Thanksgiving

While I was sad to not be with my family for Thanksgiving, I have to say that I had one of the most memorable Thanksgivings of my life this year. It was a two-parter, and it was fantastic!

It all began on Wednesday, when Lisenn loaned me her lovely Peugeot 206 to go shopping and pick up the bird. We went to Géant, which is like Kroger Plus or Meijer's. The first thing we (Sarah and I) saw was a group of dairy farmers who had emptied the shelves of all of the butter and piled it into a shopping cart to protest how little they are paid for the product and how much stores charge! Gotta love France. We bought our necessary groceries and then headed for the country to go to the farm and pick up our turkey. We got lost, and after driving around for around 20 minutes, I called the woman and she got us to the farm. From there, we went to Cynthia's (to begin cooking for the next day.

The next day was stressful, since we all had to work and then go directly to Cynthia's to cook more. She was nice enough to host, which was amazing. Our menu included: Bean dip, Deviled Eggs, Turkey, Corn Bread Stuffing, Corn Bread, Creamed Shallots, Brussel Sprouts, Mashed Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Cake, Apple Pie. Not bad! We ate with Mathieu (Cynthia's boyfriend), Sarah and her friend Hélène, Hélène, Perrine, Lisenn, and Nina (former lecturer, Judo champion). We ate well, drank well, had a blast.

The next day, I went to Saint Cyr en Arthies, outside Paris, to spend Thanksgiving weekend with Candice's parents, Patricia and Claude. They were great, as always, and I was put to work Saturday peeling potatoes, making more sweet potatoes, and more deviled eggs. I took a walk around the village and took some cool pictures, which I posted on my picasaweb site. The dinner was great, and I met some very nice and very interesting people! I've gotten to know Babette and Dan, a franco-american couple, who were there, and it was good to spend an evening with them. All in all, we were up eating, drinking, dancing until 4:30am, so Sunday was the trip home and then bed for me. I fell asleep at 5:30pm and woke up today at 7:30. I needed the rest! All in all, I had a great week and weekend. Thanks to everyone that made this Thanksgiving special!