Turkey Day(s)

As Steve and I walked to the train at 4:30pm on November 26, I felt nothing but mopey and very sorry for myself. "It doesn't feel like Thanksgiving," I lamented.

I had just attended four hours of German class and Steve had met me at the DB Station after a long day of seminars and research. There was no sleeping-in. No Macy's Day Parade. No smell of turkey roasting in our oven. It was cold and wet. And, we were traipsing 45 minutes outside of the city to spend Thanksgiving dinner with Steve's professor and colleagues. Not only were we missing out on all of our own traditions, but I was also being forced to dress up and be on my best behavior.

"Joy," I thought. "So much to be thankful for..."

However, after spending some time with Steve on the train, I began to cheer up; and, when we got to Professor Christof Mauch's house, there was definitely a lot for which to be thankful!

Immediately, we were handed glasses of wine and deliciously smelling bowls of pumpkin soup (both filled to the brim). As it turns out, Christof's wife, Wendy, is American. Together, they cooked a mean Thanksgiving dinner with all of the trimmings and then some. During dinner, all 20 guests took turns swapping stories. And interestingly, we got to meet Professor Michael Brenner, the only Jewish Studies professor in Munich - a German Jew, born after the War.

Because we had no idea what Thanksgiving, and then Christof, had in store for us, Steve and I also decided to host our own Thanksgiving meal on the Saturday after the real holiday. We invited Franklin (a friend from Chapel Hill who is also doing research in Germany, but not in Munich), Kurt and Edeltraud, Anna and Thomas (Kurt and Edeltraud's daughter and son-in-law), and our friends Andy and Whitney.

In Germany, let alone our unstocked kitchen, this proved to be a bigger challenge than imagined. Steve and I wandered to butcher shops all over the city in order to find a whole turkey. Germans sell frozen geese at the supermarkets, but no turkeys!! We finally found a fresh, cage free, and super-expensive turkey at a butcher shop near my school.

We also had to invest in some plates and silverware from Weisser Rabe, a famous thrift shop in Munich. Steve's mom mailed us canned-cranberries and aluminum pie plates for the occasion, which arrived just in time, the afternoon before our big shabang! I made a pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin, since canned pumpkin doesn't exist in Deutschland. Franklin brought devine pumpkin butter mailed from his family. And, Andy and Whitney brought over some Stove Top to complete the meal:

Turkey Day in Our New Place
(From the left: Kurt, Franklin, Anna, Thomas, Andy, Whitney, Steve, and Edeltraud)

Thankfully, both of our turkey days ended up being a lecker success.