Thanksgiving

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“Here in Austria we want to make sure you have a unique experience,” said Professor Asci. “That’s why you’re in class on Thanksgiving.”

It is true, for the first time ever in my life and probably the last, I had class on Thanksgiving day. It really wasn’t too bad but it did contribute to the feeling that Thanksgiving was just another ordinary day.

The evening festivities began with dinner in the Mensa (our cafeteria) which I must say made me miss home : ( Our Thanksgiving dinner was turkey, peas, and mashed potatoes, nothing too exciting. Then dessert was a donut with ice cream on top. This may be shocking but it is true…instead of pumpkin pie, we had a donut with ice cream. Which was personally fine with me because I don’t even like pumpkin pie.

Then we had our traditional Thanksgiving ball and we all dressed up in Austrian wear!! It was fun-filled and exciting. I wasn’t a huge fan of the ball. They had an Austrian dance instructor there at the beginning teaching people how to dance the Austrian way. It looked like polka to me so I didn’t participate in it, I just mingled around the drinks and food.

We got so excited because they had a TV set up with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade so Christian, Libby and I sat down to watch. It didn’t take us long to figure out that it was a video of the parade three years ago : ( It was a cruel trick to make us feel less homesick, oh well, by that point it was time to go watch football! They installed a satellite here at the Kartause so we got to watch football on Thanksgiving! Yea!!! I must say it was a highlight!

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Photos

The turkey with sparklers
This is a very interesting tradition, I'm not sure I really understand it but they really did light our Thanksgiving turkey on fire.