My Worldly Adventures: An American Thanksgiving in Spain

This year I completely embraced the Thanksgiving tradition! Luckily, I work at the US Embassy on Thursdays so being an American holiday, all my students got the day off. Therefore, I did too! I took advantage of the oportunity to prepare a Thanksgiving feast for my roommates and some close friends.

I made several trips to the American store in the Embassy to pick up a few essentials and ordered my turkey from a local butcher. Turkey isn't as popular here as in the US so we bought only parts of the turkey. It was easier since there were only 5 of us and faster to cook.

My friend Melissa, a Puerto Rican girl who recently moved to Madrid, was super excited to try a traditional mainland US Thanksgiving meal. She stopped by my place early in the afternoon to help me cook while all my other roommates were at work. We cranked Christmas music all afternoon as we were starting the feel the holiday spirit.

By the time my all my roommates got home, it was around 10 o'clock (typical dinner time in Spain). I put together the table and we all sat around where Nikki and I told stories about our past Thanksgivings back in the United States. We had to explain what all the food was to our Spanish compadres as they hungrily and confusingly stared at all the rarities on the table. When everything was out, we went around the table and said what we were thankful for that year. I said for the opportunity to share my culture and for experiences that I have been blessed to have throughtout my time here in Spain.

Then we dug in everything and went to sleep content and FULL!

That Saturday was also my company's Thanksgiving luncheon. This year we had it at Nicoletta, a really nice Italian resturant. It was fun getting a big group of Americans and non-Americans together to share amazing food, wine and some laughs.