Painting Pumpkins

Several weeks ago, I attended the Rotary District 1160 Annual Conference.  Every Ambassadorial Scholar in Ireland attended and I met quote a few incoming and outgoing scholars who lived in or near Dublin.  Although all the scholars were fantastic, I was thrilled to learn that Emily, the girl with whom I had most in common, lived in Dublin.  We also had the opportunity to meet Emma, an Irish outgoing scholar for the 2011-2012 year.  Both Emily and Emma attend University College, Dublin (UCD) and since we all hit it off, we decided to get together to celebrate Halloween.

Pumpkins aren't a huge part of the Halloween festivities in Ireland.  In fact, my classmates tell me that it's only been in the past 5 years that you could even buy them.  Because of this, Emma had never carved or painted a pumpkin before.

Because no Irish recipes call for pumpkin, it is impossible to buy canned pumpkin in Ireland.  Thus, as Michael and I want to have pumpkin pie (enough to share) for Thanksgiving, we decided to only paint our pumpkins so they would last longer before we had to cut them up and freeze them.  We did enjoy explaining to Emma the most important things to know about carving a pumpkin (making sure the lid is at an angle, the best recipes for cooking the pumpkin seeds, the secret of tracing complicated designs from computer paper, etc.)  I love teaching people new things, and she was very enthusiastic to learn about American Halloween traditions.

We wanted to know all about Irish traditions as well.  Emma told us that in Ireland, fireworks are a big part of Halloween.  Bonfires are also associated with the holiday.  In fact, there was quite a controversy a few years ago when city counsels began banning bonfires for health and safety reasons.   Citizens felt as though part of their culture was being taken away.  It's still a little controversial, though less so now that people are more used to it.  The Irish Times even reported that the South Dublin County Counsel is giving out daffodil bulbs to communities that prevent bonfires in locations where there were fires last year.  http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/1018/1224281343590.html

Since we couldn't enjoy Irish bonfires, we enjoyed American pumpkin painting.  Emma, quite the artist, made a cute pumpkin with a half smile.  Michael made a scary clown pumpkin.  I tried to make Edgar Allan Poe on my pumpkin, but I thought the result looked more like Salvador Dalí.  Emily, more of a scrapbooking fan, worked on her book.

After a successful day of pumpkin painting, we took a tour of UCD's campus while the pumpkins dried.  One of the highlights was seeing the tree Bill Clinton planted during his visit on September 30th for the opening of the UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies.  For security reasons, none of us had been allowed to see Clinton actually plant the tree, but it was still nice to see it afterward.  http://www.ucdclinton.ie/events_conferences_2010_clinton.htm
 
After our pumpkins were dry, we carried them home on the bus and I began cutting our third, unpainted pumpkin up to boil, mash, and freeze (so the liquid separates out) for pie next week.  Had we been at home in Murray, we would have spent the rest of the evening in the Curris Center ballroom participating in Rocky Horror festivities.  The tickets here were €15 a person ($20) and we just couldn't justify spending so much money.  As it turned out, Michael surprised me by bringing a copy of the movie to Ireland on his computer and just as we were beginning to watch it, Emily called to say she was in city center and was wondering what we were doing.  She ended up coming up to the apartment, having some pumpkin seeds and diet coke, watching Rocky Horror (a first for her), and doing the Time Warp until we were exhausted.  All in all it was a great way to spend our first Halloween away from home.