November 28 , 2004

It was difficult to be away from home during the Thanksgiving holidays this past week, but I took it as the chance to share some American culture with my international housemates – and to learn to cook a turkey for the first time. Unfortunately, finding the turkeys themselves proved difficult. Hams and chickens exist in abundance, but turkeys aren’t so popular. Finally, we found some at the local St. George’s Saturday market. Sandy and I decided that, just to be sure, we’d cook two. Afterall, leftovers are as much a part of Thanksgiving as the actual feast.

After an entire afternoon of vigilant basting and vigorous potato mashing, we served our dinner feast to a crowd of about 40 from France, Germany, Spain, Japan, Canada, and various other corners of the world. For most of them, it was their first celebration of the American holiday, and we, the hostesses, obliged them with a quick history of Thanksgiving. After dinner, the night continued with story-telling, card games, and poor group renditions of Bob Dylan songs accompanied by out-of-tune guitars. All in all, it was a unique and very memorable holiday. I’m sure that there'll never be another one like it. It was so amazing to have such a diverse group of people together.

I’m continually surprised by how genuinely receptive everyone is over here when it comes to learning about each other’s customs and heritage. You’d think that everyone would want to be around other people from their country who understand their way of thinking, but actually it’s been the other way around. The first few weeks, when everything was a bit chaotic, I definitely did cling to the other Americans for support and friendship. But now I find myself consciously