Ballymahon, County Longford, Ireland
It’s been a busy couple of weeks!! The second weekend of November, I visited Ballymahon, County Longford, Ireland. County Longford is a rural area in the very middle of the country–my dad likes to call it the “Nebraska of Ireland.” Even though it’s not as well known as counties like Dublin or Kerry, it’s my favorite part of the country, because it is breathtakingly beautiful and is home to all of my Irish family. I spent the summer in Ballymahon when I was 16 and I have such special memories of my time there, so being back four years later was surreal. My little cousins kept laughing at me because I took pictures of everything I saw.
(We spent a few hours at my cousin’s farm. He is in the process of converting it into a dairy farm, so there will be hundreds of cows on the property by January/February. I went to go see some of the cows, but I didn’t get to take any pictures because my phone died:(!!)
Thanksgiving Day- A Coruña, Spain
Pablo, our program director, organized an amazing Thanksgiving dinner for the Holy Cross students so that we could celebrate together, despite being so far from home. We went to the one American restaurant in Coruña, where we enjoyed an authentic Thanksgiving meal– turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pecan pie, and all.
A few days later, the mother of the girls I babysit for (Elena and Lucia’s mom!) texted me a link to an article from La Voz de Coruña. We had made the news!! “A group of about 20 American students gathered in a restaurant in Coruña to eat turkey and celebrate Thanksgiving, the most important day of the year in the US.” Here’s the article: https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/yes/2019/11/29/thanksgiving-day-coruna/00031575021531631470207.htm?fbclid=IwAR0sZZ4apGPjA2XGp77DJdeXaNzchWKI3WeuH-coOGe5f7aS0662XyfE5g8
Rome, Italy
I spent this past weekend in Rome, Italy. Two of my grandpa’s sisters moved to Rome in their twenties, so I now have a lot of family there. On Saturday, my cousins Vivian and Noah took me and my roommate to see the city’s most important monuments and eat some really good food.
We visited the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, The Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, and many piazzas, markets, and restaurants along the way. (I kept accidentally saying the Spanish word “plaza” instead of “piazza”!)
My cousin Kama showed us a lot of monuments from the years Mussolini was in power. They are marble, regal looking imitations of Roman imperial architecture, and you can tell that they were used as propaganda. I found it a little creepy that the monuments still stand, but Kama said that they are important reminders of the country’s history.
On Saturday night, we had a great Thanksgiving dinner. The food was delicious and there were five different pies/cakes for dessert!! My cousins had their other side of the family over to celebrate, and it was really cool to spend time with so many new people for Thanksgiving.
I have 100000000001 things to be thankful for this year– especially such great, loving family all around the world, who make it easy to call a different continent home. This Thanksgiving was definitely one I’ll never forget!
