thanksgiving!

So, I've been having kinda a downer week, for no reason in particular. I knew i needed to cheer myself up, so i've thrown myself whole-heartedly into thanksgiving preparations. Karen and i are co-hosting a thanksgiving dinner on weds. night, and have been preparing for the past couple days. We've been on a supply hunt for specialty items in the grocery stores for about two weeks now (2 hour grocery shopping trips really are quite fun!) We've found most of the stuff we need, with the exception of the things you really can only find in America, like cranberry sauce, pie pans/crust, and pumpkin. We're ersatzing most of the stuff we can't find here, so it should still be quite yummy. I decided to buy turkey breasts instead of whole turkeys, as they are much easier to prepare, and don't require as much space to store/cook. We've been assembling our menu for the past couple days, and i finally put it all together, and have started! I made a brine bath for the turkeys with apple cider and a ton of spices, and the turkeys have been in there since last night. Those are going to get roasted tomorrow. The menu is:

Mashed potatoes with roasted garlic
Pureed Cauliflower with herbs de Provence
Karen's special Salad
Stuffing with roasted chestnuts
Lemon-Rosemary-Olive stuffed turkey
Bacon-Sage-Cider stuffed turkey,
some cider gravy (mmmm)
apple pie
cranberry sauce (ish)
plus, lots of alcohol.

I'm going to be spending most of the next 30 hours in the kitchen, and i can't wait. Sometimes i wonder why it is that i really want to be a chef, and then i remember the feeling i get when i'm in the kitchen, making stuff for other people. Its extremely calming for me to be in control of all the different aspects of preparing something(s), and really centers me. It reminds me of all the time i spent in the kitchen with my mom, standing on a stool (the one with strawberries) so that i could actually see the top of the stove, and "helping" to cook things. Mostly, i was making a mess, and eating ingredients out of the pot. :D I guess doing this whole big thanksgiving feast is the one way i can be close to my family during this season, and stave off the homesickness until they get here in a few weeks. This will be my first thanksgiving away from the family, and its strange to me to think that i'm growing up, and starting to have my own life. (yikes) I'm starting my own traditions, (no more boiled potatoes!!) and branching out, but that doesn't mean that i don't miss the family, or the crazyness that always occurs when we're all together. This thanksgiving, i really will be giving thanks for my family and friends, good and bad memories, big dinners (with family, and college friends) and the people that surround me and keep me happy.
I hope everyone has a great thanksgiving, and enjoys it wherever they are. I will hopefully post pictures after the fact, and look forward to hearing from you all!

-seany:o)

SNOW!!!

YAY!!!! its finally snowing!! its so pretty out right now.. so far its only a dusting, but its supposed to continue snowing all weekend, and accumulate 2-3 inches. i'm so excited. i love the snow.

now, out to play!!

have a great weekend, everyone!

-seany

Put your hands up for.... Detroit?

Sorry I haven’t updated in a while, I’ve been either really busy, or too bored/boring to actually write anything! In the past weekish, I’ve done a lot of fun things- we had our second stammtisch last Tuesday, which went really well. There were about 15 students there from Karen and my schools, and we spoke English and hung out for about 2 hours, which was fantastic. The rest of last week was fairly boring, I spent most of my time either in school, in bed, or grocery shopping for hours, because I had nothing better to do. My schedule is frustrating me a bit, being that I’m not really working much, and yet the hours that I am working are spread out in such a way that it’s impossible for me to do anything in my free time. Not that I’m complaining, far be it from me to complain about being paid to be in Germany, and work 12 hours a week. It just gets a little monotonous. Last Friday, Karen and I went to the Americans/ Democrats abroad meeting. We met at a nice restaurant/bar, and hung out with some old ex-pats for a couple hours, learning about their lives, and telling about ours. They’re organizing a huge thanksgiving dinner the week after thanksgiving, so I’m looking forward to that. On Saturday, Karen and I headed to Braunschweig, which is about 90 minutes away by regional train. We met up with the FSAs there, after doing some touristing of the city, and actually enjoyed it this time, being that the weather wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it was last time. We wandered around the center of the city for a couple hours, got food, and then went out to an Irish pub, and then to a Mexican bar. (yeah, typical German hangouts…) Karen’s birthday was Sunday, so at midnight, we rang in her birthday with a restaurant-wide chorus of “happy burst-day” and a tequila shot. Sidenote: Germans do shots of tequila with cinnamon and an orange slice. Weird. We all had a ton of fun, just hanging out, singing songs, eating, and totally letting loose for a bit. I ended up crashing at Thibaut’s apartment (which took forever to find, being as he was lost, and I don’t know my way around Braunschweig). Woke up fairly late on Sunday, being that I didn’t get to bed till about 530, had a nice breakfast, and then met Karen at the train station for the ride back to Göttingen.
OH! I forgot the reason for the title of today’s blog: On Thursday evening, Karen and I went to the “sportfach” party- a party hosted in the main building of the university by the “sport” majors. There, we hung out, peoplewatched, and got some dancing in. In the midst of all the terrible music (including backstreet boys, MCHammer, 20 fingers, (remember that 20 fingers song, Meagan and Aidan?!?) C&C Music factory, etc, they played this one techno song called “put your hands up 4 detroit.” It consists of: thumping bass, techno beats, and the refrain “put your hands up for Detroit, I love this city.” Echt classy. When Karen and I heard the words, we both started cracking up in the middle of the dance floor… out of any city that a pseudo-english-speaking hip-hip artist could pick, this guy picks DETROIT?!?! No offense to you Midwesterners, but… seriously? So, we danced with our hands up for industrial wasteland, and enjoyed the irony. Then, on Sunday, in the Mexican bar, we were having a nice conversation when all of a sudden, a familiar beat came on the speakers. I couldn’t quite place it, so I ignored it until, just when there was a lull in the conversation, we heard PUT YOUR HANDS UP FOR DETROIT! Karen and I promptly fell off of our chairs laughing. This song has been stuck in my head since then, and it won’t go away. Its remarkably easy to get stuck in your head, being that it only contains ONE LINE OF LYRICS. So yes, for your listening/viewing pleasure, the link to the video is below. Enjoy!

Happy November!

So this week has been fun... last Thursday, I went up to braunschweig for an FSA conference, and got to meet all the other fsas from lower niedersachsen. they were a ton of fun, and we ended up going out to a pub after the thingy, and chilling out for like 3 hours. On Friday, my roommate, some of his friends, and I went up to Bremen to watch a soccer game (Bremen won 5-1 against berlin). It was my first german soccer game, and it was a blast! We stayed at our friend Philipp’s house, and got to hang out with his dad, who used to be in a rock band, and is awesome. We spent Friday night getting wasted with his parents, and then got up at 9 on Saturday to get ready for the game. We went to the game, drinking on the way, got there, watched the game, drank the whole way through, and then went to the folksmarkt, which is Bremen’s version of Oktoberfest. (for the record, yes, this is my third Oktoberfest this year) There, we drank, ate, and sang till our hearts content. After that, it gets a little fuzzy, but we ended up hitting up a few pubs, roadside food stands, and who knows what else. I will post pictures eventually, after a heavy edit. Sunday afternoon was spent in recovery. I was actually feeling pretty good, no hangover, no issues (thanks, BC!!) So mostly I made sure everyone else was ok, as I had been doing all the previous evening. Got back to Göttingen Sunday evening, watched the Formula 1 championship while eating döner.
Monday, I finally got my backup discs from home, and so I went about backing up all of my files onto my external HD, which takes FOREVER. So annoying. I eventually got around to actually re-imaging craptop yesterday, and, so far, it seems to be running alright. There are still quite a few issues with it, the main one now being that it doesn’t seem to recognize the USB ports anymore. Kinda a pain, when you need to connect your external HD to retrieve your files. I’m gonna give it a couple days, fiddle with the settings, and then ask one of julian’s friends, who did comp science, if he can come hit craptop with a really big hammer.