Thanksgiving International

Fall is the best season of the year, objectively.  The weather cools down, the foliage changes color, the food gets better (pumpkin pie!), I tack another one onto my "years alive" tally.  And that's not even including the fun times that Halloween and Thanksgiving bring.  Being abroad however changes a lot.  No pumpkin pie, no pumpkin spice lattes, no trick or treating, no massive turkey feasts.  Luckily I'm old enough to not care about the costume wearing, because there were a rare few who I saw wearing them on Halloween.  Missing my close friends and family for my birthday is manageable, but not celebrating Thanksgiving when you have multiple American friends missing the same coziness and togetherness of the holidays at home is just not acceptable.  I was determined to throw a successful Thanksgiving bash with my fellow Americans and introduce the holiday to my American-loving (of course) international friends from France, Germany, England and Italy.

After having lectured multiple groups of French high schoolers on the tradition of Thanksgiving, I was excited to get started with the menu and decorations.  Fortunately I was aware ahead of time that pumpkin anything is hard to come by in France, so I brought a can of pumpkin puree from home so we could have a traditional, mandatory pumpkin pie.

Iris and I were the main hosts and managed to put everything together in my small kitchen which is fully equipped with one working electric stovetop burner, a microwave, a toaster oven, and one small oven.  The perfect cozy feel for Thanksgiving, but the most stressful place for a cook.  As most of our guests were coming from far away and would be arriving by train, we were obliged to supply all of the cooked dishes.  Of course, since I'm a perfectionist and there were 10 other people relying on me to host a good meal, our menu was quite ambitious.


Le Menu:
Big ass turkey
Potato casserole (my mom's recipe with cheddar cheese and crushed cornflakes)
Stuffing

Mashed potatoes
Mashed sweet potatoes
Green bean casserole
Pumpkin pie
+ Cranberry sauce, corn, baguettes, and lots and lots of wine


Never had I guessed that finding most of the ingredients would be so hard or expensive.
Problem #1: the Turkey.  Turkey for one does not come frozen nor can you buy it willy nilly at any grocery store, especially at the end of November.  Many farmers don't want to send their turkeys to the slaughterhouse before December even because most people wouldn't buy a full turkey until Christmas.  I had Helena call a bunch of butchers by our apartment to see if they had any or could order one in time.  This was not a hopeful venture.  The only butcher around with poultry had free range turkeys for 18 euros a kilo ($24 for 2.2 pounds).  So, doing the turkey to people math, we would've needed between 6 and 8 kilos but the only one we could've gotten was about 4 kilos which would come out to 72 euros ($95).  Now this is just ridiculous.  I've never made a turkey before in my life nor have I ever had to buy one myself, but on no planet should a turkey cost that much.  So the weekend drew nearer and Helena was having no luck with any other butchers and so finally I decided that once Iris came in to Lyon on Friday we'd go on a turkey hunt throughout the city or we'd have no turkey.  When I came home Thursday night I even checked local grocery stores like Carrefour just in case.  No luck.  Resolution: Iris saved Thanksgiving upon her arrival in Lyon.  When she came in that morning she decided to take a stroll through the big mall attached to the Part Dieu train station which has a really huge Carrefour on one of the top floors.  I was just waking up and caught her in time to text her about my turkey woes when she told me that Carrefour just happened to have three available turkeys.  She managed to stake a claim on the 7.4 kilo one (16.5 pounds) for about 30 some euros.  The morning was off to a good start.

Problem #2: Stuffing ingredients.  Croutons are French, "crouton" is a French word, so why should it be so impossible to find a big bag of large croutons?  The only croutons we could find were small garlic flavored ones for salads, and those were expensive for even a small bag.  Resolution: We made our own croutons.  I'm pretty sure I was the only one who was motivated enough to bother wanting to do this, but everyone helped.  We bought a loaf of sliced bread, cut it up into little cubes, baked a few sheets full of them with olive oil and some spices in the toaster oven, and finished the cooking process the next day.

Problem #3: Cheddar cheese.  So when I was in Lille I often had cheddar cheese.  In fact, the cheese section at the local grocery store had a few options of British cheddar.  Silly me, taking for granted that Lille was just across the English Channel from the source, I thought finding cheddar would be easy peasy.  Definitely not the case.  My local Carrefour didn't have any, and even when I went to the big one in the city center the lady at the cheese deli snappily brushed off my request with a "we don't make that here" as if I should've known.  France is the capital of cheese, so where's the cheddar?  Resolution: Still determined after multiple runs to different supermarkets for many ingredients, I stopped by the fromagerie on my block, hopes not up.  Iris and I had just picked up our massive turkey and she decided to stay with it outside while I took care of business.  There were two people ahead of me in line and two people working.  The guy that was working was having an in-depth conversation with some young girl about cheese for quite some time and the other lady didn't seem to even notice I was standing there in that small shop.  Still hopelessly I asked the lady finally "you wouldn't happen to have any cheddar would you?"  To which she responded "of course, we also have some stilton too."  From my recollection of stilton in the UK, it was disgusting and moldy.  I told her I wasn't there because I was British or a big British cheese fan, but that I was American.  That's when the other worker looked up and suddenly I was the most interesting thing in that cheese shop.  He asked me where I was from and I told him the States.  He was genuinely surprised that an American would be buying cheese, so I informed him that it wasn't too exciting since I wasn't there for French cheese though, just some good ol' cheddar.  He asked what I was going to use it for because it wouldn't be the same as the American cheddar I'm used to.  At this point there were quite a few people lining up quietly behind me who all seemed to be enjoying the show, according to Iris.  I mentioned I'd be using it to melt into a baked dish for Thanksgiving, which he'd never heard of.  When I said it was "an American turkey holiday" I got a sweet little smile from the small old lady next to me.  Somehow I charmed that place with my cheese and French skills, and when I was checking out, the man gave me a nice discount on the cheese because it was such a pleasure to have an American in their shop.  This brought my spirits up just enough to be motivated to do the rest of the preparations that were to be done that night.  After all that trouble in so many grocery stores, it was nice to have a success story, especially with such a generous Frenchie.

For the most part the other ingredients were easily able to be found (except French's fried onions for the green bean casserole, but we knew that'd be impossible).  Back at the apartment we waited for Martina (the Italian assistant in Belley with Iris and I) to show up and then later in the evening we all went back to Part Dieu to pick up Melanie.  I invited Melanie on a whim because I thought it'd be fun for her to get some Thanksgiving action, even though she lives kind of far away between Lyon and Strasbourg, and she came!  It was so nice to see her again so soon after Courtney's Parisian wedding.

After a quick dinner in the mall and some last minute shopping, we headed back to our apartment to start some early preparations.  We started the night off easily by showing Martina and Melanie how to carve a pumpkin so we could roast some pumpkin seeds for the party and they seemed to have a lot of fun with it.

Melanie & Martina

We even got the potatoes boiled and the croutons made that night.

Once it was reaching 12:30/1 am, I figured it'd be a good idea to finally take a look at the turkey and get it cleaned before having to start cooking it early the next morning.  This is where it all gets very exciting.  As I said earlier, none of us had ever cooked or even touched a whole turkey before and no one wanted to step up to the responsibility of cooking it either, so it was up to me to make sure Tobias was taken good care of.  So, since this is France and nothing comes easy, there was no organ bag to simply pull out of the turkey.  The heart, liver, kidneys, and a few other random organs were still hanging out in there to everyone's disgust.  This was basically the next hour or so of my night.

Ready to go!

"Eugh, this is gross."

"No, really, what IS that??"

So finally it was creeping on 2 am and the organs had been removed and the turkey was sufficiently rinsed out in the sink multiple times.  But let me tell you, the rinsing was one of the hardest parts.  Martina and I shared the load by each taking either the arms or the legs in order to shake the water out of Tobias.  Huge pain in the butt.  After breaking one of the turkey’s hips and much frustration, finally we dried the turkey and put it back in the fridge, ready for the big day.

The big plans of waking up early to start the marathon of cooking were pushed back by an extra hour of sleeping-in time.  I woke up after only about 5 hours of sleep, starting the oven and preparing the turkey. Once Tobias was in the oven we all started getting ready (four girls sharing a bathroom is kind of difficult). 

The biggest fret of the day was trying to figure out how long a turkey of that size should stay in the oven.  We didn’t have a meat thermometer (and apparently neither did any store in the area, come on!) and directions from the internet weren’t exactly precise, with 4-5 hours being the time range we’d be looking for.  So while I kept an eye on the turkey and tried figuring out the oven plan of attack for the other dishes, I set everyone else to work on making decorations.  I had high hopes for the ambiance of the party, and everyone really did an awesome job.  Luckily a package from my mom came just in time for me to receive some awesome construction paper and Thanksgiving decorations.  Not only did we have an adorable autumnal tree, but we also decided to make pilgrim and Indian hats for everyone.  Also, since this would have been many people’s first Thanksgivings, I wanted everyone to make their own hand turkeys like we used to do as kids to build up the excitement for the feast.

As the mid-afternoon approached, guests started to arrive.  Everyone was really good about bringing a little something to the party, so we had a lot of wine, baguettes, and desserts.  By this time the apartment was smelling just like Thanksgiving.  The turkey was nice and brown so I decided to take it out, fingers crossed.  After letting it cool down, I carved it up and it was perfect!  We had a lot of great dishes and lots of great company to share them with.

The dinner couldn’t have gone more smoothly and everyone really enjoyed the ambiance. While we were having our pumpkin pie I put on some Charlie Brown movies that explained the history of Thanksgiving and the traditions that go with it.  Afterwards we all chose whether we wanted to be a pilgrim or an Indian.  Of course everyone wanted to be an Indian, with their cool feathers, so most of the Americans ended up being pilgrims.  Lots of fun pictures were taken from this.

Un Petit Tour de Genève

I spent most of the rest of my two weeks off relaxing, hanging out and going out with friends in town.  Since we got paid at the end of October, though, Iris and I decided to take a two-day trip to Geneva during our last weekend of vacation in early November.  It’s conveniently located only about two hours away from Lyon, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.

The best part about the train ride was my delicious choco-suisse pastry which was one of my favorites while I was in Lille.  Also it seemed appropriate since we were headed to the land it’s named after.

We were lucky we were just paid in euros, because Switzerland is an extremely expensive country.  They still use Swiss francs which are almost the equivalent of the American dollar but it’s worth slightly more.  For example, you’d be hard-pressed to find any kind of lunch for less than about $15; even sandwiches from street vendors cost 9 francs, or about $10-11.  This is why we decided to do this trip as cheaply as possible and try our hand at couchsurfing.  This is the part my parents won’t be happy to read about, but it’s quite convenient and you get to meet some interesting people.  For those of you not familiar with the concept or website, it’s a way to connect people who are willing to host others at their houses for free with those who either can’t afford lodging or would like an interesting experience meeting new people who are knowledgeable about the city they’re visiting.  Our host’s name was Noé, a young Frenchman with a PhD in physics living in Geneva.

Upon our arrival in Geneva we went straight to Noé’s place to drop off our bags and head out for the day, since we’d only be there for one night.  He gave us a bunch of maps and good tips on what to do in the city, so with that we headed off to the city center to see some sites and grab some lunch.

Since Geneva is one of the United Nations’ headquarters, there are a lot of internationals and many multicultural influences on the city itself.  One of the first things we ran into was this Russian church.

Our main goal for the day was to get on a tour of the United Nations, but since they didn’t run around lunchtime we decided to do some more exploring in the meantime after lunch.

The Old Town:

Early in the afternoon we hopped on a bus that took us right in front of the United Nations.

 Unfortunately, though, we soon discovered that the entrance for tourists was on the opposite side of the building and we were already running pretty late.  Along our walk around to the other side we came across this art museum. Le Musée Ariana is a museum of ceramics and glass.

 When we got to the tourist center we found out that the next tour in English wasn't going to be for another hour or so, so we hopped on the French tour that was about to leave. This is what we saw:

The League of Nations

 Then at the end of the tour we saw this super modern meeting room named after a Spanish guy (I believe..).

 And then, of course, was the gift shop. The geography/flag nerd inside of me came out for a few minutes. I definitely recognized all the flags, thanks to hours on Sporcle. It felt like a Pokemon "I want them all" moment.

This is a famous chair.

 After our trip to the United Nations we headed back to the city center to get some dinner and wander around. We ended up eating at McDonald's. And here's why.. We considered the prices a small dinner would cost at a restaurant (at least 15 francs, or $16) and figured McDonald's would of course be cheaper and also faster. Standing in line at MacDo (as the French call it), we noticed the prices for a meal were no less than 11 francs each. We stood there for at least a half an hour, hungry and sick of paying money out our butt in this city (honestly, a one-way tram ticket was 3.50-$4), debating whether or not to try somewhere else because we couldn't handle knowing we'd be paying $12 for something that should barely cost $6. So we stayed. And it was decent.

Once we returned to Noe's place we were reminded of the fact that there were to be two more couchsurfers that same night that he forgot were coming. Yep. Four girls and one pull-out couch. Luckily when the other girls arrived they were really cool. They were both party promoters in Ibiza who were traveling around Europe on the cheap. One of them was Spanish and the other was a girl from Poland who'd done a lot of really low-cost traveling thanks to low-cost airlines and couchsurfs and covoiturages. Eventually Noe started handing out some beer for all of us. Since the other two girls were really tired from their long journey that morning, Noe, Iris and I decided to finish the night at a bar, returning home around 4 am quite buzzed. We ended up sleeping like sardines on the pull-out couch, each of us with our legs hanging off parallel to the couch. Somehow we managed to get some sleep, woke up around 10:30, got ready in about 20 minutes and got out the door because we were supposed to leave early that evening.

As we weren't feeling in top form that morning we decided to just walk to Lake Geneva and have a calm day without any stressful touring needed to be done.

There was supposed to be a giant famous water fountain here but it was under repair.

While we were spending our last hour or so around Lake Geneva we ran into the other two couchsurfing girls who were also about to leave Geneva. So we had them take the tourist photos for us. Then we headed back to Noe's, packed, and headed to the train station.

Iris's plan was to train back to Belley and I decided to try the cheaper way of carpooling (covoiturage) from Geneva to Lyon. This was another potential awkward stranger experience but it was actually pretty cool. The driver was a girl of about 28 years old and the other passengers were also around my age (22-25) and we all got along pretty well without any awkwardness.

On our way out of Geneva we passed part of the CERN grounds. This was another place I wanted to visit while in Geneva but there are a lot of other geeks who want to see it apparently, and the waiting list is a couple months long so I missed out.

All in all it was a successful, very random trip giving me the opportunity to enjoy a small part of Switzerland which is literally on our backdoor.