An English Thanksgiving Weekend

The day of cooking, feasting and good conversations was a success.
Preparing the meal began around 3. Friends from Austria were such a big help and the meal couldn't have happened without them. In between the laughing and snitching, we managed to make two batches of everything, on time and without setting off the fire alarms. The menu consisted of chicken (turkey was not in this budget) garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing and apple crisp. An attempt at making homemade cranberry sauce resulted in extreme failure. But added some comical moments.

Twelve people sat around the tables in what we called "the secret kitchen" of Hartley Hall. A lot of laughing was done thanks to some crazy stories Ondrej and his friends from back home in the Czech Republic shared. Friends from Spain joined, and other guests included Ondrej's guests and Julia's friends from back home in Austria. It ended at the Czech bar. Ondrej and his smooth talking ways convinced the bar owner to keep it open past regular hours. So we had the place to ourselves to play pool and fooseball.

It was fun to celebrate Thanksgiving in a slightly different way this year. Traditions and spending time with family and friends back home were missed. But taking a year off from that to introduce Thanksgiving to some new friends helped make up for it.

Saturday afternoon, I caught my first traditional football match: Manchester United vs. the Blackburn Rovers. 74,000 + were in attendance that day. Thankfully the score was 7 to 1, so we we found ourselves entertained the whole way through.