Thanksgiving in France

So yesterday was Thanksgiving, as you all know!  As many of you also know, it is a strictly American holiday. Meaning that there was still school (not for me, but I never have class on Thursday), people still worked, and life went on as normal.  Luckily my program thinks of the needs of its American students, so I still celebrated turkey day... with turkey!  (Turkey in French is la dinde, pronounced dahnd.)

I had lunch at a retirement home, along with some other American girls.  They invited us because they put on a Thanksgiving lunch as a cultural event for their residents.  It was funny because they called it "The Christmas of the United States" and a lot of French people seem to think Thanksgiving is actually more important than Christmas!  It was funny to explain that, no, it's really not as important as Christmas, we just are lucky because we get an extra fancy holiday.  One lady thought it was kind of like July 14 (Bastille Day) in France, but I had to explain that no, our equivalent of that is actually July 4.  Thanksgiving just makes no sense to French people!  I have one picture to show, and it is hilarious (I think).

As part of the introduction to the lunch, the director reminded everyone that Barak Obama had just been reelected as President of the US.  She then proceeded to welcome the home's very own Barak Obama.  I cracked up when one of the chefs came out with a flaming turkey, wearing an American flag hat.  So goofy.

We ate pumpkin soup, turkey with cranberries (apparently the French don't eat those either... there was a lot of "Ohh... that's what that is!" going on), some kind of orange puree (possibly sweet potato? possibly carrot?), and pecan pie and coffee for dessert.  I also found it funny that they served kir (white wine with fruit syrup) and red wine with lunch. I feel like that wouldn't happen in a retirement home in the States!

I really enjoyed talking with the residents, and one woman told me she was happy to hear me speaking French so well, since a lot of other Anglophones don't really make an effort to do so, when the French work hard to learn English.  All of us girls had different experiences, since we were all in different parts of the room.  But at the end, one man came up to us and said "Thank you Americans for saving me from a German camp during WWII."  He was 20 years old at the time (our age) and is now 94.  What can you even say in response to that?  We were all kind of dumbfounded, but it was really incredible.  That's Thanksgiving, right there.

Sally, Kelin and I did some shopping after, then I went home and chatted with Mom for a bit on Skype.  Then I went to the Thanksgiving dinner the program had arranged for all of us.  I arrived at 7:30 or a little before, but in true French fashion, the meal didn't start until an hour later than we were told.  Oh well!  We started with more kir (an aperitif), and little finger sandwiches.  Then they brought out plates of turkey, sweet potatoes (SO GOOD), corn, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, family style.  I personally thought it was all really good, but others weren't quite so satisfied I guess.  Either way, we all laughed a lot and had a great time in general.

While it wasn't Thanksgiving at home, it was still a great, great day.  I'm thankful to have had the chance to live here in France and have at least a mostly good experience, and I'm also thankful that I only have exactly one month to go until I am home, back in good old Nebraska!