Hello Blog - it's been way too long, I'm so so sorry. Life in France is amazing, as expected, but extremely busy. We don't have exams week, but that doesn't mean that the teachers are going easy on us. Instead they've decided to pile on the assessments to round out the semester...but in just a few days I get to head off of holiday vacation. Before I do that, I wanted to share just a few of my holiday experiences so far. I've spent all of my thanksgivings at my house with my dad's side of the family, and all of my Christmases in Colorado with my moms family. This year I will do neither. It feels a bit odd at first to be doing something so different from the traditional, but like all the adaptations I've made this year I've grown to like it.
The French don't celebrate Thanksgiving but being seventy Americans together in France me and my classmates definitely celebrated anyway. Having school on Thanksgiving was odd , even if only a half day , but also allowed us to all eat a thanksgiving lunch together. One of the French schools that hosts us for lunch everyday was incredibly kind and prepared traditional thanksgiving for us - turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans and pumpkin pie. Celebrating the holiday with all of my classmates and teachers was actually quite fun , but very French with wine at the teachers table.
Our school late us out after lunch, with the intention that we would prepare some sort of a thanksgiving to share with our host families. I spoke to my host family and offered to cook but they said they only wanted a Thanksgiving dessert - but no cinnamon or pumpkin allowed. For me , thanksgiving means pumpkin pie and apple pie but both were no off limits. I decided to make chocolate cake , with Oreos for extra American. My host parents made an extra American meal - hamburgers - and I think it might become a new thanksgiving tradition for me. The school asked us to take a picture of our families celebration and I did (it's at the top of this post) but I ended up not sending it in thanks to my brother's sense of humor... It was a day full of new ways of celebrating. Different , but equally as nice.
