Thanksgiving--Not Just for the Americans

As most of you probably know, this last Thursday was the American holiday of Thanksgiving. It is probably the biggest holiday weekend of the year in the US, comprising the highest volume of travel, abundant feasting, and the most lucrative commercial day of the year, Black Friday. Here in France, the day might go completely unnoticed, except for the occasional American looking for a turkey. And as you may or may not know, trying to buy a turkey before Noel (Christmas) is pretty dificult in France. Many will tell you it is "Interdit" or prohibited. However, if one happens to know someone like the directress of our language school who is a Wisconsin native but has celebrated the last 30 Thanksgivings of her life in France, one might, just might, be able to find 1, 2, or even 3 small turkeys in time for a Thanksgiving celebration.

Since Thanksgiving isn't a national holiday in France, let alone a holiday weekend, we still had classes on Thursday, and so chose to celebrate Thanksgiving yesterday (saturday). We had a grand fete: 24 people representing 9 different nationalities (Dutch, German, Honduran, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, French, Brazilian, and American; everyone likes a reason to celebrate!). Since our hosts live about 15 minutes from Chambery proper, 17 of us took the bus out to their little village of Mery. I think the bus driver was quite amused by the 17 foreigners that filled his bus, and even more amusing probably was the procession we made as we walked the 10 minutes from the bus stop to our friends' house, food for the feast in hand.

Ready to eat: Stephen, Jocelyn, Kirsten, Yolanda, Letizia, Paula

Yren, Walter, Brian, Jenny, Isabelle, Rob, Karen

Tony, Cate, Julia, Julie, Mi-Won, Risa

French baguettes and fromages (cheese) started off the menu, soon followed by turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatos, green bean casserole, Waldorf salad, southern biscuits and bacon gravy, Taiwanese egg rolls, Korean soup, stuffing, and cranberry compote. YUM! After firsts, seconds, and for some people thirds, we decided that a leisurely walk down a country lane would help all that food settle, and so all 24 of us went for a brief promenade. Dessert was an eclectic, but delicious collection of carrot cake, raspberry-rhubarb pie and chocolate dipped pretzels.

Afterwards the games ensued, beginning with the French version of Taboo. Quite an interesting game with beginning and intermediate language learners, but we had lots of laughs!

Margit, Isabelle, Karen, Jenny, & Cate enjoying the after-dinner walk.