Thanksgiving 2008

---

I know I'm a month late, but I had such a great Thanksgiving this year! I flew up to Lulea to visit Kai for the weekend. I got there on Tuesday evening and there was so much snow! I don't know how much exactly, but check out the pictures. It was a beautiful winter wonderland! On Thursday, we started cooking at 1pm. We started by peeling potatoes and cutting bread into cubes for the stuffing. Kai worked on the coconut cream pie while I started the stuffing. I mixed olives, apples, and onions with the bread and chicken stock for my first attempt at making stuffing. I made three pans and got them in the oven an hour before meal time at 6:30. While I did that, Kai prepared the four little chickens and got them in the oven. He used Lawry salt, basil, and some other spices. We used three ovens to cook for 25 people! At 6:20, people started showing up. I cooked the green beans and corn as the started arriving while the potatoes were ready on the other stove top. It seemed we had timed things well. People started to take their seats and visit while we brought out all the food. There were Australians, French, Scottish, German, Finnish, and Slovakians ready to eat their first traditional Thanksgiving meal. They said they had heard of Thanksgiving before, but they didn't know what the holiday was really all about. We told them the story about the Pilgrims and Indians as we ate. Kai and I worked really well together. We started cooking without a solid plan, and the timing worked out perfectly. His roommates helped cut apples and onions and brought in all the tables and chairs. We had chicken instead of turkey because there were no turkeys to be found in the grocery store, I don't know if they even roam the Swedish countryside like they do in Minnesota. I was so proud of all the dishes we made, they turned out great. People were especially satisfied with the stuffing, which none of them had tried before. For never making stuffing, I think it turned out really well. After we finished the main course, we took all the plates away and began dishing up the coconut cream pie. As I brought a slice to each person, they waited until everyone had theirs which took quite a while because I had to keep washing more plates. After everyone had their slice, they clapped and whistled for Kai and I, it was so sweet!! I felt so good about what we had done. I think we represented the American holiday very well for all of our foreign friends. Now I have no fear to make food for 25 people in a few hours!!

On Saturday, Kai and I went to a hockey game in town. It was only $5 for standing room tickets and the game was really good. Our team won 5 to 3. We couldn't read the jerseys of the other team but we figured it was another Swedish team. Universities don't have teams in Sweden, but cities do. My city has a team as well and I saw them play in November as well. We loved hearing all of the Swedish cheers in the crowd. They play hockey exactly the same, except they count up in their timeclock instead of down. They don't count shots on goal like we do at home, but those are the only differences I noticed. We walked home because the bus wasn't coming for 20 minutes. We walked about two miles in really really cold weather. We never looked at a temp. gauge but it was probably -15 degrees farenheit with wind, maybe worse. There is a picture of my hair and eyelashes frozen!! I hope you had a good Thanksgiving back home. Love, Emily

---