Turkey Day Abroad

Preppin the Veggies with Marley

So Turkey Day this year was QUITE the experience! Thankfully it turned out amazing! So three of my friends and I volunteered to make dinner for around 30 people. Yeah, don’t ask me why we did that, but we did so there was no backing out. We made the list of what we needed and divided it between us four and the hospitality department people who had volunteered to help us. We went on quite an eventful shopping excursion, which included us having to find replacements for American things that weren’t carried her; for example, we had to get veggie soup instead of veggie stalk. No matter though, we were still pretty optimistic.

20lbs of Potatoes Apparently Wasn't Enough

We arrived at the kitchen on campus at 11am to find out that we were still missing half the items we needed, and there was no turkey there yet. We sent someone out four or five times to get the items we needed throughout the day and nearly didn’t have enough potatoes for mashed potatoes. We had to make a call to a higher power, aka our program director, to pressure them to get us more potatoes. So anyways, two o’clock came 

Tom TurkeyStill Intact and Frozen Solid

around and we were still prepping all the veggies and we had no turkey yet. Two thirty came around and we finally got our turkeys, but they were both frozen SOLID and with their heads and feet still attached. That was an experience thawing and beheading and defooting them. I took the feet and legs off, all the while pretending to be a dinosaur. Surprised? No, me neither. We popped them in the oven and prayed they would thaw in an hour or two (they didn’t).

Velociraptor RAWRRRR!

We continued to make EVERYTHING from scratch: the stuffing, the green bean casserole, the pumpkin pie, everything. And I mean from SCRATCH, as in, cutting and peeling raw pumpkins, baking bread to make the stuffing, boiling and cutting the green beans and adding onions and mushrooms to the casserole, everything. It was an experience and we thought for sure that we wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

Well, for those for you who know me, you know I am a complete control freak, so it was hard for me to control myself 

Ew

and be a normal human being to my friends, but I did a pretty good job I think! Towards the end though, I started to freak out a little. Our friend Hiral showed up (thank god) ad helped out sooo much doing this and that and helping out just wherever she could; I don’t think we would have finished if she hadn’t come help! Ruskin also came in and dealt with my crazy like a champ. By the time he got there I was a maniac and just shouting directions here and there and freaking out about the turkey and everything being done on time (the turkey was not cooking fast enough, plus we didn’t have a cover for it for almost three hours, so it was a little dry at that point).

The Cinnamon and Nutmeg They Gave Us For The Pies...

We managed to pull it off, though! And I honestly can’t believe it! Here is a list of everything we made: 

Two turkeys (which ended up being delicious, somehow), stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, rolls, a full salad, scalloped potatoes, five pumpkin pies, four apple pies, sweet potatoes, normal turkey gravy, and veg gravy. And it was all SO GOOD. As in, might be some of the best Thanksgiving food 

I’ve ever had, if I do say so myself. The stuffing was freakishly on par, there were enough mashed potatoes for everyone to get their fill, and they 

Hiral Coming to Save the Day

were SO delicious, and we even managed to find dinner rolls to top it all off. On top of all the 

American food we also had some Indian barbecue, which included chicken kebabs and a few veggie ones too. I stuck to American food, though, and as you can imagine, ate until I literally couldn’t eat any more.

Fireworks!

So after we were all done eating, our resident direction Jacob told us all to come outside, so we obediently followed and his mini van had been 

backed up to the soccer field on campus and it was just LOADED with fireworks! Apparently that is the new Thanksgiving tradition! So with 

our bellies full we went crazy; it was a pyro’s dream. We set off so many and had a grand old time. Afterwards we headed back in for dessert (the pies were FANTASTIC) and just to hang out. We all headed home around 11pm full of delicious food and smiles on our faces. I can honestly say this was the most fun I’ve ever had on Thanksgiving. I mean, I love and 

The Spread (The Turkey Was On Its Way)

My Plate

look forward to Thanksgiving with my family each year and I did miss them bunches, but there is always family drama, or your sisters or cousins just get annoying, you know, the normal family holiday stuff. Here though, it was just plain fun… well, after we finished cooking and actually relaxed!

All in all Turkey Day this year was a complete success! I only wish that we had been able to take the leftovers home!!

The Group!

Today, my life is just Shelby.

So Full!

Well that Vacation was a Bust! Goa.

Out to Dinner with the Gang

Well that was just the worst vacation ever! So it started out with a fantastic bang, and then just plummeted to almost just as bad as it could get. So, of course, I will divulge all the little details to all of you lovelies… well, almost all…

So we headed out to Goa with smiling faces. Sandy had never been to the beach before so we were all really excited for him. I, of course, am in love with the beach, and Hannah and Melissa love it almost as much. So we headed out, got settled into our sleeper bus, or as settled as we can on a bed that drives, and got whisked away to Goa. We got to our hotel with relatively little difficulty, which was a nice change, and immediately just unpacked the necessities and headed off to the beach. Hannah, Sandy and myself went to the left of all the tourists while Melissa and Lauren went 

Sandy's First Time at the Beach!

to the right. There was a big group of USAC (my program here in India) students who went, so we all just kind of did our own thing and whoever wanted to do it too just came along.

So we headed to the water, Hannah any myself both bathingsuitless and without a care in the world (ok, we had sports bras and shorts on, but still). Sandy’s s face when we finally hit the beach was priceless. He was transformed into a five year old, kicking up sand, running into the water, so of course I joined him. Splashing around in the surprisingly warm water was just what I needed to start off this dream vacation! We spend a hefty amount of time at the beach, then finally headed back to the hotel to get ready for the first night of shenanigans.

So we head out along the beach once we are all fed and ready to go. This guy we had met earlier that day at a little place right on the beach had said to us earlier that if we cam back and paid for drinks and food that he would do a bonfire and get a fire thrower for us. So of course we rounded the troops and headed back after sunset. We made it back and got settled into some tables and chairs right on the sand in front of the place. Well, from there things just got a little crazy, let’s say. I won’t go

Wearing Helmets on the Scooter is a Buzz Kill

into detail, but long story short, this man was a CREEPER and he had his eye on me. LUCKILY I have a solid head on my shoulders and also a solid group of friends, so at the end of the night we escaped unscathed, except maybe my pride a bit, I did accidentally ram into a massive pile of sand on our way home. Didn’t even see it. Oh well.

So the next day was a rinse and repeat sort of thing, or it was supposed to be anyways. We headed to the beach, all was nice and dandy, and then we ate some dinner (I had prawn, in retrospect, not the best thing to eat not completely hot), and then headed back to get ready for another night on the town. Well, I was feeling a bit iffy so I decided to take the night in, I was still a bit tired from the night before so Hannah and I had a TV night and had a good sleep.

The next day I was certainly not feeling my best, but just figured it was the heat getting to me. I went out, tried to ignore it, did some shopping, and then ate dinner and headed home. When I finally crashed after dinner I realized that something was very, very, 

The CREEPER! That's s fake Smile on My Face People!

very wrong. Me being the private person that I am waited until everyone had gone out and then just puked my brains out, or so it felt. THAT is not fun at all, my friends. Spicy food going down is even spicier coming back up. And thus the vacation began to just fall, tumble, and fly downhill.

It began with that, and so I couldn’t eat for a day, but then it started out the other end, so I started to drink more water so I wouldn’t have to go to the hospital, then I started puking up the water, so that was a disaster. It was a brutal three days, and then finally I thought I would get some relief, but NOPE, day number four proved to be just as bad. Even thinking about food made me vomit, and actually, it kind of still does. So I lay in bed, in severe pain, feeling like a gremlin was trying to tear its way out of my stomach, with no 

Fire on My Head

relief. I tried crackers, that didn’t work. I tried toast, that didn’t work either. So I just accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to eat for about five or six days until I got back to Bangalore.

So the majority of the vacation went like that for me. Everyone else had a blast, of course, but I was stuck, miserable, pooping and puking, NOT a fun combo, especially while abroad, especially on vacation while abroad. Oh well though, it happened, so I guess there’s nothing can be done about it now. So the bus ride home was just fantastic. NOT. It was actually not only horrible because I was pukie the whole tome, but it was also infested with bugs. And I mean serious bugs, like cockroaches climbing on us while we were sleeping. It was terrible! But I made it the 

Pre Food Poisoning Plague

whole time without puking, so that was a bonus, and the bus actually dropped us off in our block so we didn’t have to pay as much for a rickshaw home.

SO happy to be home, though. I finally showered, changed into some clean clothes that didn’t smell like the moldy hotel, and even managed to eat some noodles! YAY! I have three more days to recover until class on Monday, I am hoping to be one hundred percent by then, but we’ll see. Oh, we did get home to all of the food in our fridge molded and rotten because the power won’t stay on here, so it just sat in the warm fridge for six days. We had to drag it outside in order to empty it out. SO GROSS. I sent a strongly worded text message and email to our resident director and, thankfully, he has sent the troops over in full force! At the moment we have 

Day 2, Dying in Bed

out cleaning lady doing dishes and washing the floors, we have the landlord supervising the washing machine technician fix that, the electrician has come to check out the wiring in the bathroom, and the internet guy is supposedly on his way. Hopefully everything can get fixed! Would be nice to have a semi-functioning apartment for the next three weeks. Oh, so just got the word that everything is fixed except for the internet yay!! Here’s just a short portion of the list of things that haven’t been working basically all semester: our hot water, the power, the internet, the washer, the bathroom light, the kitchen light, we have a mouse that chews chords, the sink drips, and the list goes on and on. Oh well, welcome to India I suppose!

So that’s all for now. At the moment it looks like my health is on the up and up, knock on wood. Two more weeks of classes, one week of finals, the Northern India tour, then homeward bound for me! I do love India with all my heart, but I am very excited to head home and see 

Day 6, Barf Bag in Hand, Headed to the Bus.

the people I’ve been missing and the food I’ve been craving. Keep an eye out for probably one more blog post about school and then one about Northern India should be up while I am waiting for my layover in Hong Kong on December 14^th!!

Today, my life is just Shelby.