Ok, so as you have probably noticed, I am incredibly behind with my blog. I apologize to those of you who enjoy reading it and have been waiting patiently for a new post.
So, I have to go all the way back to November, because I never wrote anything about Thanksgiving. Well, as you probably know, Thanksgiving is only really celebrated by Americans (and Canadians in October!). There is a similar holiday in Germany called "Dankfest", but it's not as widely celebrated im comparison with Thanksgiving in the US.
I went to a special Fulbright Thanksgiving celebration in Berlin-Kreuzberg for our regional chapter. A chef from Louisiana who emigrated to Germany runs a bar/restaurant there, and he kindly offered to roast a big turkey to help us celebrate. That was really generous of him, because actual turkey seems to be rather difficult to find here, or at least the type of turkey that us Americans are used to eating.
The rest of the meal was pot-luck style, and I made a potato salad. It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to, but no one else seemed to care, because it was completely gone at the end of the meal.
As I was walking through the dimly-lit streets of Kreuzberg with my potato salad trying to find the "New Orleans Haus", a woman came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, and scared the living hell out of me. "Are you goin' to the Fulbright Thanksgivin' thang?" she asked, with a strong southern twang. Relieved that it was simply another American going to the party and not a drugged-up prostitute looking for trouble, I said yes, and introduced myself.
We had a great time together the entire evening, and as it turned out, the southern woman was in fact German. Huh?
Well, she spent 2 years in Atlanta, GA and managed to pick up that accent really well. Talk about fascinating! I will never be able to perfect my German that well, no matter how hard I try. (Curse you, American school system, for starting foreign languages so late...)
The meal was a patchwork attempt at the traditional American Thanksgiving feast. People tried as best they could, but certain things just aren't available in Germany. For example, since Campbell's soup is an American product, as well as French's French Fried Onions, no one was able to make Green Bean Cassarole. American-style pies also don't exist in Germany, so unfortunately we didn't have pumpkin pie (my favorite!). All in all though, the food was still good and the spirit of Thanksgiving was there.
And that's something to be thankful for. (Awwww!)
