Alex is abroad in Munich, Germany, until August 2009.

Four turkeys, 28 pounds of mashed potatoes, eight pies, two pots of gravy, three bowls of stuffing and more beer and wine than I could count.  Despite the total lack of European recognition of Thanksgiving, my program celebrated the American holiday together in style.

We started organizing our large feast at the beginning of this month, when our program director posted a list of around 30 dishes on the board, and, adhering to the potluck code, we each scribbled our name next to something to bring.  I got stuck making brownies, since I was sick when the list went up, but things could have been worse:  I could have had to make a turkey.  Finding all of the traditional Thanksgiving foods proved more challenging than any of us had anticipated:  Turkeys had to be ordered in advance, sweet potatoes were obscenely expensive, there was no summer squash to be found, and cranberries don’t come in cans.  Despite some minor setbacks we all made adjustments, converted our family recipes into the metric system, and managed to make some delicious dishes.

Then there was the issue of where to keep all of our American delights.  Each of us lives in a small dorm and is confined to a drawer, or at best a shelf in the communal fridge.  As is common with shared fridge space, food tends to mysteriously disappear, with no regard for ownership.  (In one extreme incident an entire half of a birthday cake was eaten in the span of two hours, but usually it’s just an egg, or cup of yogurt here and there.) Since advance cooking was not a possibility we all spent the better half of Thursday scrambling around for ingredients, and cooking together in various kitchens across the student city.  In the end though, this made Thanksgiving feel even more like home because we cooked with one another, and the meal was fresh down to the very last pie that one girl carried in with oven mitts.

We were told that our program directors were taking care of the setup and cleanup, but I never anticipated that they would do so well.  I walked into the second floor of a small campus building into a medium-sized warm room, with a wall of windows and a small kitchenette at the back.  Three large tables were set up in a u-shape, covered with long white table clothes, candles, flowers, bottles of wine, and beautiful place settings.  Our director was sporting a suit jacket with his standard jeans-and-T-shirt get up, and all of our program teachers mingled around in semi-formal attire as well.  As we sat down to eat our director stood up and made a sort of cheesy (would it really be Thanksgiving without some sort of lame toast?) but still well intentioned and much appreciated toast.  He explained that no one in Germany has any idea what Thanksgiving is, but that it has become something that he looks forward to each year.  Since, he said, Thanksgiving is a holiday about two cultures coming together to share in a yearly meal, then maybe our little German-American celebration was in true keeping with the spirit of the holiday.  My friend turned to me and asked me what I was thankful for, to which I responded “friends and family, and friends that are family.” He thought it was trite, but I meant it.

The night was a feast of great proportions, and just like every year we all ate until we wanted to explode.  After four hours of eating, drinking, laughing, and talking we decided to call it a night for a few reasons, the first of which was that we all needed a couch to lie down on in order to digest the ridiculous amount of food.  The second of which was that we knew if we ducked out first we wouldn’t have to do dishes.  We grabbed some leftovers, and a few flowers and headed home through the chilly and barren student city.  We capped off the night with a few movies, and a lot of stretching out on beds and floors.

Even though I couldn’t be with my family or friends back in the states for the holiday, I don’t feel like I missed a thing, because my Thanksgiving was wonderful.  I must say though, on Friday morning I was a little disappointed that no stores chose to recognize the follow-up to Thanksgiving, Black Friday.  But I guess there’s always next year.

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