Diary of A Wanderlust Queen: November 2013

Yes, I know, Thanksgiving was actually two days ago, but some of us aren't so lucky to have the week off of school, so I'm celebrating today.

Last Monday, in the thanksgiving spirit, I cooked a pumpkin pie for my language class and gave a short presentation on the holiday. Everyone thought the idea of pumpkin pie was incredibly weird and they were surprised when they found it delicious. (Nora, thanks for that crust recipe everyone thinks I'm like this incredible baker but really I just have the gosh darndest greatest crust). Fun comments that I got were "Wait, was Pocahontas part of thanksgiving?" "I thought people dressed up on thanksgiving? What about the candy?" and my personal favorite, "How can thanksgiving have been founded in the 1600's, if America has only existed for like a hundred years?"

Today, we invited Alex's parents, Gisela and August, over for thanksgiving dinner, and since yesterday afternoon I've been slaving over a hot stove, except not really, because I actually ended up having a lot of fun. Yesterday I made Aunt Jenny's famous cranberry sauce and I baked a pumpkin pie (and I cooked up some pumpkin seeds and let me tell you it's amazing how fast those disappear around here). Today I made green bean casserole, stuffing, and mashed potatoes while Alex cooked a turkey and Julia decorated the apartment for Christmas. I spent most of the day cooking and it was actually incredibly cathartic and I feel as if a baked all my problems away. I gotta say, it's beautiful, our thanksgivings at home, when everybody makes a little bit of the meal and it's shared with all your loved ones, but there is also something really wonderful about cooking the entire meal by yourself for the people you care about to appreciate. I dunno, it's all nice. I love thanksgiving.

Things I'm especially thankful for today:

That I've always been surrounded by family on thanksgiving, usually my real family, but two years ago my exchange student family while in Patagonia and this year my wonderful german family. Family is a beautiful thing.
That I've always had dads/uncles around to cook the turkey because wow 'honey can you please answer the door for me, I've got my hand up a turkey' is something I would like to never say ever.
Yeah that's all I got

First of all, just so everyone is aware, cough cough, the reason I cannot update this more often is because currently I'm in langauage class during the week, and so weekdays, my life consists of school until four or five, a few minutes ~~to relax~~ do my language class homework at home before I leave for language class at five thirty, and then not home until around nine thirty at which point I scarf down some dinner and go to sleep. Which leaves me with only the weekends for doing everything else.

What I have done since last time: gone bowling with James and his host brother and lost horribly (just like old times!). Climbed the top of the Kölner Dom. Went to the Köln Zoo. Oh! Went to the Chocolate Factory in Köln on the day of the 20th anniversary which meant literally A BAJILLION free samples and I found out that yes too much chocolate is actually possible. I spent halloween with friends from school and there were no costumes and no candy but I had fun anyway. And the day after halloween Julia and I carved a pumpkin together, so there was that. Let's see, last Saturday I went shopping with James and Anna and their host siblings in The Big Mall in Leverkusen. The next day Julia and I went to Monheim to check out the St. Martin's festivities, and then we met Alex's sister and parents for coffee and kuchen and then we thought about going to some other fairs but it was raining incredibly so we just went home. St. Martin's is a kid's holiday where kids go out with lanterns sort of like halloween I guess and I'm not sure exactly what they do but Monday it took me forever to get to language camp on the bus because there was an endless parade of little kids with lanterns crossing the streets. Thursday night I left sprachkurs, sorry, language camp, early, and took the bus to Benrath to go iceskating with James and his host brothers. Okay, actually, I tried to take the train but for some reason all the trains for like the next four hours had been cancelled so I made friends with some nice guys from the Congo who showed me a bus that would take me there. Ice skating, I found is not really like rollerskating so much and more like rollerblading, which I cannot do, and I'm sure I looked pretty silly but I feel like for it being my second time ever I was pretty decent. The five of us made friends with this hilarious seven year old girl named Tiffany who asked me a question that I didn't understand, to which I answered "sorry, I'm a foreigner, I cant understand you" and her reply was "No, you aren't a foreigner, you speak German, don't lie to me!" Then she proceeded to 'arrest' me by dragging me around in circles while she tried to get her five year old brother, who was probably the best iceskater out of all of us, to try and catch everyone else, and it was literally the most cutest, entertaining thing of my life. Friday, I went out with school friends, and yesterday, me and James and Anna from Wisconsin went with Lina and Anna and Isabel from Germany to see Fack Ju Goethe at the movie theatre in Leverkusen, and the movie was really funny and sweet and some of the jokes went over my head but otherwise I understood the whole thing and it was incredibly exciting. This morning I made banana chocolate chip pancakes and eggs and bacon for breakfast with Julia's help (you would not believe how much bacon my parents can eat, they make me look un-american ahah :) ) and now Julia and I are going for a walk I think, and pictures will be up later today. I love you all, keep on keeping on.