16. Thanksgiving story

Ah, here I am again. Putting myself up on the world wide web. Biggest mistake I'll regret 15 years from now. Can't believe my girlfriend let's me look like this. Can't believe she's attracted to me. Wow, look ATTHOSE GLASSESWOW THEYRELIKE GOGGLES

This November, my girlfriend and I were basically left to leaf through old newspapers in hopes of finding a Thanksgiving dinner “American” enough to satisfy our home-sickness.
 
It was interesting to see how the very spirit of Thanksgiving was virtually absent in our dorm. Everyone was basically having their own private dinners, their own little escapades. Some people decked out the kitchen to make it look like a hotel, some people went big and dined at the Four Seasons, and some people were left alone. There wasn’t a very big communal or family bond between anyone, you could basically feel the tension seeping out of everybody’s unspoken rivalries.
 
My girlfriend was pretty bent on having a homey, traditional, Thanksgiving dinner with big families and loud relatives. Given the circumstances, this manifested itself in a heated desire for cranberry sauce. Had to have the cranberry sauce. She just had to have cranberry sauce. Ergo, we ended up going to this quaint, delightful restaurant that had printed on its newspaper advertisement: “Cranberry Sauce.” Go figure.
 
The restaurant was surprisingly a hotspot for other Americans seeking the traditional seasonal feast. Ashley and I got the last table available. Aside from having an above-average meal (great stuffing, no idea Italy would devise such a classic recipe), the house bread was spectacular. Never had such thick, damp bread in my life. Seriously good bread. Seriously. Gd brd.
 
The restaurant served enough food for us to be sick of ourselves and our appetites, but the girlfriend didn’t have enough cranberry sauce. That was probably her biggest disappointment. The crowds in the restaurant seemed to satiate Ashley’s desire for that homey feeling, but it didn’t last once we left the restaurant. Upon leaving the warm coziness into the blistering Florentine cold, she wasn’t able to hold back her upset and homesickness. Just couldn’t handle it. Not enough of home. Thanksgiving for us became just another night out, a night of a missed holiday.
 
I wonder if most people have become sick of life abroad? Not enough provisions, not enough of the convenience and leeway that being in such as modernized country as America provides us. I’m not sick of travelling for those reasons. I’m sick of travelling because it’s the biggest money trap since I was 8 years old and only got $20 a week to spend on everything I wanted. It was never enough. Never enough.

This year, Thanksgiving was obviously completely different than any other year. First off, we had to go to class. That’s right, no days off for one of the biggest holidays we Americans can celebrate. I had both a quiz and a presentation on Thanksgiving Day. So this was probably why even though my facebook was flooded with excited statuses from all of my friends overseas, who were in the middle of a nice long 5 day break, spending time with their families and stuffing their faces with all of the food I was craving on that day, it just seemed like any other school day to me.
 
The only thing that was different from any ordinary school day was the fact that I would be attending a dinner NYU’s cafeteria staff would be preparing that evening in honor of the holiday. However, I was skeptical that the Italian employees would be able to pull the dinner off, considering that most Italians could care less/have no idea what Thanksgiving is or is like in America. That, and the fact that I was a part of an Italian-American exchange group, where we meet for dinner every week in November, and this last dinner happened to be Thanksgiving dinner at NYU. I knew that being surrounded by Italian college students and struggling to speak Italian all night between bites of an Italian adaption of Thanksgiving cuisine would inevitably make my Thanksgiving completely different.
 
And so it was. As expected, I lagged behind in the conversation, being left in the dust by the Americans in my group who were learning a way more advanced level of Italian, but also partially because I was too busy stuffing my face (that’s the point of Thanksgiving, right?) to keep up too well/care about keeping up. The food was actually delicious – kudos to the cooks at the NYU cafeteria, because they got the mashed potatoes, green beans, turkey, and even sweet potato pie down pat. It wasn’t the much greasier and delicious southern version of Thanksgiving I was used to, but it effectively instigated some nostalgia for that food while satisfying my desire for a traditional American meal.
 
It was really cool to have the Italian students at dinner with us – they were so excited for their first Thanksgiving. Apparently, as much as Italians always seem to be so uppity about keeping their culture free of influences from ours, many have begun to embrace Thanksgiving. Or so I’ve heard. Even some restaurants do a really great Thanksgiving dinner, I’ve heard. It will be interesting to maybe come back 20 years from now and see if and how Italians have embraced the holiday and made it their own.

This being my first thanksgiving spent away from home, I had little idea of how to pull off the production of a big thanksgiving meal on my own. My friends and I had many ideas. First we planned to make a traditional thanksgiving dinner then, we realized turkey is hard to come by here. Second, we thought about picking ethnicities out of a hat and having an unusual potluck dinner with lots of variety.
            In the end, many of my roommate’s parents were in town to spend the holiday as a family. My roommate Jerry, our friend Katie and myself decided we to roast a chicken and make green beans and potatoes, other thanksgiving staples. In the spirit of holiday we wanted to decorate. We grabbed a white sheet for a tablecloth and ran across the street to the alimentari for candles.
            Our kitchen, with bleak, off-white cabinets and its plain, long table was transformed. The aromas from our oven permeated throughout our home. The candle flames danced, slowly dripping red wax onto the sleek white tablecloth. As we cut into the chicken both steam and smiles rose. Both the food and the company were perfect and provided reason to celebrate.
            After exhausting both our plates and glasses, we spent the rest of the evening huddled together near the radiator conversing and watching movies. Content with our efforts and happy after an evening of simple pleasures, we went to bed early with full bellies, easily entering an untroubled, tranquil sleep. 

-picture of our kitchen!
 

Since I started going to school at NYU, I usually stay in the city for Thanksgiving. (There isn't enough travel time during the short break to go home and back.) So I'm used to spending Thanksgiving away from my family (at least I should be by now), but being that much further from home became a challenge. The distance was amplified by the holiday, which is usually spent with family and friends at home. In addition to seeing everyone's facebook status' change to "Home", skyping with my entire family during their Thanksgiving dinner proved to be quite difficult. My grandparents had never used a webcam before, so seeing their excited reactions made me miss them even more. 

I spent Thanksgiving day buying groceries, running errands and  mildly appreciating how everything in London was still open. These errands included preparing Thanksgiving lunch for my roommate and I. We planned on enjoying a nice KFC meal early on and then feasting for a home made dinner. Upon arriving in the KFC, I was disappointed to see no mashed potatoes, no macaroni, no potato wedges, no biscuits, no nothing! They did, however, have mashed peas and canned fruit as sides. Happy Thanksgiving.

After reading the menu, I left and went to the McDonalds next door. At least chicken nuggets taste the same in every country. Or so I thought... I'm sure there really is no difference. A McNugget is a McNugget, but on that particular day I noticed a huge difference. It wasn't good enough because it wasn't from home. I still got a take away Happy Meal because it was the closest thing I was going to get. We plated the fast food as a joke and because we didn't take it very seriously. The photo above are my plated chicken nuggets. As you can see, they are shaped in the universal McNugget shape: a boot. 

Later in the evening, we made homemade pies, mac n' cheese and all our favorite foods. My friends and I sat down to eat Thanksgiving Dinner Round 1. As for Round 2, we went upstairs to visit our friends and share the desserts we made. There were about 30 people in the room at the same time standing around enjoying a buffet and each other's company. I realized how lucky I am to have been able to spend this holiday with such great people. I love the new friends I've made here and it was amazing to see what a handful of homesick American students could come up with. Although it was a little tougher spending Thanksgiving away from home, I really did have the next best thing. I'm thankful for my family, friends and authentic McDonalds. 

(Photo: I took the photo of my McDonalds lunch.) 

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It’s one of the only times of the year that my family comes together and does nothing but indulge in good food, stories, and football. So as Thanksgiving approached, I grew steadily more homesick thinking about all the festivities I was missing out on back home. Luckily for me though, I’ve got great friends here in London that happily organized (albeit with some pestering, poking and prodding) a giant potluck dinner to fill the empty void in our hearts that NYU had tried to plug with make-up classes and excessive amounts of schoolwork. So while some people were unlucky and had class to attend that day, I set about my usual Thanksgiving Day routine of grocery shopping and busying myself in the kitchen. I normally cook at least one dish each Thanksgiving dinner, so occupying myself in the kitchen was a big distraction and relief. This year, I had settled on making a mushroom stroganoff pasta. Not knowing how many people I would need to feed, I settled on making enough to fill a giant turkey roasting tray, which turned out to be more than plenty.
 
After a couple of hours of fighting for burners on the stove, we were finally ready to head over to the festivities around 7PM. Unfortunately for my roommates and me, the dinner was taking place in the other residence hall which would require us to talk 5 blocks in the freezing cold carrying our trays of food; to put it lightly, it was quite unpleasant. When we finally reached Byron Court, we were shocked to see the extent to which everyone had gotten ready for the event. There was cooking going on in three kitchens on the 2nd floor. A long dining table was set up in one of the rooms by lining up desks and grabbing as many chairs as possible from all the rooms on the floor. People were streaming in and out figuring where certain foods were or where to set things. The air was filled with the mingling scents of turkey and roast vegetables and sweets pies. I grew hungrier by the second as I made my rounds saying “Hi” to familiar faces and introducing myself to new friends and family that had made it into town for this very occasion.
 
When it came time to eat, everyone lined up and helped themselves buffet-style to the wide variety of foods that had been brought by all the guests. We had all the traditional foods and then some more obscure ones that people creatively thought to cook up. The process went like this: you went around the table filling your plate in one flat and moved to the flat next door to take a seat at the table. Beer, wine and cider were poured and pass down the line for anyone looking to supplement all their food with alcohol. Food that arrived later with stragglers was passed around the table for anyone wanting to pile on more to their plates. Even with having 15+ chairs set up at the “dining table,” there still wasn’t enough room. People were strewn about the hall and other flats on the floor. Guests came and went throughout the night. Friends popped in to grab a bite to eat before heading off to other Thanksgiving festivities. By the end of the night, our potluck had probably served between 35-40 guests, and there were still plenty of leftovers that I’m sure lasted our hosts for days.
 
I walked home back to my flat that night feeling stuffed and extremely happy to have found such a great group of friends here in London that were willing to go out of their way to help make me feel at home during my first Thanksgiving away from home. It was certainly one of the highlights of my experience here and one that I won’t soon forget.

What I love about Thanksgiving is that it doesn’t have any pretentions.  Unlike, say, New Years or your birthday, you go into Thanksgiving knowing exactly what you’re going to get: stuffed silly.  It’s a strange phenomenon, how somehow Pilgrim-Native American relations became inextricably associated with food comas. 
Luckily for me, my family flew in from New Jersey to come visit me for Thanksgiving.  November is always a rough month, what with crappy weather and finals. It’s even worse in London, where a glimpse of sunlight is a rarity and I’d been wearing my winter coat for a month and a half.  After a few months without blue skies or fresh vegetables, it’s easy to get nostalgic for home and your loved ones.   
                A professor of mine, an American whose been living in London for ten years now, told me about a restaurant that serves “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner.  I was skeptical but intrigued, and my family made reservations. The meal was tasty, and we left full, drunk and happy- just as it should be on this most glorious of holidays. There were a couple of flukes in authenticity (since when does clam chowder qualify as a component of Thanksgiving Dinner?), but all in all it went above and beyond our expectations.
  It was kind of weird going out to eat for Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving to me is my Mother’s cooking, messy and delicious and available in copious quantities.  It’s sitting at my massive dining room table with every aunt, uncle, cousin and grandparent we can get to make the trip.  It’s the men watching football while the women drink too much white wine and gossip.  It’s fun and wholesome and stereotypically American, and no matter how great a formal five-course meal served by a waiter is, it still doesn’t feel quite like Thanksgiving.

For a while, I wasn’t really looking forward to Thanksgiving here. Normally, it’s a big deal at my house, and I was sad that I wasn’t going to be home with the rest of family. But then, one of my friends from down the hall invited me to celebrate with her and her roommates. They were going to do the turkey, the pumpkin pie, really go full out. So, I got the recipe for stuffing (one of my favorite parts) from my mom. It was a bit of a struggle getting the ingredients I needed, but I scraped them together in the end.
 
So, part one of Thanksgiving begins: me trying to cook. If you know me, you know this is probably not a good idea. But, the recipe seemed fairly simple, and I was already imagining the praise I’d be getting for my amazing stuffing. Things went badly pretty quickly. I soon had a bowl full of oatmeal-like mush. My friend quickly recommended adding more breadcrumbs and baking it. After that, it actually did look like stuffing. To my surprise, it turned out okay.
 
Setting up my friend’s room was a bit of a task, since there were supposed to be eight to ten people dining, and she had one four-person table. So we ended up dragging my table down the hall along with three chairs, two plates, two spoons, and a cutting board. They pulled a full-size turkey out of the oven. It was golden brown, and looked delicious. I have no idea how they did it (and on their first try too). It was perfect. Besides that, there was a huge amount of food with all the Thanksgiving favorites, including some I’d never had before. There was turkey, stuffing (2 kinds), sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, sweet potato salad, mashed potatoes, homemade bread, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie for dessert. And at that big table (well technically two small tables) with all those great people who’d worked so hard to put together this meal, it did feel like Thanksgiving. It was a different type than I’d ever experienced, but it was still Thanksgiving.
 
It was disheartening at first to see that the British didn’t really care about the holiday. Many asked if we gave presents, assuming it was just another commercial scheme. But, in the end, I think my dinner was the perfect example of what Thanksgiving is, just friends getting together over a lot of food to be with each other.  

(photo by me)

This year I celebrated the most amazing Thanksgiving I have ever. It was first time celebrating outside of America or without any of my (blood-related) family members. Seeing as I have been a vegan for the past year and a vegetarian for most of my life, I had never been stuck on the traditions that are typical to a normal American Thanksgiving (i.e. overindulging in copious amounts of dead bird) One tradition that I’ve always stuck to is being surrounded by people that I love and this year I definitely stayed true to that.

November 25th was not just our big Thanksgiving dinner, it was also one of my closest friends that I met on this program 20th birthday, so we had extra celebrating to do. NYU didn’t cancel any classes, but my Thursday schedule is pretty amazing; African dance in the morning followed by a sign painting workshop during my studio art class. After showering and putting on my finest garb which, considering I didn’t really bring anything very nice to Ghana combined with the fact that I hadn’t done laundry in close to a month, it wasn’t the easiest task. After I was dressed, I walked outside to courtyard area in the middle of all the houses at Church Cresent. I almost didn’t recognize it. They had brought in a huge white tent and three long tables, which seated all the NYU in Ghana students, staff members and a few community members, scattered throughout.

I sat down at my table and my friend immediately handed me two gin sachets. These are kind of like oversized ketchup packets filled with…you guessed it…gin! This was accompanied in my glass by some Whispers of Summer juice. So good. Then the food started to pile out. I had my usual heaps of salad and vegetables and someone even made squash for the vegetarians! I had forgotten about fall foods.

After eating an amazing meal, we all passed around a microphone and said what we were thankful for. Then the dance party began. All of NYU in Ghana including the CRA’s and staff, even our two amazing drivers, got up and showed off their best moves. We demonstrated all the African dance techniques we’re acquired over the semester and just how much of out minds we have lost along the way. After eating, cha-cha-sliding and sweating the night away, all my friends went into my house and we all brought our beds out into the living room and had a giant sleep over. This year when we went around the table and said what we were thankful for, I had a moment of clarity. I wasn’t just thankful for the usual surface level stuff; hummus, my metabolism, fun parties with friends etc. I realized just how truly thankful I am for having everything I am fortunate enough to have and to be able to do the things that I am doing with the people I love.

(image source: my own: Kate and Max breakin' it dowwn)

Thanksgiving for NYU Berlin was a special occasion, to say the least.  The staff treated us to Thanksgiving dinner at an "American" restaurant down the street from the classrooms.  I don't think any of us knew what to expect - most of us just wished we were home - but we were all at least interested to see what Thanksgiving in Berlin looked like; our excitement was nothing, however, compared to the enthusiasm of the German staff members, professors, and students that joined us.  Roughly 20 Germans came to experience "Turkey Day," and just the fact that our Student Coordinator called it "Turkey Day," completely in earnest, was enough to lift our otherwise homesick spirits.  

 

Imagine a bar whose walls are covered in American street signs and beer advertisements.  The food was actually pretty authentic: two pieces of turkey, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and delicious gravy smothering everything.  I was impressed (so impressed, that I took the above picture).  There was only one serving, which some people found a bit unsatisfactory (although nobody went hungry), but the pumpkin pie at the end was the perfect way to wrap up the evening.  I don't love pumpkin pie, and I missed my family more on Thursday than I have all semester, but this Turkey Day celebration was the best I could have hoped for.  

 

The next day, almost the entire program went on vacation.  Thanksgiving isn't a holiday in Europe, so it's not like we had any extra days off, but everyone acknowledged our holiday by spending the weekend away.  I flew to Krakow and fell in love with the city, but that's another story for another blog.  Thanksgiving Day itself was terrible, although redeemed by the delicious food and effort by NYU to celebrate the holiday, and the weekend in Poland was exactly what I needed to remind me what I'm thankful for: the opportunity to be in Europe, my warm winter coat and scarves, and the fact that the Christmas spirit transcends national borders and languages!

On Thanksgiving day, I had the chance to see the Philharmonic with “The Planets” playing at the Royal Albert Hall. The music was lovely and as I have recently taken to classical music, buy “50 Greatest Classical Music Hits” on Itunes, the evening was most enjoyable. A young lady in the tightest white floor-length dress had a solo violin part in the first couple songs. As I was watching the musicians do their thing, I began to wonder where in fact one is meant to be looking as the concert goes on. Maybe since this type of an event, unlike an art show, is auditory sensation oriented, one may be just as well with their eyes shut. I realized though that something was happening that didn’t seem sensation oriented, but which very much did happen to me when I was at the Louvre over Fall break; thoughts that I had while in class or in a conversation with a friend weeks before were making their way into some spontaneous stream of consciousness.

It wasn’t at all a boredom-induced brainstorm though, maybe I could describe it as enlightened- though still, the mechanism, in which these seemingly random musings were making themselves to the forefront of my thinking motor, is baffling in hindsight. The things was that the thoughts were not so random. They had this in common: each consideration had before the enlightened moment been conclusion-less. The original moments in which the ideas had entered my brain was not accompanied by some satisfactory click in which it could leave most comfortably. Each though had essentially been left unfinished and what I found miraculous as I sat listening to “The Planets” play, was that the stream flooding in found its way through logic bouncing back and forth until finally it had been solved. Most of these thoughts had only been missing one or two steps too. When I told my mom, she said “Maybe that has something to do with why people do cultural activities”.

Still though, what both the string of reflection at the Louvre and the string I had sitting in the audience at the Royal Albert Hall, had in common was that I was alone. In the galleries in France, I had mostly been with my high school friend but at the moment I specifically remember where things started clicking, we had been separated- not in a frantic way, simply we had wondered our own directions and I was looking at art alone. My roommate meant to come to the Philharmonic but something came up and I went alone. When I came to London I wanted to figure out a pace to my life that was void of pushes and pulls from outside myself and maybe while I will have to figure out a new sort of pace to my back-in-NYC life soon, I have realized the importance of my independence.

(Photo by me)

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“Thanksgiving Break” in London to my dismay, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving! What?! Can you imagine? Everything isn’t the same everywhere? Anyway, NYUL’s administration did not hesitate to send us emails assuring us that they want our asses in class because they could not give less of a shit.

 

After being invited to several celebrations and agreeing to go to all of them ‘cause I am an idiot, all, “It’s Thursday? Sounds familiar, I think I have something to do that day, but it’s probably not important.” Then Thursday came and everyone is all, blaaah at me. Anyway, I opted to partake in none of my viable options. 

 

My family back home isn’t particularly religious, we’re not particularly close to our extended family and we’re not particularly involved in one another’s lives the way other families are, but we certainly love each other and we’ve never had to question or wonder about this the way other’s do examining their shortcomings and breaches of expectations. We could never afford to go on vacations or family outings. We never really did the kind of stuff that families are supposed to do. But my family’s love is reciprocal and largely unspoken of. I have a mom, a dad and an older brother. Every Thanksgiving my mom cooks way to much food, like waaaay too much for the four of us. We eat, never at the dinner table, but in the living room on the couch or in my parent’s room, or even in our separate rooms. Then next day my dad makes breakfast with leftovers and we eat again.  We expect nothing more or less and this is the only ritual we have.

But now I’m over here and my parents live there and my brother moved there and who is going to watch his dog? This makes things largely difficult and so over the phone my mom declared no Thanksgiving, not until I get back, because what would be the point? And I agree, what would be the point? Some say families are grown not bred and maybe I could have started a new family here or tradition, maybe that would have been nice. I could hear the others outside going back and fourth laughing and celebrating together and I’m sure that was nice. But sometimes there’s no sense in grasping for something new when what you’ve got is just fine, even if it feels a million miles away. 

My family has an odd Thanksgiving tradition. For as long as I can remember, we have gone out to have Thanksgiving in a restaurant. Some of us get turkey; some don't. And if my godmother is not with one of her sisters that year, then she joins us.

When we realized that this was our year to enjoy my godmother's company (since we do usually have to share her with her sisters), my parents asked her if she wanted to come to Prague. My dad wanted to come to show my family the city he loves, and my godmother said ok. My mom, who really doesn't like to travel, agreed to come. My two sisters came, too. And to top it all off, my boyfriend had been planning to come over Thanksgiving anyway, so he was here too.

Since I had class Thursday, I met them in the morning and we walked a bit around Old Town. I hadn't realized how much I have learned from my architecture class until I was playing tour-guide. What a pleasant surprise! We covered a lot of ground at first. Then I dropped them at the Cubist Cafe (at the Black Madonna House) to explore the museum and get some lunch while Cass, my boyfriend, and I went to class. We met up with them after, and they were feeling warmed and nourished so we went back out into the cold. We ventured into Minor Town, stopping at the monument to the victims of Soviet oppression, and caught the funicular up Petrin. F-u-n-i-c-u-l-a-r. It's a word I didn't know until I came here. It means a tram that goes up a steep incline. Who'd have thought.

Since the sun sets around 4, it was dark when we got to the top of the hill. We headed to the top of Petrin Tower (the mini Eiffel Tower replica they have here) to enjoy the lights of the city at night. We finished just in time to go back to their hotel so those who wanted to could change and clean up for our Thanksgiving dinner. In a restaurant. With my godmother. (Plus my boyfriend this year.) Since Cass and I didn't have clothes to change into, and my dad and youngest sister didn't feel the need to change, we went to the bar on the top floor of the hotel for drinks. The lounge was called "Cloud 9" and it was hysterical. We walked down a long hall with flashing lights and into a lounge that was obviously designed to be more of a night-club lounge for individuals seeking...companionship?...than a pre-dinner drink place for a handful of family members. We laughed at the 'hetero-friendly party night' sign on the way out, and we joined the rest of the crew for our thanksgiving dinner in the much more family-oriented hotel restaurant: Czechouse. If you don't tease them for the bad punning then I won't either. The food was great. We managed (somehow) to keep all our traditions, despite being on another continent. And I have to confess that I did not order turkey. As per usual.

The picture above is of my boyfriend and my youngest sister. Like all of the pictures I include, it's one I took myself.

A few of my friends here in Prague were lucky to have their family come to the continent to spend Thanksgiving with them. And that holiday happens to be the closest to my heart, my absolute favorite. My brother and I always spend the day cooking separate dishes to bring with us to our aunt's house (because we're vegan, more on this later), and the television remains on in the background tuned to 007 Golden Eye (which for some reason plays during the same time every single Thanksgiving). While I wasn't so lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) to have familial visitors on the big Turkey day--or reasonably be able to fly home to whittle away the hours at my aunt's, I was able to spend it with one member of my family. My cousin and I get along fine, but before this weekend I hadn't really talked to him in a long while. It was a great bonding experience, spending time with the older cousin I rarely ever hung out with growing up despite the mere 20 mile distance to his house.

My cousin moved to London within the past year to work as a consultant, posing an opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with family. Except since I'm vegan, the day hardly included any turkey at all. In fact, the image I uploaded was the all-vegan dessert (apple pie with vanilla buttercream ice cream) I finagled in Primrose Hill, to a fancy-schmancy booked-for-weeks-in-advance Vegan Thanksgiving at Manna restaurant. Luckily, my cousin was happy to oblige to this all-vegetable meal, and came out beyond impressed with the food. It warms my heart to see how something as unconventional as having Thanksgiving with only one member of your family in a vegan restaurant is still recognizable as a Thanksgiving dinner. Even if it is completely turkey-less (and instead features an herbed tempeh roast on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes with sauteed string beans and stuffing). 

It reminds me of our discussions in the last blog assignment, how the mentality of traveling or celebration completely supercedes setting and circumstance. My cousin and I were able to make the night special and lovely not because we had all of the necessary accoutrements, but because through our unconventionality we were able to make the night our own. It became a family affair and Thanksgiving in London was celebrated with the same mindset as Thanksgiving in Los Angeles. While I missed the drama-filled night in LA, I am so grateful that I got to get to know my cousin better, and that we got to have such a wonderful meal despite its lack of home-cooked-ness.

I spent my Thanksgiving weekend in denial.
 
(Let’s rewind.)
 
I am not a high functioning student. I avoid my work and I procrastinate and sometimes I simply don’t get things done. I give up midway on difficult readings, my paper deadlines pass me by, and I rarely study for anything. On occasion I’m just too tired or afraid to attend my classes. Some teachers think I’m a delinquent, others worry about my wasted potential (I used to be the smart girl, ha.).
 
The problem, in large part, is my anxiety. Once I realize the extent of the work I have to do, once I realize it’s more than I want to do, I freeze. I can’t function, I can’t move. I hide from my responsibilities, and when I think about them I break down. I do anything but the homework I was worried about in the first place.
 
(Fast forward to Thanksgiving.)
 
I went to a psychiatrist, and he told me what I should have known: I have anxiety issues. So he started me on a Xanax regimen. I began the day after Thanksgiving (as I spent the rest of my Thanksgiving day with a debilitating migraine). But hours after my first dose I could already feel the pain of the stress melting away. I was fine. I was numb to the worry. I had not regained any semblance of motivation or concentration, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t anxious. So I enjoyed my weekend, I lived it stress-free for once, without those overpowering thoughts of the future or my impending failure.
 
The work is building up, but I refuse to acknowledge it.

(Photo taken by Jess Trane)

My thanksgiving in Ghana was one of the best I’ve ever had. I began the day at City of Refuge, the orphanage I work at. Stacy and Johnbull, the founders, organized a thanksgiving dinner for everyone. Stacy is from the US and they both lived there for some time, so they wanted to share Thanksgiving with the kids. We played with the kids for a few hours before the food was ready and then feasted on a mix of American and Ghanaian food. The children each stood in front of everyone and said what they were thankful for and then Johnbull prayed over the food, as they do at every meal. We ate turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole, as well as goat kebabs, rice, and fufu.
 
After the delicious meal, we got a ride from Johnbull to a tro-tro station. We got on a tro-tro and headed for home. We made it home just in time for me to skype with my family back in the States. All of the Magiers were at my dad’s house, so I got to say hi to everyone and wish them a happy Thanksgiving.
 
Then it was time for the Thanksgiving meal that NYU organized. In the courtyard of Church Crescent, the dorm I live in, there were fancy tables set up with lights and a tent and a DJ with an excellent taste in music. Everyone got dressed up. Scrambling in front of the mirror just before the meal began, I squeezed myself into a dress that I had made here. That’s one of my favorite things about living in Ghana – the ability to custom tailor clothes made from fabric that you buy at the market for a very low price. Mine was a white tube dress with gold dots and brown and orange flowers. I felt like I was going to prom, with my hair slicked back, my heels on, and my make-up done just right. Of course, that didn’t last long. The moment I sat down the zipper on my dress broke. I quickly ran to change, and made it back just as the microphone was being passed around for us all to say what we were thankful for. Mostly we all talked about the amazing semester we have had together in Ghana. There were some touching moments where I thought I might cry, but in the end I held it together. The meal was excellent. We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and an assortment of desserts. My friend Sam and I had made a peach and pear cobbler the day before to add to the collection.
 
After dinner the DJ pumped up the volume and everyone (including the program director, the CRAs, and even the bus drivers) got up to dance. My friends and I had added a few gin sachets (yes, even gin comes in sachet form) to our drinks during the meal. It was my friend Kate’s birthday, so after about an hour or two of dancing we went into her house and crashed on the couches. We drank, we relaxed, and we played with balloons. The best part, however, was the slumber party. Because it was Kate’s birthday, and it was Thanksgiving, and we were all getting sad about leaving in 2 weeks, we brought four mattresses out into the living room and had the best slumber party of my life. After a day of food and dancing, what could be better?