An (un)Expected Party

Now Playing: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, "The Nutcracker". Track 14, "Act II: Final Waltz and Apotheosis".

It all started last Wednesday evening. A bunch of us were sitting around in the common room before supper, talking, studying, etc. It was Rachel's birthday, so we'd just had a cake and sung to her. I was sitting next to Catherine, and brought up the subject of having the other American study abroad students over for a meal. I've been wanting to do that for quite awhile, but have never had just the right opportunity. "What would you think if we did it next Wednesday?" I asked. Catherine nodded. Since Rachel was sitting right there, I asked her if that would be alright (since she's the warden, it seemed only fair to get her permission). She looked at me wordlessly for a minute. "Ummm...." she said. "I think the committee is coming over that night or something," Phil put in vaguely from the other side of the room. As they were discussing it, I realized that the next Wednesday would be the day before Thanksgiving. I'd overheard the other students talking about having a Thanksgiving meal of their own, so I thought to myself that the plan wouldn't work anyway. I went innocently upstairs to study. About five minutes later, Rachel knocked on my door. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" she asked. She proceeded to tell me that they had been planning a surprise Thanksgiving celebration in honor of my birthday for next Wednesday night. "I didn't want you to think we didn't want your friends over here or something. If you'd rather do something with them, that's fine," she said, "That's why I didn't know what to say--I actually couldn't think of anything when you suggested that," she chuckled. As I listened, I put my hands over my mouth: regret for having spoiled the surprise, complete and utter astonishment and excitement, and amusement at myself for having put Rachel wordless. I finally managed to get out something to the effect that I wasn't going to plan anything anyway, and Rachel went out.

So the cat was out of the bag. I felt pretty bad about having ruined the secret, but soon things became much too amusing and exciting to feel regret any more.... Knowing the secret made the the ensuing "surprise" more delicious. It became a running joke. Ian came down to breakfast the next morning and hinted, "So, E--, I hear you've ruined your surprise." "What surprise?" I said, and grinned. Naomi at small groups said something similar, and I retorted, "I'm trying very hard to forget! So don't say anything!" and put my hands over my ears. Any time Catherine or Linsey asked me whether I was excited or not, I'd pull a blank look, and then the three of us would laugh.

On Monday morning, as Emmaline and I were gathering our things to get on the train for Belfast, I asked her if I could help her carry anything. She let me carry her laptop, but I was forbidden to know anything about a mysterious black back which she took charge of herself.

On Tuesday morning, I went downstairs to eat breakfast and couldn't find our milk (it had been used for tea after Bible study the night before). Looking through the refrigerators to find the milk, I discovered instead an enormous fowl done up in yellow plastic residing placidly on the middle shelf of one of the refrigerators. And there was an unaccountably enormous heap of white plastic Tesco bags in the corner of the counter in the utility room, which seemed to have accumulated suddenly overnight.

Tuesday evening, all the Renwick girls went out to see a production of a musical, to celebrate Rachel's birthday. When we got back, I drifted into the kitchen, where Daphne and Rachel were starting to cut up heaps of carrots. My natural urge was to ask if I could help, but when Emmaline asked me to carry her things upstairs, I meekly obeyed, and strictly kept myself out of the kitchen (despite tantalizing bursts of laughter and smells) for the rest of the evening.

On Wednesday morning, Emmaline got up early and mysteriously disappeared downstairs. Before I went down for breakfast, I asked her if the kitchen was "safe", and she grinned at me. It was, though a whole flock of pots and pans had oddly taken flight and settled on top of the refrigerator and freezer in the utility room. Sitting in my room studying before my ten o'clock class, I could smell something wonderful down in the kitchen, but kept myself to my books.

It was raining on Wednesday when I went to my classes. The Discovering Old English classes were really good today, all about Old English poetry (so far we've just been doing grammar work or prose) and "The Battle of Maldon". For once I was completely engaged in the lecture. To make the day better, after the tutorial, I walked out with one of the girls in the tutorial and had a nice chat with her--I hadn't talked to her before, and it was good to make another connection.

I splashed back to Renwick in the rain, only to find, as an added piece of delight, two packages waiting patiently for me in the hall, a large square cardboard one and a smaller one done up with masking tape. "I'm so jealous," Linsey said as she saw me coming up the stairs. I was too happy to do anything but grin at her, though I restrained myself admirably and didn't open them: birthday presents are to be opened on birthdays, not before. :o) I spent the hour until communal lunch studying, wrapped up in a blanket in the room. (Normally I would've gone running, but because of added reading to do this week and the papers posted online, I didn't feel I could take the time.)

During communal lunch, I chatted with Linsey and Rachel. We had meat pie and "chips" for lunch, which was good. The usual crowd of former Renwick girls wasn't there, but a bunch of boys came to eat, suit up, and go to play in the Renwick football match this afternoon. After lunch, Linsey and Catherine asked me if I'd like to go shopping with them. Emmaline had warned me beforehand that they were going to invite me out, and that I'd probably be wiser to go with them, so I accepted, and five of us (Linsey, Catherine, Rosemary, Heather, and I) set off in the rain to catch the bus to the City Centre. (I ended up very much regretting not having taken my camera, but perhaps I'll go back and take pictures to show you all....)

We sat at the back of the bus as it lurched down the narrow wet streets, and got off in front of City Hall. The City Hall lawn has been completely covered by booths and stalls set up for the Christmas market, a tradition (apparently) in big European cities. We splashed across the street, through the big wrought iron gates, and into the market. A maze of little freshly-built wooden sheds, smelling sweetly with the wet. Goods from around the world. We stepped into a booth where silk brocaded Chinese shirts and jackets were being sold, jewel-bright colors like flocks of butterflies. Across the sidewalk was a booth with counters stacked full of bars of aromatic French soaps, in a spectrum of creamy colors. We spent at least fifteen minutes smelling all the different soaps: mango, opium, rosemary, coconut, cream, clove, tangerine, strawberry, melon, mint, cinnamon, lavendar. Down the way were jewelers' booths with sparkling sterling silver rings and necklaces, and round the corner from that was a spread of Dutch plants: tulip and amaryllis bulbs for sale; plants in tubs--fox berries, ornamental cabbages, hollies, their leaves sparkling and glossy with the rain. Another sweetly-smelling booth, this time full of Christmas candles, scented snow berry or vanilla or cinnamon. We walked past a corner booth where a huge metal disc holding sausages, hamburgers, bratwursts, and other unidentifiable (but greasy) pieces of meat were spinning slowly over hot coals. We walked past a hamburger stall and a food tent, past stalls selling curry and Thai noodles, past stalls selling French crepes and pancakes, past an Irish pub in a little wooden barn, past French chocolatiers and boxes of Irish fudge. So many smells.... We stopped to eye a stall full of Russian nesting dolls, the counter just above our eye level so that the plump, smiling wooden toys beamed down at us. Small children sucking candy, women in saris, men in heavy boots, pushed around us in the rain. We looked into a stall selling hand bags, and Catherine bought a khaki messenger bag with pink Japanese-style flowers scattered all over it. We walked past another stall run by a Greek Orthodox convent, full of icons and crucifixes elaborately painted and inlaid with gilt, and across the way, stalls selling teddy bears that were hot water bottles. A stall full of glittering silver Christmas tree baubles. A stall full of stuffed animals. A long, low shack containing wooden African masks, coarsely-woven African textiles, and heavy wooden African necklaces. The smells from frying pans dripping grease, crepe griddles sizzling with oil and sugar, and woks simmering with bean curd and spices, lingered in the cold wet air. Overhead, on the side of the City Hall, the big ferris wheel (dubbed the "Belfast eye") revolved slowly, its arms sparkling. As we worked our way back round to the gates again, we passed a stall selling pashminas, and I bought one, pale blue and gold, a lush, luxuriously heavy wrap.

Out of the Christmas market, we went down the main street toward the Castlecourt mall. On the way, we stopped at an ATM. I tried to hold my umbrella over both Heather and Rosemary, neither one of whom had umbrellas. Before we went into the mall, we stopped at an entertainment store, where Linsey and Catherine looked for a DVD for Emma, but were unsuccessful. The mall inside was jazzed up with Christmas decorations. We split up to go our separate ways: Rosemary to buy a battery for her watch; Linsey to shop for Christmas gifts in Debenham's, where she works (and has an employee discount); Catherine about her own mysterious affairs. Heather and I moseyed down the long open atrium to the jewelry stalls, poking around among the sparkling, shining things. As we worked our way back to the doors, where we were to meet the others at four o'clock, we passed a smoothie bar. Heather had never had a smoothie before, so we stopped and bought smoothies, and sat and sipped them on a bench. Hers was mango, and mine (true to form) was berry. Heather chatted happily about clothes, going on holiday with her family, wearing uniforms to school.

We met the others at about four-thirty. Rosemary was late, as it turned out, which gave Catherine enough time to buy a cup of hot chocolate before we went back out into the cold. When we stepped out of Castlecourt, we discovered that the Christmas lights up and down the thoroughfare had been turned on: strings of white and gold stars overhead, tiny blue lights glittering in the young bare trees, big white stars and sunbursts shining on the walls of City Hall, standing majestically at the far end of the thoroughfare. The shops up and down the street were brightly lit, a mosaic of tiny pieces of glowing glass inset in the tall dark buildings. We stopped at a bodyworks shop so that Rosemary could buy some coconut soap, and Catherine stepped into an accessory store just next door to buy a gift for one of her friends. We took the bus back up to the stop near Renwick. Rosemary and everyone else went straight into the kitchen. "So, you're going to go study now?" Rosemary laughed at me as I started to climb the stairs. "Yes. Hard," I laughed.