It's hard to explain Thanksgiving to foreigners. Of course, most of them have at least heard of it in school or from some source or another, but it's really difficult to explain in words the sense of togetherness that is encompassed by our wonderful turkey-day. So, we Americans really hyped up the holiday as a time to be with friends and family, and our international counterparts expressed great interest in experiencing it as we do.
I can safely say that I will probably never have such a unique Thanksgiving!
My Thursday classes are very sporadic. Last week, I didn't have class at 9 (although it's on my schedule), and I didn't have class at 1 (although it's on my schedule), but I had to go to my 3:00 at 2:30 (go figure). So, Mom, Dad, and I went and walked around Aix some. The Christmas Market is in town (until *January 12th!) and we shopped up and down the Cours Mirabeau for some time. We also got to walk through the Twin-Cities exhibition. Cities that are twinned with Aix from all over the world (including Batton Rouge, LA) brought tables of goods to sell and information about themselves to pass out. It was really neat.
For lunch, we ate at Les Deux Garçons (thanks Grandma and Popaw!), which is Aix's most famous restaurant. It was delicious! I had a soup and a île flottant and Mom and Dad each had the provençal special, which seemed to be some sort of stuffed meat in a tomato sauce. It was tasty, too, from what I tried.
After that, I ran up to class, printed out some papers, and gave presentations for two hours on Katrina. It was interesting, but I'm not exactly sure how much these students understood.
From there, we rushed back over to Cezanne (after I got out of class at 5:30) and had Thanksgiving. We cooked dressing from the cornbread, three "rouleau de" turkey, which seemed to be all dark meat, but was much easier than trying to deal with a whole bird. Liz brought the pieces and made a delicious green bean casserole. We had Jason's recipe for sweet potato pie, and it really did taste just like pumpkin pie, and other people brought all sorts of other things. Joanna fried potatoes and sweet potatoes, and we all ate too much.
Wanda sent me a hysterical inflatable turkey, which Dad inflated. It was an excellent thing to have and provided very much entertainment. I believe that Elvira named it "Sophie" at some point.
By the time I got home, I was exhausted again. I'm out of the habit of going all the time, and so when I get back to that point, it makes me tired. If I dig up any pictures from Thanksgiving, I'll post them. It was certainly a holiday to remember.
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