well. "Nothing much, just spring break in Chicago and maybe a trip to Baltimore and Washington D.C. this summer with a friend." I reply. "You're on the five year plan now right?" he asks. "Yeah, why?" I respond. "Well the way I see it that gives you two years to see the rest of the world." he answers. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by this point, two years to see the world, I need to get moving! I tell him that I can't afford anywhere that requires a plane ticket to get to. He remembers that I've ALWAYS wanted to live in Florida and go to the University of South Florida in Tampa. He pulls out the big guns. "You still haven't been to USF yet and I know that you want to go." he says. To hell with it, I shut the door, sit down, and shut up. The next thing I know I'm filling out applications, writing essays, getting transcripts, and writing checks for the National Student Exchange Program. There are no guarantees but I find out this Thursday if I've been accepted to spend a year as an exchange student at USF in Tampa. 90% of everyone who applies gets accepted and 85% of them to their first choice (in my case, only choice) school. USF here I come! So don't worry guys, I'm still up to my tricks.

Everything is as good as it's going to get in Chattanooga and while it's nice to be back and seeing people my heart is still four thousand miles away in Swansea. Most of the culture shock has subsided (there was much more coming home than there was going over) although I still have moments when I feel like a foreigner in my own country. I've realized that *some* Americans can be really loud and obnoxious and I apologize to the world for that. I look at my pictures from Wales everyday and I listen to the Pogues, the Automatic, and Stereophonics every chance that I get. Although great, these tokens of Welsh and Irish life will never do the actual places or people justice. I will go back someday though and see the friends again that made Swansea what it was, until then though eat pudding for me (you know who you are!). I know that this post is long but I had two months and a trip across the Atlantic to catch you all up on. I know that I have said this before but please find it in your hearts to believe me one more time, I am going to begin working on updating my pathetic blog. It will include stories and incidents from Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Greenwich, Paris, Germany (thanks Barbara!), and London. Please be patient with me, I am a full-time student so it may take a while but it will be done. Thank you so much to those of you who have been faithful followers from the beginning. And to those of you who we've picked up along the way, it's been a great ride. I'm planning on making a Florida blog if I end up being accepted so hopefully there will be more stories from Tampa with actual sailing this time. It's been an honor and a pleasure to have been given this opportunity to live in Wales. The Welsh and English are some of the nicest people in the world, at least the few parts of it that I've seen. I can only hope that my fellow exchange students and I have given them a similar view of Americans. To my friends both those I met in Wales and those that I went with, thank you sincerely for adopting me into your lives and for giving me the best days of mine. You will not be forgotten. That's it, now for the updates. It's been AWESOME!! I'll have to do it again sometime. Cheers!