A Belated Thanksgiving Abroad

Authored By:

Austin C.

Ahhhh, Thanksgiving! One of my favorite holidays of the year.  A time to get together with all your friends and family, chow down on lots of comfort food, and watch some good old-fashioned football. Although I didn’t get to see any football on tv or spend time with my family, I still managed to have a great Thanksgiving.

The first talk about this food-filled celebration began a few weeks ago. During our coffee breaks leading up to the holiday, we repeatedly asked each other if our teachers wanted us to do something special in class. Only one of my coworkers was asked to talk about Thanksgiving while the rest of us continued to do our normal routines and classroom activities. It appeared that either our teachers forgot that it was an American holiday or that it didn’t matter too much to bring up in class. Regardless of the reason, we decided to throw a party and have it on Sunday (December 2) because everyone was busy over the actual Thanksgiving weekend. Since I have a large apartment, I suggested that we do the lunch at my place, to which everyone agreed.

The only thing that we lacked was who was cooking what. I took claim over preparing the mashed potatoes, mashed butternut squash (btw, the best thing ever), bread, stuffing, and beef pot roast. I also had said that I would make some cookies, but unfortunately the supermarket only had vanilla flavoring, not extract, an essential ingredient that I would not compromise on. So, we went without my cookies. As for everyone else, they were bringing: the chicken, dessert (some cake and tiramisu), appetizers, salad, mac and cheese, drinks, potato scallops, and tortilla española (an egg and potato omelet). We missed the turkey, cranberry sauce, gravy, and pumpkin pie, but we made due. 

When everyone arrived, I immediately realized that I didn’t have enough chairs and that not all the food was prepared. After stressing out for several minutes about this, I finished the rest of the food and was calmed down by the fact that two of my colleagues decided to stand and eat.

And what a feast it was. We had so much food leftover (because half of the people that I invited are not Americans, so they didn’t eat as much) that I had to create little doggie-bags for everyone to take some home. When we finished cleaning up and scarfing down a delicious tiramisu, we played UNO and chatted for another hour. It was so much fun!

Although most of everyone left around 5:00 o’clock, two of my colleagues and one of my friends wanted to stay longer. We quickly did the dishes and jumped in my friend’s car to catch the sunset on top of the mountain. And boy, was it breathtaking. You couldn’t see Madrid or any of the surrounding towns because the horizon was covered in a thick, eerie fog. The only thing that you could see was San Lorenzo de el Escorial floating in a sea of white. In fact, it was so bizarre that I commented that the mixture of the orange street lamps and the smoke-like fog made the town look on fire.

After taking our obligatory photos, we drove back and walked around to help our food digest. Of course, there was talk of some more dessert, so I steered the group towards the local churreria for some churros con chocolate. We ordered a dozen and ate them at home while we played cards and chatted some more.

The night didn’t end until around 10 o’clock when we said our goodbyes and I gladly went to bed. All in all, it was a very enjoyable and tasty Thanksgiving. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.