Paczkis for Fat Tuesday

Fat Tuesday is the best holiday ever! I don't know how many of you are aware and follow Lent, but FYI it starts tomorrow! So, as tradition has it, you are supposed to eat up all your sweets the night before because you aren't supposed to have any during lent. Or something like that. Well, times have changed a bit, and people fast from other things instead of sweets, but that's ok. The idea behind it is to give up something that could be an idol in your life so that you can focus on God more.
I must confess, I haven't really observed Lent in the past. The only time I can remember doing it was in junior high. One year, my family decided we would give up ordering pop/soda/coke whenever we went to restaraunts during those 40 days and give the money we would have spent on that to a charity. It adds up fast considering it often costs 2 bucks a pop X5 people...
But this year, as a group in Ireland, we are being encouraged to participate. My work out buddy Audrey observes Lent every year so she's really the one getting me into this. She gives up all sweets for 40 days! I am not quite as disciplened as her, so I'm just giving up the biscuit bin. You see, we have a bin full of biscuits (cookies) in the DC all the time. I must confess, I have eaten far more than I should, so for 40 days... no biscuit bin for me!
But that starts tomorrow... and if we are going to observe Lent, we are going to observe Fat Tuesday as well. So today was sweets galore! We had biscuits in between class this morning. Then this afternoon we ran to Tesco (the local grocery store) and bought some paczkis (pronounced Poon-sh-keys). They are basically jelly filled donuts and are what Polish people eat on Fat Tuesday. Then we ran back to Coolnagreina, grabbed our books, and walked to Insomnia (the local coffee shop). Audrey volunteers there on Saturdays and works with 2 Polish people. So she bought the donuts for them. We delivered the donuts, bought some mochas, and sat down to study for our test tomorrow! It was fantastic! We got so much done! And now I have sooooooooo much energy! I don't know if all of you have had the privilege of seeing me on coffee, but it is a party! Woopee!
After Insomnia, we went to SuperValu (another, smaller grocery store, and it really is spelled without the "e" on the end) and loaded up on Fat Tuesday goodies including a chocolate mousse, Aero bar, Magnum bar, and some other chocolate bar. Plus, I have oreos in my room! But when we got back, it was dinner time, so we stashed the treats away to be eaten later.
We had a lively dinner, probably due to the fact that Audrey and I are wired on coffee! Somehow we got on the topic of pants... Oh yeah, Audrey said something like, "Looking like a fool..." So naturally I finished... "With your pants on the ground!" But then I realized my mistake. You see, pants don't mean blue jeans here... that word means underwear! They call pants, trousers. So I quickly switched that too... "with you trousers on the ground!" This sadly does not have quite as nice of a ring to it. That got us all laughing and we reminisced about some of our other language blunders. Like the other day in Dance Class, Audrey and I were partners. Since she is taller, she gets to be the boy. But at one point, I took the lead and told her, "See! I wear the pants in this relationship! (Pause) I mean trousers!" And then there was this other time in church when we were looking for a ride to Bible Study... So I asked someone, "Hey, can we get a ride on Tuesday?" Well, it is not good to ask for a ride here, you can use your imagination to figure that one out. Instead, you ask for a lift!
Despite all of our mistakes, the Irish people have been very kind and understanding. They usually just chuckle, correct us nicely, and continue on with the conversation. I'm sure they go home and laugh about it later, but at least they are nice to our faces.
Well, that's all I have for today. Now if you'll excuse me there is an Aero bar calling my name!
P.S. Don't fret Coach, I'm already planning on working all this off tomorrow morning at the leisure center!